With the evolution of management processes in football, scouting has grown exponentially as an activity. However, the work of a scout is often evaluated based on the results in terms of player acquisitions, and little is known about their day-to-day work.
Scouting is undoubtedly one of the roles within modern football that has garnered significant attention from clubs when creating their work structures. More and more institutions are giving importance to scouting in their organizational charts, constantly searching and analyzing players who could potentially be valuable additions.
The result is what speaks for the entire process. Identifying or acquiring a player fitting the desired profile becomes the tip of the iceberg. But what does a scout do daily? What are their responsibilities?
The scout is responsible for analyzing and finding players whose characteristics align with the club's philosophy or search patterns. To achieve this, they must conduct ongoing monitoring to gather as much useful information as possible, allowing the club to decide –whether or not– to sign these analyzed profiles.
In the past, before technology and globalization reached football, some scouts traveled from stadium to stadium every weekend or attended various international tournaments to find new talents. Today, scouting tools like Wyscout, which collects and stores matches from almost any league worldwide, provides individual and collective statistics, and even generates clips for studying the game from different perspectives, have significantly eased the task.
With this new reality, scouts can watch the necessary matches without leaving their office, reducing significantly their analysis and even match-watching time. This allows for work scheduling and planning monitoring with specified times and directs resources toward the most convenient leagues.
Thus, the scout's primary task in their daily work is meeting their daily quota of matches to watch. This quota is not determined arbitrarily by the scout but is scheduled according to an assigned program and within the established workload parameters. Match viewing activities are not limited to the office. Depending on possibilities, match viewings can be scheduled at the stadium and included in the scout's daily work plan.
Regardless of the method of match viewing, the scout must always take notes of their observations, keeping a record of what may be relevant for their club based on previously established work guidelines. These notes are crucial for their job and serve as support for their other main activities.
The scout's tasks do not end after the match. This is where the most tangible and fundamental stage of their work begins: writing the report. The writing process is meticulous and requires attention to detail. The report must convey the intended message without doubts or ambiguities to avoid incorrect interpretations.
Reports contain all the collected information about one or more players from one or more matches. This supports decision-making bodies to make positive or negative decisions regarding a signing.
Each club or scouting department has its specific format, but in all cases, the report is a fundamental component in work structures due to its impact on decision-making. Therefore, the document's preparation must be understandable for the recipient and must have an analytical and objective approach that faithfully conveys what we have observed during the monitoring process.
A report encompasses not only aspects of analysis observed exclusively in the game but also elements related to the player's behavior off the field, worth evaluating and can be decisive when making decisions. Scouts can rely on references as a means of obtaining information. Therefore, it is essential to establish relationships within the football world and leverage these when gathering data about a specific player. Contacts not only help us obtain quality information but also play a substantial role in talent scouting and can introduce us to players who may not have appeared on our radar.
Maintaining contact with agents, representatives from other institutions, coaches, scouts, and various football stakeholders provides us with a wealth of information that constantly enriches us, giving us the possibility to obtain relevant data and to make known our way of working and our aspirations for facing the markets. Therefore, it is necessary to plan a daily space to keep close to those contacts we consider important throughout the entire process.
Another periodic activity is team meetings, where progress in tasks is analyzed, results are shared, and opinions and knowledge are exchanged about everything presented to the group. These activities are often very enriching for the team. They enhance work dynamics while allowing for progress evaluation, idea exchange, and establishing collective strategies to meet set objectives.
Of course, like in any job, the scout must also periodically complete internal control forms and sheets as backup for the work done. Although scouting is a relatively "new" activity, it is not exempt from some routine formalities of common work. However, it has some other particular demands that generate a quite significant workload. Scouting requires dedication, time, and above all, a lot of commitment.
In summary, we can say that the day-to-day life of a scout in modern football involves constant research, analytical thinking, and strategic collaboration. Their work not only consists of identifying players compatible with the club's needs or philosophy but also providing the sports management with the necessary tools to make strategic decisions that drive the club's success, according to established timelines and objectives.
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