Liviu Bird of the excellent New York Times Goal soccer blog has an interesting story today about how MLS is leveraging league assets to create a central scouting resource specializing in the Central and South American region that is available to all teams.
“Since a number of our players were coming down from Central and South America, we decided at that point to think about ways that we could help our teams in their scouting and recruitment efforts,” said Lino DiCuollo, the league’s vice president of player relations and competition, in a recent phone interview. “So one of the things was to start cataloging all the games in many of the leagues in Central and South America where we were getting players.”
Building an interconnected web of technical tools involving video of matches, WyScout, Opta, and Statbridge, while weaving together in-country consultants that can assist teams with information, the system is similar in part to endeavors created by Major League Baseball and the NHL. MLS' structure also allows for the cost to be shared.
“Instead of paying to have a consultant in Bogotá, clubs are basically paying one-nineteenth of the cost,” DiCuollo said. Many clubs still have dedicated scouts in these areas, and it is common for members of their technical staffs to make trips to Central and South America to find players. But instead of having to rely on just one or two games as an evaluation period, staff can go to the league catalog for more video to make educated decisions on transfer targets.
With the recent talk of Timbers scouting trips to Ecuador, Colombia, and Argentina to search for potential new players, it's an interesting complimentary piece to learn more how the league as a whole looks to evaluate new talent.
