Level 1 Technical Scouting In Football (now available)
Developed by an ex-Cambridge lecturer and leading statistical consultant who has consulted for the likes of Chelsea, PSG and Real Madrid. The NEW PFSA Level 1 is Exclusively endorsed by Instat, the worlds leading football analysis platform to elite clubs.
The PFSA are pleased to announce a ground breaking new online course within technical scouting. Developed by a senior consultant to the likes of Chelsea, PSG and Real Madrid to name a few, the new Level 1 in Technical Scouting delves deep within the profession.
What is Technical Scouting?
Technical scouting is an approach to player evaluation which draws on information technology and data science. It is not a replacement for traditional scouting. Instead, it makes new kinds of information available to scouting teams, including objective measures of performance.
Technical scouting also creates new possibilities for scouting teams. For example, while the coverage of a traditional scouting team is limited by its resources, technical scouting methods can be used to screen a virtually unlimited number of players, all over the world.
Although technical scouting uses advanced mathematical techniques in the background, the basic principles are straightforward. Even those with little mathematical knowledge can use technical scouting insights to evaluate players.
What Is the Difference Between Traditional and Technical Scouting?
The key difference between traditional and technical scouting lies in the kind of information each method relies on.
In traditional football scouting:
- Information is provided by scouts, who are employed by a club to watch players in action and report on their impressions.
- This information is subjective, relying on the perspective and judgment of individual scouts. Even experienced scouts may disagree about a player’s skill set, or his overall potential.
- Scouts present their information primarily in the form of written reports. A written narrative is less precise than a numerical report, but can often convey nuances that numbers and graphics cannot.
In technical football scouting:
- Information is provided by commercial companies. These companies use video and/or tracking technology to collect player-activity data from a large number of matches. They sell this data on to clubs, and sometimes leagues.
- This information is objective. A player either has above-average statistics for a skill or he does not. There is no room for disagreement.
- A technical scouting report presents information as lists of numbers, tables, and graphic visualisations. Numerical reports provide a precise picture, but they cannot capture subtle nuance.
By the end of this course, you will know:
- The key differences between technical and traditional scouting
- The benefits of technical scouting for player evaluation
- The tools and techniques used in technical scouting
- The different types of player performance data
- How data analysis is used in recruitment
- The four stages of the technical player-recruitment workflow
