Football scouting course
Scouting in football
In football, a scout or talent scout is a professional figure in charge of identifying promising talents who have the necessary characteristics to aspire to become a professional football player.
Very often one hears about scouting in the artistic world, especially in the musical field. Similarly, a football scout is a person who is able to identify the qualities that an athlete needs to make the transition to the next category.
What are the requirements in football scouting?
In order to do professional football scouting, one needs to have some characteristics that make the work of the scout as successful as possible.
It is about mental 
features related to the sphere of sensitivity, combined with technical characteristics learned during studies as a football scout. Let’s see them together:
- The technical characteristics: the list of these characteristics embraces the way the athlete relates to the ball. The famous ‘fundamentals’, i.e. stopping, shooting, passing, defending the ball, are aspects to be considered and which often jump out at you immediately.
- The tactical characteristics: the focus is on how the player performs his role. How a player moves in his area of competence both with and without the ball.
- The athletic characteristics: in this group of characteristics you could think of a player’s speed while he is chasing the ball, but actually there is much more to it than that. Athletic characteristics are fundamental to understand whether or not a player is physically intact, whether he can withstand injuries and whether he recovers quickly from injuries. An athlete may not be a cross-field or finishing phenomenon, but if he manages to secure a presence in dozens of matches continuously, he deserves some attention in the scouting phase.
- The mental characteristics: Besides the ability to kick the ball, to position oneself on the pitch and to stand the physical efforts, it is certainly worth mentioning the ability to stay focused during the sports performance and during one’s life as an athlete.
How often do you read in the newspapers or see on TV the unruly life of some footballers, who are more interested in the nightlife of clubs than in training. And again, how often does the angry temperament of some players affect the conduct of the team on the field and, consequently, the whole team being outnumbered.
The psychological aspect is very important in a professional athlete. You can have a phenomenon on your hands, but if he doesn’t want to train, can’t make up for the lack of affection, and doesn’t integrate with the rest of the group, he’s just a great talent wasted.
Would you like a complete football scouting course?
We have prepared a comprehensive course for you Explore our offer starting with the Starter Course
The work of the football scout
Besides observing the characteristics described above, the scout must also be endowed with several characteristics, one, in particular, being self-sacrifice.
As you can well imagine, for the football scout there are no Saturdays and Sundays. These are dedicated to the scouting and social relations needed to carry out the profession profitably.
Recently, football watching via electronic devices has become very popular, allowing many matches to be watched remotely. However, we would like to say that nothing is more important than attending football camps.
In the stands you can have a different view and, above all, focus on the areas or players that interest you most.
In addition, you will have the opportunity to make direct contact with the athlete and his or her entourage, most often consisting of parents. By starting a dialogue with the family of the emerging talent you have identified, you can shorten the time and make your football scouting activity more profitable.
In any case, matches are often played at weekends, and only with good self-discipline you will be able to secure your future among the scouts. This involves missing a few Saturday evenings with friends because the next day at 9 am there is the first game to watch which will take you to 11 pm when you will have watched the last game on Sunday.
In any case, these efforts are well spent and will pay off in the medium to long term.
To better understand what life in football scouting implies, we would like to invite you to watch this video
If what you have read above has aroused your curiosity and you want to get to know this profession, we invite you to view our football scouting course by clicking on the button below.
CURIOSITY
Some numbers
