On the path of conviction

Our activity has experienced an interesting growth at a quantitative level in Argentine football. However, it is still not clear whether the increased demand is due to the conviction of the governing bodies to have the tool or to other urgent needs associated with sporting results.

There is no doubt that scouting has been gaining followers in the last five years at the different levels of Argentine football. The need to obtain quality squads, in a complicated national economic context, has put those of us who dedicate long hours to the analysis of prospects in the centre of the scene.

Like most of the functions that form part of a process structure, scouting needs, as a fundamental fact, an objective. That goal, which will be one of the foundations of the construction of a work methodology, should ideally start from the full conviction of the governing body that decides to incorporate the activity into the club.

To understand the role of scouting in professional football, we first have to talk about its scope. The scouting department is a tool with defined functions and delimited decision-making areas that aims to reduce the margin of error in the hiring of footballers. Its work does not guarantee positive sporting results or the best business in the history of an institution. In these situations, many factors come into play that are not under the control of any of the actors involved in football.

They all work to reduce the luck factor. From the coach and the footballer, working on the field day after day, to the management team, including all the employees and middle managers dedicated to the construction, care, evaluation and management of the team. But none, not even the player, achieves the certainty of a victory.

Once this fundamental aspect has been clarified, the manager, when resorting to scouting, must completely eliminate magical thinking. This tool does not win games or championships. It is limited to detecting the appropriate profiles for the qualitative level required by the proposed objective - which must be realistic - within the budgetary possibilities of the institution and as close as possible to the characteristics requested by the coach. Detection does not imply a decision. No scout will take away the decision-making power of a manager. He will only provide him with a series of evaluated prospects so that he, or whoever he designates on his behalf, has the most information possible when making a decision.

Of course, the manager can choose between the informed options or can take an alternative path. Even in a healthy process, where the manager is part of the work methodology, the authority of his position gives him the possibility of questioning the selection process exceptionally and defining, with the corresponding justifications, a deviation from the common procedure.

The problem arises when the deviation becomes the rule. And this, unfortunately, happens very frequently. The “fashion” of scouting gives the management the possibility of resorting to a useful buffer for those moments where the sporting result is scarce. Thus, the incorporation of a scouting department or a technical secretariat is chosen as the “airbag” that ensures the integrity of the manager when one or several contracts do not perform on the field of play. With this hidden pretext, there are several institutions that resort to our work as a convenient ornament that will be a managerial success when the ball enters the rival goal and a protector to point the accusing finger when this does not occur.

The sad reality is that, in this common practice, the club squanders resources on a tool that the Management has no intention of exploiting. At the same time, it scours the markets in search of the “hierarchical” reinforcements that the likes on the networks request, wasting resources and throwing away the professional analysis of those members of the scouting department that it hired. In this context, the institution ends up hiring the footballers that the management body wants –just like before– but on behalf of a working group that will be guilty if they do not work and will not be important in the long-term planning that can allow the club to improve its harvest on the field and in the coffers over time.

At Club Atlético Colegiales, where I have been serving since the end of 2020, we have managed to increase the harvest of points in the last three and a half years by almost twenty percent compared to the previous three years. At the same time, an average salary of 352,000 pesos - around 300 dollars to round off -, an average age of just over 25 years and more than ten medium-term contracts, make up a squad that competes in the top range of the category and that can leave economic dividends for the club. In that same model, there are six players from the club's youth academy and seven footballers - Marra, Polizzotto, Cancio, Diosquez, Camargo, Machado and Quevedo - who come from reserves of First Division and First National clubs, and have made their professional debut in the club.

All this would be impossible without the leadership's conviction in the role of the scouting department as a tool. Not only because it is a healthy part of the method, giving the department's evaluation a relevant place when making decisions, but also because it has sustained confidence after a very weak first half of 2022 in terms of results - second to last place in the opening tournament. In addition, it guarantees joint work in the acquisition of options and in the process of discussing options, where the three main directors in football, the manager, the scouting department and the technical staff on duty participate. All this based on a proposal of continuity in the proposal and in the style that prioritizes the institutional idea at all times.

I have also had to work in other institutions and the result, based on this lack of leadership conviction, was totally different. The management body kept its distance from a selection process similar to that of Colegiales to decide on its own and, not only squander resources, but also enter into conflict in the areas of action with the scouting department. A totally different scenario that makes it clear that success in the formation of a project and in the planning of markets, depends on the joint action of all the organizations that must be involved.

With theory and experience on the table, the conclusion is simple. Scouting is an important tool as a method, within a general action process based on leadership conviction. Without it, your success is artificial or unviable.

Di Pasqua Nicolas