LinkedIn, volunteer and goodwill – Beyond Elite, scouting in women's football remains embryo

The news came on LinkedIn: Come to Australia to play for Kingborough Lions United.

The 24 -year -old Tilly Wills had played football in the USA in a scholarship, but a torn front cruciate ligament had limited her playing time. She had thought about joining the clubs in England, but nothing felt right: it was difficult to mentally celebrate a comeback with players who had known before their injury.

“I was looking for this breakthrough because I was on the road with two operations for almost three years,” she says The athlete. “The trainer from Australia conveyed everything. I didn't really think it was legitimate, but I went over because I was at this point. It was really good to make an outlet to make their comeback to people who have no prejudices from them. This was a little villain. “

Scouting often works in the lower ranges of women's football. Even in the Super League of women and other elite professionals, The picture is more complex than in the male game: With smaller budgets, clubs employ fewer scouts and managers who do the main load of the work, supported by Statsbomb, Wyscout and other tools that cover the top women from several countries. The increase in data and videos enables clubs to enforce a wider pool of players, but not necessarily a depth. The reporting on other teams and leagues remains limited. The data is scarce outside the upper leagues.

Managers and players must therefore think outside the box or do things about the old school. The financial realities of the women's play can make recruitment even more difficult. Below the championship, the second stage of women's football in England, most of the player full time-in other industries and, if available, are minimal from football. Some can possibly claim expenditure. How do you persuade yourself to move around the country? It is even more important, how do you find these players?

“There is no way to see games on a scouting platform at this level,” says Jonathan Pepper, former manager of Lincoln City Women of the Footh level of Women's football and now the Junge Academy at Sheffield on Wednesday.

“Some clubs may have a volunteer or a group of people who look at games and get as much intelligence as possible, but it is not sophisticated as if it were at this level in men's play. They are very dependent on networks and personal knowledge. Many players follow coaches or players with whom they played before. Then it is very rare that a player goes; There are almost two or three players. ”

In two months, Pepper contacted 75 players to see if they are interested in playing for Lincoln, a club that could pay the travel expenses of some players without the women's game not being dedicated to full -time employees. However, strong connections to the club gave them access to academy institutions and decent medical coverage, video analyzes and sports science support, which have proven to be decisive for the profit of new obligations.

He tried LinkedIn, coach and manager, general manager, volunteers who had their own player networks. Only a few players have agents on three and four years, but he was successful to achieve agents whose higher players searched for playing time and experience and let a former young person internationally from Manchester City and another borrowed from another academy.

“They just try to track leads, and many of them don't come to anything,” he says. “Are they actually talent, or is it just a carousel of players who are around the levels of three, four or five around the different clubs in the clubs that have no youth system or an academy system to walk around the different clubs?”

Pepper wonders whether the National League of women (level three and four in English football) could “insist that every game is turned and shared on a platform” in order to enable a larger analysis that understands cost restrictions. “In the men's game, the pyramid is very important for the talent identification,” he says. “The more access you have to the pyramid, the better the talent identification. At the moment it depends very much on good will, word of mouth, people who have relationships with trainers or players. There is none: “I have seen a player at Tier Four and your data look like this – here are your possession statistics, duel statistics … '.

“There are some really good players at Tier 4 who could play at Tier 2, and that would really help some of the clubs at this level. You may play socially with friends and do not know how to get to the next level. You may not have the network yourself for progress.

“It is a real niche market that has to develop. It is whether clubs are willing to invest in what is the technology or people on site who watch the games. ”

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Jamie Smith was a sick vacation from his daily job as an electrical engineer when he started studying for his scouting badges and later working in scouting for Macclesfield Town and Queens Park Rangers. He increasingly began to ask himself what happened to released players and employees and how they could keep themselves visible enough to find a way back into play. He created INSCOUT, an independent scouting and networking software with a database for players and employees in the games of men and women.

“As soon as you get out of the WSL, the waste (in data) is incredible,” he says of women's football in England. “As a female football fan, I can really find it frustrating that I can tell you important data about a striker of the animal 10 men football team, but they try to find something about a striker who is in the third or fourth stage of women's football and is still impossible. It is difficult to find out how many games you played, no matter how many goals you scored or how big you are. “

In contrast to equivalent software that players can evaluate from price -performance ratio, Incout is free. Players can create a profile that describes their most important information: their primary and secondary positions, strong foot, size, weight, weight, career history, contract status, location, levels that they are ready to travel distance, regardless of whether they have or are looking for an agent. You can also add video highlights. Managers and agents can more than switch through 20 Attributes and open conversations in the meeting room of the platform. Incout has checked every agent who has access to its platform. Smith, a FIFA registered agent, is also at hand to give advice.

“We have good connections in women's football,” says Smith. “We helped some players in different clubs and tests, some from abroad. The first thing people said is, if they don't have a film material, it is very difficult to move. When we triggered this for the first time, we found that many girls didn't. Now the level of your profile is excellent. It works.

“We like to think that it looks like a profile, a portfolio online that you can share. It is almost a bit like watching Wikipedia or Transfermark for players who don't have the finances to have them or someone to update their Wikipedia. “

Smith has worked on bringing more women to his platform and recently the brains of the businesswoman Deborah Meaden of the BBC Reality TV Show Dragons' selected how Incout could better support in order to better support or intervene players if the players have to struggle with their mental health.

“The idea of ​​this tool is primarily to give someone who is a free agent or is released this safety net so that we can catch it and say:“ We know that things have not worked so far. Place it on this profile '. We think if you build this, there is actually a small thrust. We transform a negative into a positive one. The secondary function is to find you as a club.

“Many people think that we misunderstand this – that it is about finding a club first – but we think it should be about showing them the positive aspects after their previous career. Then Use this profile to find a club. It is not good to find a club for someone whose life is free. “

The 23 -year -old Mexican goalkeeper Andrea Salas is a female player working on the platform. “It was very helpful for me to share my statistics, strengths and my profile in front of agents, trainers and club directors,” she says.

As young South Korea, Singapore and Dubai.

“My ultimate goal was always: end my studies and find an association, even in Europe, Asia or the Middle East,” she says. Salas arrived in England to get qualifications in her daily job, but was also attracted to the depth of the football pyramid and the possibilities. “Every city has involved its club, its directors and people,” she says. “I made my network with their coaches in the UK and traveled alone. I went to the clubs, spoke to the managers and the head coach and arranged different exams, different meetings. ”

At the moment she is a free agent and is in this discussions. People outside the game do not recognize how much work is involved, says: she covers her own editions, arranges her own accommodation and travel, reads the contracts himself and documents everything in the hope of the permission of a resident.

“If you are active at a professional level for more than five years, you can be managed more easily by an agent than on amateur, half-professional or college level,” she says. “If a club is interested, he can discuss the salary, but they have to be informed before making an agreement because they have no agent who helps you to read the little one (pressure). Having an agent is safer and organized: you only have to focus on your physical performance and not on administrative tasks. “

Smith encourages the players who register on the platform to be open with agents to talks because they are constantly looking for clubs looking for players. Agents are also hungry to sign female players in view of the financial potential of the women's play.

“I have no doubt that in five to ten years the gap between the top earners in the men's game up to the top earners in the women's game will probably be less closely closed,” he says. “You can see the season of the season that the money is increasing. I get many inquiries from agents who say: “How can we speak to this player? How can we speak to this player? '. “

For the good or bad, the WSL welcomed its first transmission of $ 1 million, but the women's play remains embryonic elsewhere. The speed with which it catches up will talk about the final goal for the rest of the pyramid – and has a big impact on the players. The world is eagerly watching.

(Photos: Getty Images; Design: Eamonn Dalton)