The Bottom Line
- Capture the ‘WOW factor’ with a short video (the shorter the better) to peak interest.
- In-person talent assessment is hard enough, so your video(s) need to kick ass.
- Video must be good quality, or your audience will leave after 5 seconds.
- In a long-form video, try to capture all 4 player properties – Technical, Tactical, Physical, Psychological.
- Context must be provided either in video, or in complimentary writing.
- Communicate consistency, to ‘prove’ highlights are typical performance and not rare occasions.
So if you’re looking for feedback or are trying to market a player …
Hi John,
I’m always open to getting video.
The problem, however, will be with feedback. It’s almost impossible.
Usually, all that can be done with some confidence is give a thumbs up, a thumbs down, or an I don’t know.Without extensive good quality game footage (akin to what we’ve uploaded) versus opponents of the highest level, it’s very difficult.
Even me giving a “thumbs up” … honestly speaking, all that truly means is I’d be interested in seeing him in person. Then, only after watching him extensively in person, could I give feedback on what a player’s strengths and critical shortcomings are.
Have a great Sunday!
– Gary
That’s a recent email response I gave.
We get highlight videos sent to us regularly, and we’re truly flattered when that happens. Please keep doing it.
Let’s start with the last of those.
If you want to do a thorough job, we must remind ourselves of the 4 player properties:
- Technical
- Tactical
- Physical
- Psychological
And now I’ll rank the level of difficulty in properly judging each:
- Physical (Easiest to judge.)
- Technical (Next easiest, but already a majority of people falter. There’s nuance, and what you see can be deceptive.)
- Tactical (Difficult. Riddled with nuance.)
- Psychological (Long term – hardest to judge.)
I also like to visualize this in a manner that communicates the separation between the superficial and the richer, deeper, attributes.
Scouting a Player Live
This is of course the best way to identify & judge soccer talent with a fair degree of confidence.
You can go watch a player live in a full match, or 5 matches, or 20, and you might be able to classify him as top 20%, 10%, 5%, or whatever.
But guess what, scouts & coaches who devote tons of time doing live observations, regularly make mistakes – us included. We’ve had our share of flops.
Here’s something else to understand:
The Higher the Level being scouted for, the harder it is.
Here’s 3 reasons:
- The speed of play might be too fast for a particular scout to follow and understand what he’s seeing.
- The details matter more than ever. Unless we’re talking outrageously obvious outliers (think Messi), what differentiates players is far more nuanced. How many thought Busquets wasn’t that good?
- The pool of players truly ready for the highest levels, starts shrinking to zero.
The Lower Levels
On the other hand, it’s pretty easy to declare with great certainty that a player X is good enough – or has the potential – for mid-tier soccer.
First off, a large percentage of the population is already at or above that level.
And if we’re talking about a player currently competing below that level – meaning we’re talking about a player’s potential to one day play in the mid-tier – it doesn’t take much extra practice/training to achieve average playing quality.
So yes, chances are you’ll be accurate to say player X has the potential to compete in the mid-tier.
It’s A Matter of Tolerance
The tolerance for errors in any of the 4 player qualities above is very forgiving at the lower levels.
What I mean by “tolerance”, is the gap between your judgement and reality.
And by “forgiving”, I mean this error in judgement doesn’t get fully exposed.
On the other hand, it’s a whole other matter if we’re talking about assessing whether a player is at – or can get to – the level of a top pro club or academy.
In this case, the tolerance for error in any of the 4 player qualities is really tight – even unforgiving.
The tiniest of details start making a huge difference. And if the observer isn’t properly tuned to those details, he’ll be wrong.
I’ve lost track how many times “a phenom” was referred to us, and then a simple game-relevant activity massively exposes their lack of technique for the level.
Additionally, if we want to talk about the potential for player X – who isn’t already at the highest level – to reach the highest level, it will take a ton more work than someone below average to reach average.
Psychology
So my attempt thus far has been to communicate some of the difficulties involved.
The Psychological component? Man, that one can be a real bitch!
Because that sucker usually won’t reveal itself until you have said player under your wing for an extended time.
Context?
All this, and we haven’t even mentioned one’s capacity for context. For example:
- What’s the level of the opponent?
- Is said player shining (or not) because of his quality, or because of his teammates, or because of the teams style of play?
- Will this player fit in the specific role coach X wants him for?
Consistency?
Consider two scenarios:
- You take 20 clips from 20 different games.
- You take 20 clips from 3 different games.
Which one will better communicate consistency in what you’re highlighting?
Video – What’s Possible?
If you’re still with me, you can start imagining what I think about talent assessment with a highlight video.
Not exactly.
What I do think is possible, is piquing someone’s interest.
But you’ve got to try and get it right.
So how on earth can you capture all this stuff and maintain the short attention span of the intended audience?
Not easy.
At this point, it’s useful to revisit Xuxuh’s videos.
In it, you’ll notice we tried to touch all 4 player properties, along with some complimentary context.
There’s no doubt we can do better, and we will.
But I’m hoping this provides you with an understanding of the challenges involved, gives you insight into how some of us coaches are looking at things, and provides those of you producing these sorts of videos some guidance.
In any case, now you know why our solution involved:
- A short one to try and wow, and reel people into the 2nd long form one.
- A long-form that begins to capture the complete player.
Let’s Repeat
- Capture the ‘WOW factor’ with a short video (the shorter the better) to pique interest.
- In-person talent assessment is hard enough, so your video(s) need to kick ass.
- Video must be good quality, or your audience will leave after 5 seconds.
- In a long-form video, try to capture all 4 player properties – Technical, Tactical, Physical, Psychological.
- Context must be provided either in video, or in complimentary writing.
- Communicate consistency, to ‘prove’ highlights are typical performance and not rare occasions.
So you tell me, does the following short pique your interest?
Cuz if not, either we should all pack our bags and forget about doing highlight videos,
or you don’t belong in soccer. 🙂
I’m a scout on the east coast, and this is valuable info for myself thank you for posting this Gary.
Excellent post Gary. The little nuianced things over months is what frustrates me so much. Many of my colleagues stop at the physical part. The rest doesn’t seem to matter. Even worse, they confuse physical with psycological. Or they think a more cautious player as being timid when in fact they are thinking tactically. A professional sore subject for me.
But have to admit that a coach who understands the nuiances and how they fit into their style of play and the right player for taht system earns his paycheck. All too many put square pegs into round holes.
For what it’s worth, I think it’s best to focus on technical and tactical as a youth coach. Largely ignore physical (what Barca does) as that and psycological comes with age and maturity.
Also, it’s better to scout players (either internally or different clubs / teams) over many months as opposed to a 3-day tryout. Difficult if you are an only coach on a team w/o benefit of scouts. In my humble opinion, by U14 or possibly U16, I see no problem with coaches actively scouting players as long as it’s between seasons. But by U16 Academy, the window of opportunity is very small. I think the local federations should set aside a standard 1-2 month period for “scouting” at older ages.
I would argue a bit that psychological comes with age and maturity. Truth be told I think it is the greatest indicator of a child’s potential. How they handle themselves on the field. Are they frustrated when things don’t go their way and it makes them play harder or does the opposite occur.
The world is full of technical kids but which ones handle adversity the best. Which ones are not pandered to inside the home. Which ones have an attention span greater than the ever changing pixelated images flashing before their eyes.
One part of the psychological make up is innate in the child and another part of the psychological make up is BUILT within the home.
Cannot underestimate the importance of a child’s temperament as an indicator of what is yet to come with tactical and technical skill development.
JoelieJoe, you might find this blog post interesting, based on your above post.
http://thetalentcode.com/2014/04/23/talent-id-2-0-stop-measuring-performance-and-start-testing-temperament/
Make sure to read the comments, too. Some other ideas are nestled in there.
One final thought, physical has a limited number of variables. Straight forward hard skills.
Technical and tactical is a lot more complicated with literally dozens of variables. Psychological cannot be seen or touched. It’s a soft skill. To properly execute technical and tactical requires the brain and soft skills intertwined with hard skills. Every technical or tactical mistake is almost always traced back to mental.
It’s simplistic, but looking for foxes and developing them to be assassins produces elite players. Developing bulls is not the right path. But it’s easier to develop bulls, so coaches gravitate to the lowest common denominator. Professional laziness.
Magic. Thank you again for demonstrating the application of theory in yet another way. So much to learn. So much to learn.
I don’t think of psychological as controlling emotion on the field… It’s okay to get pissed, and scream, and cuss… It’s more about a players approach when they aren’t at training. I see coaches praise the kid who leaves his feet on every challenge at practice and says “Yeah! He’s COMMITTED!” Then tell another kid with the gorgeous first touch jogging around connecting passes that he needs to display more effort. Then you see them on an off day and the first kid is surfing, hanging with friends, eating burgers, while the other kid is playing on his older brother’s men’s league team, watching Champions League games with his dad… During games the big guy at the back is constantly shouting encouragement, while the other kid throws his hands up in the air every time the team lose the ball. Which player is psychologically/mentally at a higher level?
To go one step further… What do you picture each of these kids looking like?
The nature of a player’s make up is far to complex to pin down in single posts. We can analyze the strengths and weakness of players forever and still not really know someone or how they are going to play or handle stress. I think that is why the psychological aspect of a player resides deepest in the picture above. I am curious how being pissed or cussing is exclusive from playing harder. I don’t have a problem with a player using his emotion, the question is does the use of emotion steel them to the tasks or divert them from the task. Does the child practice on this off day to be the best on the pitch but chooses another off day to surf and eat burgers. I am an inpatient psychiatric nurse and I can tell you insight and the handling of stressors are two of the most important aspects of a balanced person and likely balanced player. Know thyself.
For me the psychological was summed up by a European academy director who told a group of visiting boys and parents: “You are not here to show us your fancy tricks or juggling. We know you have the skills; you are here to show us that you can train under our coaches. Can you learn what we teach you and adapt to our system of play?” The corollary was that the boys habits off the pitch, at meals and in the evenings, was also being carefully assessed.
A lot of coaches use a visual scale and tape measure and stop there. Despite flawed or average technique and remedial tactical understanding or ability to play a certain style, they stick with those players as long as they are good on the physical characteristics. An all too frequently occuring part of youth soccer. I’d love to see technical and tactically smart players be given lots of game time and be patient on physical as it will come. It will pay off more in the long run for the player. But clubs and coaches just dont’ have the patience. I’ve also noticed that players who tend to do what they want (take shots from everywhere and/or dribble all over the place) do in fact make things happen and sometimes “wow” factor. This can be especially true for bigger, stronger kids. But if you put a monkey in front of a typewriter, it will eventually bang out a legible sentence. Then we say “wow”, that’s a smart monkey! The sad part comes when these kids are U18 and they don’t have the necessary technique or tactics to make it to next level or the one after that. This happens all too often!
A greate article from Soccer Nation:http://www.soccernation.com/christian-lavers-on-watching-and-identifying-a-developmental-saboteur-in-youth-soccer-cms-5840
Below quote from the article beautifully sums up a lot of what I have been trying to say and others on this site for years. But not said as concise as this . . . . .
“Still, the fact remains that many coaches, at the most important youth age groups, don’t actually teach soccer technique or tactics, and don’t progressively challenge players with new concepts and new technical challenges as they grow. Even fewer understand how to teach a young player to apply technique, and how to look at the game and actually SEE THE GAME – where to pass, how to find space, where and why to run, and why to make this choice or that.”
This is an excellent quote and a great rebuttal to “the game being the best teacher.’ And about the game being the best teacher, if kids were playing the game 12 -14 hours a week with one another- allowing the hierarchy of childhood to dictate the terms of each afternoon, I would then be able to at least recognize the sense a statement like ‘the game is the best teacher’ makes. Trouble is, kids play one or two games at maybe 120 minutes a week and this is where US Soccer has it backwards. The game is not the best teacher. Teachers are the best teachers. The game has to be taught. All a kids needs is two functional dribbling moves and how to shield the ball- from this small platform all else needs to be built into the player.
Video, 3-day tryout, 3-month tryout. It’s all a gamble. Players may look nice on film or in practice, but the key is seeing that player in a certain system over a long period of time under different pressure, responsibilities, and game situations. You can then see the total player.
That’s why grooming a player through a professional academy system has much higher probability of optimizing and producing talent.
I like Barca’s much publicized player id process of “technical, tactical, psychological” as being only factors they look at. Size is not a consideration in selecting academy players (well documented and talked about openly by their coaches and club). Competitiveness stems from psychological, which they work on as part of development process. This is why they are like a factory, pumping out player with very similar styles and buying close copies. Same for many other clubs in Europe and SA using various styles of play.
I look at youth teams (my son’s included) and 99% of teams are literally 3, 4, 5 grouping of players with different levels of technical, tactical, psychological abilities. Each group independent of one another naturally suited for different styles of play. Playing as an orchestrated team as a single style of play is almost impossible. The only unifying element is physical (the natural state for young players tends to be rushed, hectic play with little thinking unless corralled by a coach). Ugly football was inevitable from day 1 when tryouts concluded.
A lot of poor play is a result of this Noah’s Arc type player id philosophy of coaches. No matter how you try, players who are not naturally tiki-taka, direct, physical, or Route 1 type players cannot become so just because a coach places him on the team. This is youth soccer in a nutshell.
Technical, tactical, psychological, physical. Coaches can set three of the four variables; the value of the fourth variable will be determined by the other three. The value coaches set for each value cannot be arbitrary. Should be based on style of play. Many youth coaches see physical as the independent variable and the other three as being dependent. Said differently, technical and tactical ability is a function of physical.
For example, if I focus on technical, tactical, psychological – the value of physical will be based on residual value to a coach. But it doesn’t mean I will have timid players or ones too short. If I play a style that requires winning the ball back quickly, quick passing, high pressure as a group – then I will produce that type of player. Especially when I id and develop those players. Being physical big or fast would be of less importance. Such a coach would prefer players who care composed and can forego a shot on goal from 20-yards out. Why give away possession with a low probability shot? Why not possess it and play to team strengths? Clubs like Barca fall into this category.
But If I am a coach who prefers a style that is high tempo, counter attacking, direct – I want big strong fast players. Take shots if you’re open, limit possession, create lots and lots of chances. A lot of low probability chances add up and can lead to goals. Create 50/50 chances and aerial battles because that is my strength. In this style of play, tactics and technique become less important in this style of play. The need for a total footballer is not necessary. It’s also easier to develop these type of players. Player id is also easier as Gary points out (physical is easiest to identify). Vast majority of us clubs (including MLS and USSDA) fall into this category.
The above illustration is why I believe possession = development. It is best for developing more dynamic players.
Interesting read from current version of Goal.com. Below is excerpt from Jose Mourinho take on Spain.
“People learn how to play against the best teams and when the best teams always play believing that their philosophy is the [best] one, the other people learn,” Mourinho told Yahoo Sport. “They did what I think in modern football you have to do – you have to be strategic. Netherlands and Chile were very good from a strategic point of view and Spain couldn’t cope with it.
“Spain was so amazing in the last 4-6 years. They were so amazing in the way they played football that people learned, people studied [them]. Louis Van Gaal was brilliant in the way he analyzed and played the game against Spain. But Sampaoli was even more [so]. I think we have to be fair and instead of saying that Spain didn’t play well [against Chile] – which I agree with – we have to say congratulations to the coach.”
Above comments from Mourinho is why football is so entertaining. Systems come and go. Preferred player characteristics soem and go. The game evolves becasue coaches always find tactical ways to solve the riddle of the best system at the time. I love the fact that there are numerous styles and coaches can adapt. It would be boring if everyone played exactly the same with exact type of player, no matter the system.
I wonder what editing software you used to put these videos together? Thanks.
Final Cut Pro
Thanks, your videos are excellent.