The arduous path to a place in football

The difficulties to enter the world of football are diverse. In a popular activity that many want to be part of and there is a shortage of space, scouting is a tempting activity. But is the path to entry so simple?

Access to football jobs is not easy. As in most activities, the first steps are usually complicated and the open doors are few for the number of candidates. But in such a popular field with limited access routes, the difficulty is even greater and hopes end up crashing against the wall of frustration.

In this context, scouting offers a small door of entry that does not escape the general context. In the imagination of a country as football-loving as Argentina, our profession is seen as a wide opening towards a work space in football, based on the reduction of the role to the mere detection of a good footballer. However, the scout is not only a talent hunter.

Personally, I entered football through sports journalism. There I sharpened my analytical eye that had already been around for a long time from the stands. My knowledge of analysis and process improvement was crucial to being able to build work procedures suited to the needs of a scouting structure. But none of these skills would have allowed me access on their own.

Contacts, as in every activity, constitute a kind of guardian who holds the keys to these activities with limited supply. Beyond friendship or camaraderie, there are people within football who can detect the conditions that we can bring to a sports structure. However, this detection comes from those signals that we can include in different works that we present. There is no possibility that these contacts will know our skills if we do not show them.

It is clear that one's own skills and characteristics, accompanied by knowledge and training, cannot be appreciated in a disorderly manner. The construction of a work method, even when it is limited by resources and oriented to generic objectives, allows us to observe with greater precision the virtues that an applicant for a position in the world of football can bring. And that is where those who want to enter the world of scouting can make a difference.

The possibility of building a process that allows us to obtain material that advertises our way of working is a good measure when trying to show the work potential to those contacts that can be sown on social networks such as Linkedin or in areas related to football. It can also be interesting to generate a work method applicable to a certain organisation model to directly propose a way of carrying out scouting, mainly when that structure does not have its own system.

In any case and despite the scarcity of resources, it is essential for those who aspire to access football through scouting to show all their potential through an original proposal, based on the available resources and with a tangible and concrete objective. From this small sample of the technical and organisational qualities available, the possibility of opening a door of access will grow exponentially, along with the dream of being part of this beautiful sport. Logically, there should be no lack of perseverance in communicating our intentions, flexibility when going through periods of trial that are often free, or interest in the permanent generation of contacts that allow us that first contact with the interior of this exciting activity.

Nicolas Di Pasqua