Limits and responsibilities of scouting as an activity

The scouting process ultimately aims at recruiting footballers. With this primary objective in mind, institutions must not overlook the various guidelines that a formative apparatus must follow and its responsibility regarding the future of the young players it nurtures.

    In a formative process, the contribution of human resources is fundamental. Both within the institution, where scouts, coaches, doctors, equipment managers, etc., sustain the footballing life of the young player, and in the player's context, which includes family, friends; and the agency representing them, among other actors, are important parts of the player's growth in their formation, conditioning their short and long-term chances of success.

    The beginning of this formative journey is the talent selection procedure. This process can be divided into two well-defined parts: on one hand, the psychosocial-emotional selection stage, where through various interviews, professionals establish a behavioral profile of the player. On the other hand, the technical-tactical evaluation, which is more established in football history, also requires methodologies and professionals who understand the matter as a process, not just relying on talent to detect good footballers.

    In both cases, it is necessary to have professionals with training who can not only understand and be part of a working process but also build it, criticize it, and improve it.

    This machinery must be supported by the institution that houses it. From there, the club's intentions regarding the player's formation must emerge clearly. The institutional role is crucial because it will offer the player assurances about their future, transmit the essence of the sought-after playing style, and mold them to the point of instilling a sense of belonging.

    At this point, honesty deserves highlighting as a fundamental value. Not only because it will establish tangible and achievable goals for the player's growth but also because it will be the basis of the player's human development as a future professional. With this, the player's identification with the institution will be practically assured.

    With the coverage of psychosocial-emotional, technical-tactical, and institutional identity factors, we can move on to analyze talent scouting from its ideal form to a comparative mode.

    To a large extent, clubs recruit players through grassroots football. Here, three types of scouting can be carried out: internal, when clubs have internal competitions from which promising talents can emerge; external, when trials or tournaments are held to observe players; and through intermediaries, when a scout belonging to the club, an intermediary, or a representative is involved. However, despite these being common recruitment formats, they do not guarantee correct results.

    The process needs professional and human quality in each role that comprises it while avoiding skipping stages in the overall understanding of the footballer. This approach prevents talent drain, which often occurs due to significant deficiencies in the formative or managerial area that lead young players to distance themselves from the activity.

    My experience is relatively short. But in these six years of journeying, I have been through several institutions of different kinds. From social development entities to professionalism, through formative and amateur processes. Along this path, I observed deficiencies of all kinds in promising footballers. It is evident that in this rapid race towards the "finished product," the existence of shortcuts produces deficiencies that span the entire formative spectrum, from nutritional to sporting aspects.

    The rush to bring the promise of the moment to reality hinders the human development of the player. At the same time, we forget the different degrees of individual maturation of the athlete, causing them to skip stages in the process that are often irreversible in their careers. Even at more advanced ages, the focus shifts from continuous training to competition.

    But for that footballer who, between 19 and 20 years old, is discarded from the formation process, solutions are not provided that, if not beneficial to the institution, at least offer the player an alternative path within or outside football.

    These numerous individuals who dedicated between five and ten years to train to be professional footballers, sacrificing significant events in their lives for this purpose, one day find themselves without a place and without opportunities to relaunch their dreams. In this regard, even considering the difficulty for clubs to invest in resources they will not use, they can create simple solutions through agreements or proposals that give the player a second chance. They should even review the possibility of monetizing the investment, understanding that these footballers can enhance and increase their value in lower categories.

    Criticism of scouting, its processes, and results, must primarily arise from within the activity. It is crucial to interpret recruitment as part of a whole and players as valuable resources, not just economically, but also humanly.

Fernandez Becquer