As eight aspiring nations look to make their mark at this year’s 40th Toulon Festival, Scout7 is marking the event’s milestone by finding out what impact it has had on the careers of a small number of players and coaches during the past four decades.

Peter Taylor

Peter Taylor was initially the Head Coach of the England Under 21 squad at the 1998 Festival, before returning in 2005 with the English Under 20 team.

He coached the England senior side on one occasion in 2000 for a friendly against Italy, when he memorably gave David Beckham the team captaincy for the first time.

He has been involved in Management and Coaching for over 25 years and at present is the Head Coach of the Bahrain National Team

1) Before coaching England in the tournament, did you know a great deal about Toulon?

I had not been to the competition before, but I knew about it through Dave Sexton. Dave knew the Revello family and had taken the England Under 21 team there several times, including one time when they won it in the early 1990’s.

I took a team there for the first time in 1998 and then again in 2005, when we came third. During that first visit, I found that all the good things that Dave had told me about the tournament were absolutely spot-on. It was a great experience for young players, facing different types of opposition with different styles of play and we had plenty of time to work together as a group.

2) At the time, can you remember what the objective was for taking part? Was it an attempt to expose that group of players to tournament football or was it part of a project to prepare for the next U21 qualification campaign?

There were lots of reasons to be honest. Firstly you wanted to go out there and win matches, as winning matches is important for building up spirit and you want to go as far in any tournament as you can.

In 1998 we had also just finished the 1996-1998 qualification campaign and we needed to build new squad ahead of the new season. So in the short-term Toulon was ideal preparation, as we got to play several matches in quick succession and got to work with the new players every day.

In the longer-term, you wanted these players to become good tournament players, who could cope with being away from home for two weeks or more and be part of an England side that could challenge for top honours, and there was no better experience for that than participating in events like Toulon. 

3) Both in 1998 and 2005, the squads selected included a number of players who went on to play senior football for England. Do you have any particular memories of coaching those sides?

I can remember working and thinking that several of the players had a real chance of making it. You knew that you were dealing with very good young players and as a coach, you felt that you were actively participating in helping these players prepare for challenges they were going to face later on in their career. It was what made the job so exciting and satisfying.

Frank Lampard played in our defeat in the knock-out stages to Argentina in 1998 and now he has 90 caps for England and went on to play in two World Cups. Jamie Carragher was also in that squad, but he had to wait a little longer before breaking through at senior level.

What they maybe didn’t know at the time was that they were getting valuable experience of international football at Toulon, facing players they would have had never of heard of at the time, but in future would become big stars. You only needed to look at the tournament brochure to see players and teams who had played there in the past to know that it was a very good competition to play in.

There is a massive difference playing domestic football in England compared to international level, you need to adapt and this is where playing in tournaments is so important for future development.   

4) Looking back are there any particular matches or teams which stand out from the 1998 and 2005 Festivals?

The Argentina side which knocked us out in 1998 stand out. They actually sent a younger squad out compared to ours and you could tell that they were blessed with some very talented individuals, who could beat a man and caused us loads of problems.

The last time we played in 2005, Lassana Diarra was absolutely outstanding for France too.

5) Do you think you learned anything from taking part in the tournament which helped your own personal development as a coach?

As the tournament is going on, I think coaches and team managers take more on board than the players do. Players are only really thinking about the next game and will only reflect on what they learned afterwards, but as a coach there is so much you can learn in a very short space of time.

You can bring your scouts to watch every game at the tournament so you can properly analyse each team, which enables you to study their approach, weigh up what they do well and what they could do better and compare it with your own team.

Studying these teams from different parts of the worlds is a really important part of your job and it enables you to get a better idea of how the game works abroad.   

6) A lot is made today of the need for young players to be exposed to major tournament football. Do you think your experience in Toulon helped your side in getting used to acclimatising to that environment, both on and off the pitch?

Toulon is an important tournament because it features teams from all over the world, not just European nations. As a result, I think it is actually very good preparation for players going to a World Cup, as it can give them an indication of how teams from different regions such as South America or Asia are going to play.

Acclimatising to tournament football is also vitally important. No matter whether you are at Toulon or at any other tournament, your players have to be there focused on winning and not have half an eye on going home. Keeping that focus is vital, so the coaching staff have to make efforts to keep things fresh at the camp to create a togetherness and spirit amongst the players so that they are fresh and prepared for the next game.

In 2010 and 2011, members travelled to England to observe and participate in several practical sessions put on by Premier League and Football League clubs, at both first team and Academy level.

This year the twenty professional coaches, accompanied by Scout7’s Jerome Lebatard and Pierre Michaud, together with senior UNECATEF officials Anissa Hamimi, Thibaut Dagorne and Jacky Bonnevay travelled to Morocco, where they attained a different perspective on player development in North Africa.

The trip formed part of the Association’s ongoing DMVE programme, which is a ten-month, season long initiative designed to assist unemployed professional coaches secure future work.

On the opening day of the visit, the party were welcomed on arrival by the current Head Coach of Raja Casablanca Bertrand Marchand, who himself is a former graduate of the DMVE scheme, before heading on to the other major club in the city Wydad Casablanca, where they had a question and answer session with their Manager, the former Real Madrid coach Benito Floro.

That evening the party then took in a Botola domestic league match, featuring Raja and the current league leaders FUS Rabat, where Marchand’s side snatched a 1-0 victory thanks to a last minute goal from current Senior Morocco international Rachid Soulaimani.  

Having seen the senior set-up of two of the nation’s leading clubs, the focus of the trip then turned to youth development as they travelled to the Football Academy of King Mohammed VI in Rabat.

The $15 million Centre opened two years ago and is part-funded annually by the King himself, where 60 national prospects aged between 12-18 are given the opportunity to have a dedicated football education alongside their academic studies. Each player’s development is overseen by Academy Director Nasser Larguet, who has held several Academy posts at French clubs, including Rouen, Cannes, Caen and Strasbourg.  

After receiving the tour of the outstanding facilities at the Academy, the coaches then participated in a conference, led by Jean-Pierre Morlans and Dominique Cuperly, the Assistant Coach of the Senior national side, before delivering a pre-prepared practical session with youth team players from both the Academy and the youth setup at FUS Rabat.

The visit concluded with the coaches observing another game, where they saw the Under 20 national team defeat Mauritania 5-0 in a qualification match for the 2013 CAF Finals, where they were accompanied by Erik Gerets, Head Coach of the Senior side.

Now back in France, the twenty participants of the 2011/2012 DMVE initiative will complete their studies at a final meeting next month in Paris, from which they will be looking to secure future employment in the professional game.

The DMVE class of 2012 in Morocco were: Thierry Bocquet, Francisco Da Costa, Michel Benezet, Eric Deletang, David Vines, Mickaël Boully, Frederic Lipka, Steve Vilmaire, Yohann Febrer, Nordine Bouachera, Aurelien Elombo Timba, Frederic Crebiller, Pascal Janin, Bruno Roux and Yves Brécheteau, together with former DMVE pupils Patrice Lecornu and Otis N'Goma.

For more information on the work of UNECATEF and the DMVE programme, please visit the Association’s official website at www.unecatef.fr.  

Edward Metgod

Metgod was selected to for the Dutch side at Toulon on three occasions, in 1979, 1980 and 1982.

Shortly after the 1982 Festival, he won his single senior cap for the Netherlands in a friendly against France. He went on to make over 500 senior league appearances as a goalkeeper, playing first for Haarlem and then Sparta Rotterdam.

Since retiring from playing in 1997, he has coached senior sides at both Amateur and Professional levels in his homeland.

1) Before being selected to take part, did you know a great deal about the Toulon competition?

I knew it was one of the highly rated tournaments for young international players, but it was still in its early years and did not have the profile it has today.

I can remember the first time I was selected because I had only just broken into the Haarlem first team and as a result of the selection I missed the final few league matches, which is something that would not happen today as the two would not be allowed to clash.

When we found out the schedule, which included Argentina and the USSR, it dawned on me that it was a genuine international event with very good footballing nations.

2) Having been selected three times, are there any particular matches or moments which stand out for you?

I was only really a back-up player in 1979 so I didn’t feature in any of the games, but in 1982 whilst I cannot remember games individually, I do remember having a very good tournament and being disappointed that I was overlooked for the goalkeeper of tournament award, which went to a Czechoslovakian player.

I have a lot of memories of events off the field though. I remember my dad and my girlfriend, who is now my wife, travelling down to the area in the car and staying at a local camp site to support me. All of our games were played away from Toulon in small provincial towns and at all of our games, there was a guy who was in the stand supporting us by playing a horn non-stop throughout. The noise has stuck in my memory and is one of the first things I think about when I think about that competition.

3) Looking back, how important do you think the competition was for your development as an international footballer?

For me, it was confirmation to myself that I was a talented player who could perform at that level. The recognition gives you more opportunities as a player, but with those come greater expectations that you need to be performing consistently and aim to get to another level.

As a young player, I was not someone who was obsessed with statistics, I just lived the way I wanted to live and took each day as it came. But once you get to a level where you are playing for your national team, you quickly realise you must work very, very hard if you want to continue to compete with the other guys performing at elite level.  

That makes you put more personal pressure on yourself to become the best player you can possibly be – when you are just starting out things come naturally, but to continue to perform at that level requires hard work.

4) Do you think your experience in Toulon help your side in getting used to acclimatising to tournament football off the pitch?

Absolutely. At that age you just want to play, but I had never been to a tournament away from home before and you find out things are different. You spend two weeks literally doing just four things - training, resting, eating and playing. That is the life of a professional footballer at a tournament in a nutshell.

People did try different things to keep you busy, making the most of the area around you. Indeed I can remember our coach in 1981, Ger Blok, taking us for a walk along the beach on the day of each game. He was an extraordinary character - on one occasion took us into one of the beach houses to discuss planning for one of the games, where he literally went to every table in the room, taking all the salt and pepper cellars and setting them up on one table. So we ended up discussing tactics where you were represented by a glass container!

We also had a very bizarre situation when we bumped into a few members of the East Germany squad away from the stadium. This was of course before the fall of the Berlin Wall and after their officials found out that they had been talking to us, they moved their entire team away to a different location.

That was a crazy experience, but at the same time when you think about it, it is pretty amazing to think that a group of people, who grew up in a very different Europe to the one you knew, would be joining you and the only thing you had in common was you were participating in the same football tournament.

For the fifth successive summer, Scout7 will be officially supporting the annual Festival International Espoirs de Toulon et du Var.

This year will see the family-run tournament reach a major milestone in its history, as it will mark its fortieth staging. The first Festival took place as a club tournament back in 1967, before becoming a mainstay on the youth international football calendar from 1974 onwards.

Since then several major international players, including previous FIFA World Player of the Year recipients Cristiano Ronaldo, Kaka and Zinedine Zidane have played at Toulon during the early stages of their career before going on to becoming major global superstars.

And following the announcement of the 2012 participants last month, there is every likelihood that emerging players from around the world could end up making their mark this year.

The tournament is taking place from 23^rd May-1^st June and will feature five of the sixteen Under 23 nations that will be competing at the Olympic Games in late July: Mexico, Egypt, Morocco, Japan and Belarus. The remaining three teams are all from Europe: Netherlands, Turkey and the home nation France, who will all be sending Under 21 sides.

To mark the Festival’s milestone, the tournament will be touring several venues across the Var region in the South of France, starting with Hyères on the opening day before moving on to towns including Aubagne, Saint-Raphael, Nice and Arles-Avignon.

Since 2008, Scout7 has managed the Festival’s scouting accreditation and on-site support, which has included supplying scouts with official Tournament Notebooks, Guidebooks and Teamsheets for every match. The company’s involvement is overseen by Scout7 France’s Jerome Lebatard, whose support for the Festival was formally recognised last year when he was named ‘Friend of the Tournament’ by the organisers.

This year, Scout7 will also be publishing the line-ups for every game an hour before kick-off on its official twitter feed @scout7football, where a minute-by-minute update of events during each game will also be available.

Twitter will also be the place for scouts to obtain the details of match venues on each day, including maps and addresses, together with information on several social events arranged especially for scouts.

For further information on the 2012 Toulon Festival and details of accreditation, please contact info@scout7.com.    

The integration means that the squad management solution is the latest in a long-line of solutions which is now fully accessible at the click of a button from within the ProScout7 Home Page.

Each user’s Scout7 Training Ground login also carries over all individual user-access restrictions defined by the club internally, which means that any module switched-off to a specific user will NOT display within the ProScout7 menu dropdown.

ProScout7’s evolution into a multi-application, integration platform has seen a wide range of third-party solutions, including Scout7Xeatre.tv Video Highlights and Opta Widgets, being linked to several key modules during the past twelve months.

This integration ensures that clubs can easily access both their own information and that provided by their data providers quickly, efficiently and seamlessly.

For more information on the Scout7 Training Ground integration, please contact our support team at support@scout7.com.

The ongoing evolution of ProScout7 into a central portal for obtaining and analysing data via both Scout7 and third party applications has continued this January with the integration of several Opta analysis widgets.

Following the introduction of video footage and private club-report widgets last year, the launch of the data widgets will further empower a club to obtain key match statistics on both players and teams from key recruitment markets around the world.

The introduction of Opta widgets comes as part of Scout7’s policy of working with its client’s other data providers; which ensures that all recruitment based information is easily accessible from a single platform.

Each Opta widget is available to club subscribers from within key areas of ProScout7, where existing club data including player reports, match reports, edited video clips and other club-specific information is already centrally archived.

The first set of widgets focus on Player Statistics and Player Comparison.

Located within the ProScout7 Player profile, the Statistics widget lists key match data captured by Opta, including minutes per goals; shot conversion rate; pass completion; assists; 50/50 duels; and fouls.

The Player Comparison widget then enables the user to compare any player’s statistics head-to-head with others in the same division and across other competitions covered by Opta. This allows the club to establish how a player contrasts statistically in terms of both attacking and defending contributions.

The second set of widgets focus on collective team data: Team Statistics and Team Comparison.

These widgets can be found within the Squad page of ProScout7 and includes several cumulative team statistics, including average possession; total clean sheets; total tackles, blocks and clearances; passing accuracy; shooting accuracy; a breakdown of how all team goals are scored; fouls and team discipline.

Again, the Team Comparison widget allows the user to take each of these stats and compare them directly with all the other teams in the same competition and across other divisions covered by Opta.

The final Opta Widget integrated with ProScout7 is the Heat Map.

This is located on each respective team sheet within the ProScout7 database and highlights the areas of the pitch where each player most often made contact with the ball during the match. It therefore gives an overview of the areas in which each team was in possession but can also be adapted to give an indication of each player’s average position separately.

The user can scroll over a timeline beneath the pitch to see how positioning and movement fluctuates over the course of 90 minutes.

All of these widgets are available for seventeen major club competitions around the world. These include ten European Leagues, two North American leagues and two interconfederation competitions. In addition, several senior international tournaments will be available throughout the season.

Each of the widgets is designed to assist clubs in identifying key performers in each league based upon objective data. Players can be compared on data relevant to the specific requirements of their playing position to supplement the subjective assessments compiled by the club’s own scouts.

Within each of the competitions, archive data for the 2010-11 season is also available for comparison to the current campaign.

For further information on Opta Widgets in ProScout7 and for a full price list, please contact Scout7 via email at sales@scout7.com.   

The Under 19 club competition, which was first staged in 1974, is organized each year by the German amateur club TUS Ennepetal and takes place at the 8,000 seat Bremenstadion in the city, which is located in the North West of the country.

In addition to the host club, the tournament features both leading German clubs and major teams from overseas. The 2012 edition will see defending champions Hamburger SV, Borussia Dortmund and FC Schalke 04 take part, with Anderlecht (Belgium), SL Benfica (Portugal), Spartak Moscow (Russia) and Botafogo (Brazil) completing the eight team line-up.

The competition is taking place from 26-28^thMay.

As part of Scout7's involvement in the competition, company staff will be in attendance on all three days, supplying on-site scouts with information on participating players using the information available in the ProScout7 database. 

The database includes extensive coverage of youth football in Germany, including both the A-Jugend and B-Jugend Bundesliga regional divisions, which are the Under 19 and Under 17 domestic leagues respectively.

In addition, full recorded match videos for all of the games taking place will be available to clubs via the ProScout7 portal after the event and as the competition is taking place, each game will be streamed live on the competition's official website.

Having finalised the agreement to support the 2012 SPAX Cup, Scout7 Deutschland's Stephan Hanke explained why the company has chosen to support the tournament.

"With its history and heritage, the SPAX Cup is the most prestigious Under 19 club tournament in Germany," says Hanke.

"The tournament is well supported by the local community and each year, tens of thousands of people turn out to watch emerging players from some of the world's leading Academies take part, following in the footsteps of players such as Jürgen Klinsmann, Dennis Bergkamp and Fernando Torres.

"The key to the success of the competition is the quality of the teams that take part and in 2012, you will find that some of the strongest teams in Europe will be sending youth teams to compete. Added to that, for the past six years there has been at least one South American club involved, which is something rarely seen in independently run tournaments.

"This all means that from a club's perspective, the SPAX Cup is one of the most important youth club competitions on the scouting calendar.

"We look forward to seeing many of our client clubs at the Bremenstadion in May."

The SPAX Cup is the third major competition being supported by Scout7 this year, following the Spanish-based Mediterranean Cup in April and the annual Toulon Festival in France.

The format of the tournament comprises of two groups of four playing each other in a round-robin, with matches split into two twenty-five minute halves. The group matches are played over the opening two days, with the semi-finals and subsequent final being played on day three.

Details of the full fixture schedule and scouting accreditation procedure will be distributed in the weeks leading up to the tournament.

For further information, please visit the official SPAX Cup website at www.u19tournament.com or email info@tus-ennepetal.de.  

With vast areas of the European continent freezing under record cold temperatures this February, Viking FK, like many Scandinavian clubs, chose to flee the Nordic chill for a pre-season training camp in La Manga, Northern Spain.

And whilst the club’s first team squad locked its horns for friendly matches against teams from Denmark, Russia and Lithuania, games which resulted in one win and two draws, the club’s recruitment department was hard at work looking for final new additions to Åge Hareide’s squad before the new season gets underway in March.

Midway through the 2011 season, the club became Scout7’s first client club in Norway when it incorporated both the ProScout7 and Scout7Xeatre.tv applications, to enable them to monitor football globally on a daily basis and manage the daily stream of reports on players and teams coming in from the club’s own network of scouts.

The information being entered into the club's own ProScout7 application is overseen by Scouting Coordinator Ole Askeland, who has been researching players extensively for the past three years and acts as a link between the scouting department and sports management.

Having used the solution for six months now, he believes that the application has already played an important role in enhancing the club’s existing working practices.

“It has helped us on many different levels,” says Askeland.

“Firstly it is a fantastic communication tool for the club staff on football related matters, which includes both our scouts and our coaching team. It is also developing into a fantastic scouting database for us, which over time will help us with our planning for future transfer windows and creating shadow squads.

“The player database is also a very useful reference tool, because we can check on facts, figures and statistics as and when we are made aware that a player is available. We can see if a player has missed games or has had injuries in his past.

"So whenever a player is recommended to us, one of the first reference points is ProScout7."

As is the case with many Northern European leagues, Norwegian clubs operate to a different transfer window to the leagues that start their season in August and play through the winter. As a result, the clubs tend to focus their recruitment on neighbouring leagues working to the same recruitment cycle.

Viking FK are no exception.

One of the issues faced by these clubs is that during the winter there is no domestic football taking place in these key recruitment leagues, which is something where Askeland believes the Scout7Xeatre.tv scouting, video and analysis application comes into its own.

This is because it allows scouts access to an archive of thousands of recent matches featuring player targets, players who they cannot watch within an organised league framework during the close-season.

He explains: “We have to focus on the areas where we primarily scout and recruit from, which from an overseas perspective is typically our neighbouring Nordic countries. We have people in place in Denmark, Sweden and Iceland, and we also have close contacts in Finland.

“Domestically we scout the second division in Norway, whilst our full-time staff focus on the top division. In addition to club football, we also monitor youth international matches involving Nordic teams throughout the year.

“When we are scouting, the most pressing priority is to get our scouts to the stadiums and watch teams play live. However, as we play in a summer league, we have a different transfer window to the winter leagues, which means that during the times we can recruit players, there is a limited amount of football actually being played for us to scout.

“This is when having access to the video proves very useful – it gives us the opportunity to watch recent games involving players when we cannot see them live ourselves.

“It is also absolutely true that you cannot watch a five minute highlights video on YouTube to evaluate a player, people are very mistaken if they think that a brief snapshot is going to be influential in a club’s decision making.

“If we are made aware that a player is available who we know little about and are provided with a DVD, in the very first instance we are going to look and see if the player has played recently to establish his credibility, then if we want to watch him in action, we will use a couple of the full 90 minute games we have on them to conduct a proper evaluation.”

In addition to helping scout players during the off-season, the power of having a live database incorporating player appearance information, at both domestic and international level, together with unlimited access to video from over 60 different countries is opening up potential new markets to Viking FK for overseas recruitment.

In addition, it is also helping them build up a wider knowledge of football around the world, which is benefitting other initiatives being adopted by the club at a strategic level, which is highlighted by an exciting new link-up between Viking and one of the most famous names in South American football.

“We cannot overstretch ourselves,” stresses Askeland.

“We are a big club in Norway, but compared to the major European teams our resources for scouting is limited. Therefore we have to prioritise on which regions are the most relevant to us, which is why we have the focus on neighbouring Nordic countries.

“However, having access to Scout7Xeatre.tv means that we can obtain information on players featuring in overseas competitions which we do not cover ourselves. This is useful because when we get tipped about players, they frequently come from leagues where we do not have a scout, so in order to find out more about them we can reference their player record in the database and watch matches involving them from the video archive.

“We are also currently setting up a formal link with Fluminense in Brazil, who have been looking for a European club to work with.

“To find out more about their players, we have been able to log in and watch not only first team matches, but also several matches involving their Under 20 team, which means we know about both their established and emerging professionals, as well as knowing how their various teams play.”

Although the club already recognise the short-term benefits provided by Scout7 technology, the club see the biggest benefit coming from using the application long-term, as they build their own private database of player information.

As time goes on, the information they archive today will be of immense value further down the line, as they look to make sound, well informed decisions in player recruitment, based upon several year’s of intelligence tracking prospects.

“We are entering reports on a daily basis during the season, however as we are currently in a period when very few matches are being played, we are mainly using the system for formulating plans for targets before the window closes in March,” points out Askeland.

“But once the season starts again, we will again be entering all our information from the matches we attend, as we build a private database of our own player information.

“Having this constant stream of information is important because it sharpens the focus of the department and makes our work more dynamic.

“This is because people in the club now have the opportunity to follow what the people involved in the scouting are doing and are fully aware of the information coming in from the different markets every day, throughout the year.”

Viking Stadion Image © Eivind Bø

The emergence of these outstanding individuals under Joachim Löw has coincided with significant changes in the way the country’s domestic youth development has been structured, managed and monitored. 

Five years ago the Deutscher Fussball-Bund, in collaboration with the German league, introduced a new quality charter for each Academy at clubs in the top two divisions and at an additional ten amateur clubs to adhere to. This was devised to ensure that best practice in development, based upon over 200 different criteria relating to facilitating and nurturing talent, were followed at all levels all over the country.

As a result, once every three years each Academy is now awarded a certificate and rating based on the quality of its internal practices, highlighting the centres which merit special commendation for its work.

One of the club’s which currently possesses one of the highest ratings in the country is Hertha BSC Berlin. Under the Management of Academy Director Hans-Peter Jakob, the club currently boasts fourteen German Youth internationals aged between 15-20, who are all looking to emulate the club’s former scholars that have gone on to attain full honours at senior international level, which includes Jerome and Kevin-Prince Boateng.

As a way of maintaining a high level of certification, the Federation expects clubs to store as much information as possible on its players and the activities that they have undertaken throughout their time at the club. This is to ensure they have a log which demonstrates that they have met the standard criteria expected by all Academies throughout the season.

As a consequence, Hertha have been using Scout7 Training Ground for the past two years to manage all key information across several internal departments on a day-to-day basis. This has included all of their scouting and recruitment information, coaching and fitness sessions, post-match performance reports, sports science and medical data.

One of the key users of the application is the club’s scouting coordinator and in-house Scout7 Training Ground administrator Robert Deising, who oversees a large team of regional scouts entering data into the application, in addition to assisting users within each department to get up to speed with the functionality of their own specific modules.

When reflecting on the bigger picture, he believes that the most important feature of the application is that it allows all key data to be centralised into one single source, used across all areas of the Training Ground.

“Some applications only specialise in one area of performance” says Deising.

“For example they will only do Squad Management or Sports Science, which means everything is all decentralised. It is important to have everything linked, so all the information is available from one place.

“The long-term plan for us is for every department to be using Scout7 Training Ground to manage data. At present the modules which are being used extensively are the medical module, which records data ranging from simple allergies through to injuries and rehabilitation, together with the scouting module, which is very important for me in my co-ordination role.

“The club coaches are also using the system to log both match reports and their coaching sessions into our database.

“One of the key long-term benefits for us is having the opportunity to build a central archive of player information, because we have to document a lot of information to prove we are fulfilling all our obligations to the young players for their development and for our certification to the German Football Federation.

“We already know that we have good practices in place, but we need a good platform to file all the important information and to show the Federation exactly what we are doing.

“Scout7 Training Ground is a perfect platform for us to use, because it brings everything together - we live in a world now where people don’t work solely with paper correspondence, ideally everything should be filed online and shared where everyone can see it.”

A full in-depth feature on Hertha BSC Berlin’s use of Scout7 Training Ground can be found in the latest edition of Scout7’s newsletter Leading the Line, which will be circulated to Scout7’s mailing list in early February.

For more information on Scout7 Training Ground please contact us at info@scout7.com

Current Eredivisie league leaders AZ Alkmaar are one of three Dutch sides that have recently incorporated the Scout7Xeatre.tv On-Demand NG (Next Generation) video scouting application.

Launched in the summer of 2011, Scout7Xeatre.tv On-Demand NG empowers key recruitment staff by allowing them to watch full, uninterrupted matches that have taken place all around the world from an unlimited online database of over 25,000 games.

In total over 1,600 matches, from both domestic and international level, are available each month from over 60 different countries, which includes every match played in the Eredivisie, FA Premier League, La Liga, Ligue 1, 1. Bundesliga and Serie A respectively.

In addition to AZ, fellow top flight sides SC Heerenveen and Vitesse have also chosen to incorporate the solution into their existing infrastructures, which is allowing them to monitor key overseas recruitment markets on a daily basis remotely from their Dutch base.

Prior to taking Scout7Xeatre.tv On-Demand NG, all three clubs have been using Scout7’s industry leading ProScout7 recruitment application, a solution which is used by over 150 clubs worldwide to manage their private scouting data centrally and securely via their own bespoke online application.

And as ProScout7 evolves into a platform which allows new state-of-the-art applications to be integrated, including Scout7Xeatre.tv On-Demand NG, Dutch clubs are increasingly recognising how having all recruitment information available within one  central portal can assist them with their management and workflow, as AZ’s Director of Football Affairs Earnest Stewart explains.

He says: “Having the ability to access all the information that you as a club have compiled on individual players and teams collectively within a single source is vitally important.

“Scout7’s technologies enable us to obtain all the information we need, whether it be career history from their player database, assessments compiled by our own staff, scout recommendations and now through Scout7Xeatre.tv On-Demand, full 90 minute games on a specific team at the click of a button.

“Having access to the video is important for several reasons. Firstly when monitoring leagues overseas, it is not always possible to send a scout to every game that a team plays, so by having an online archive we can keep an eye on a player’s progress on a game-by-game basis if necessary.

“You can also watch footage of players which you have little information on, which is important if we have to react to situations quickly and it also opens up potential new markets, where previously little information was known about the competition.

“There can be no doubt that this solution can only improve our existing processes in player recruitment.”

Scout7 Business Development Manager Simon Davison is delighted that the Eredivisie trio have increased their use of technology supplied by Scout7.

 “Scout7Xeatre.tv packages are already in place at several forward thinking clubs around Europe, including leading clubs in the FA Premier League, La Liga, Ligue 1 and the Bundesliga,” says Davison.

We are now pleased to have secured our first three Eredivisie clubs in AZ Alkmaar, SC Heerenveen and Vitesse.

“The depth of coverage available through Scout7Xeatre.tv On-Demand NG is unrivalled throughout the industry. All major European recruitment leagues are covered, as are key markets in the Americas, North Africa, Asia and the Middle East, recorded legitimately in the countries they were originally broadcast and delivered independently from third-party influence.

“All the games are delivered in full and are uninterrupted without the inconvenience of build-up coverage and half-time commercials. They can be viewed not only online, but also via download in various formats, where they can be watched remotely in the quality of the original broadcast, which includes HD.

“I hope this solution will aid all three clubs as they formulate their recruitment planning for this summer.”

As part of Scout7’s long-standing partnership with the PFA, the company has provided detailed career statistics for the inaugural edition of ‘The Official PFA Player Profiles’.

The publication, which offers a comprehensive review of the 2010-11 English domestic season, includes detailed career biographies for every professional player that made a first team appearance for any of the 92 League clubs during the campaign.

Each of players listed in the book have had their full record of UK career appearances and goals from the past five years published, including domestic league and cup appearances. The information has been taken from the global database within Scout7’s industry leading ProScout7 application, which is used proactively on a daily basis by over 150 different professional clubs around the world, to assist with their player identification processes.

‘The Official PFA Player Profiles’ is currently available to purchase online at www.amazon.com and is available in several high street bookshops.   

Following their promotion back to the Championship this summer, Peterborough United have made a solid start to the season as they look to consolidate their position in English football’s second tier.

Now a third of the way through 2011/12, they currently sit in the top half of a very tight division, in amongst 10 clubs that are separated by just five points in and around the play-off places.  

And as part of their preparation for every game they have played so far, the club have been using Scout7 Consulting’s Opposition Analysis service to review detailed assessments of their opponents, which include set piece analysis, team and tactical summaries, individual player comments and ratings. 

The reports have been used by the club since the appointment of Manager Darren Ferguson in January and despite the availability of new technologies, including tracking and video analysis, the 39-year old still believes that match reports compiled by a scout sitting in the stadium remain fundamental as part of the build-up to a first team fixture. 

“The opposition analysis reports provided to us by Scout7 Consulting form an integral part of our match preparation throughout the season,” says Ferguson.

“Each report provides us with a comprehensive dossier on the strengths and weaknesses of our upcoming opponents, both for the team collectively and for each individual player, which ensures that our players are aware of key threats and are fully prepared when they are our sent out onto the pitch to represent Peterborough United.”

Peterborough United are just one of a number of Football League clubs who are using Scout7 Consulting’s service to supplement the daily stream of reports compiled by their existing team of scouts. Scout7 Consulting’s Chief Assessor, Kevin Russell, is delighted that the club are happy with the quality of the service provided to them so far.

He says: “We are delighted to be continuing to assist Darren and his team with their assault on the 2011/12 Championship campaign.

“Having already achieved considerable success in the first four years of his managerial career, we aim to continue to provide him with accurate and consistent team reports ahead of each game, which I hope will in turn assist Peterborough United achieve its goals throughout the season.”

For more information of Scout7 Consulting’s Opposition Analysis service please visit www.scout7consulting.com.

As we enter the second week of November, Mark Yates’ side currently sit in third place having won 10 of their 17 league fixtures so far, one of their best ever starts to a season since attaining League status in 1999.

Since the start of this season, the Robins have been using Scout7 Consulting’s Opposition Analysis service to obtain detailed reports on each of their upcoming opponents in all competitions, whilst the club’s football staff have also been able to use the company’s ProScout7 database to obtain information on players operating at first team, reserve and youth level across the domestic football pyramid.

In addition to obtaining career appearance information on thousands of players currently active in English professional football, the database is enabling Yates and his staff to study subjective player assessments from over 100 matches each month watched by the company’s Consultancy arm, meaning that they are fully equipped with various opinions on the abilities of the players that they consider warrant monitoring as part of their recruitment strategy.

Having first sanctioned the club’s use of Scout7’s services eighteen months ago, Cheltenham’s Chairman Paul Baker is happy that the investment is helping the first team attain on-field success.   

‘’We are delighted to have access to the ProScout7 system and other services, which includes a fully comprehensive, detailed and accurate opposition analysis and individual player assessment programme,” says Baker.

“ProScout7 also provides all of our scouting team and management staff with the ability to store and record their own private secure data and information. This plays a significant role in our day-to-day scouting and recruitment policy both short and long term, as although we work within a strict budget, we are also able to work in a professional and diligent manner.

"Each month we also receive thousands of individual player comments from Scout7 Consulting through their Football League and Conference assessment programme. These reports provide our Manager and Chief Scout with an on-going stream of detailed performance information, for both established and emerging players, at all levels of the English professional game.

“This in turn can assist us in making good recruitment decisions based upon the needs of our first team squad.”

Cheltenham Town image courtesy of www.thousandwordmedia.com

Between now and the end of the end of the year, Scout7 Consulting will be offering professional football clubs comprehensive tournament reviews from three major African international competitions.

For the fifth successive year, Scout7 has sent representatives to the UEMOA tournament, which features eight West African nations made up exclusively of senior players that currently play their domestic football in their native continent.

The 2011 competition is based in the Senegal capital Dakar, where the hosts will be looking to repeat their 2009 triumph by overcoming nations including the Ivory Coast, Mali and reigning champions Niger.

Whilst this competition takes place in the West, another international competition is going on at the same time in North Africa, featuring U23 sides from Algeria, Morocco, Niger and Saudi Arabia. The round-robin UNAF tournament is taking place in the port city of Tangier and is being used by the two African nations to aid their preparation for the final qualification tournament for the 2012 Olympic Games, which is the final competition being covered by Scout7 Consulting this Autumn.

Eight nations harbouring ambitions of playing in London next summer will be meeting in Morocco from 26^th November-10^th December. The top three teams from the tournament will qualify for the Finals outright, whilst the fourth placed nation will go on to feature in a play-off against an AFC nation for the final Games place.

For each competition, professional scouts affiliated to the official French Coaches Association UNECATEF will be compiling detailed reviews, including team and player assessments, on behalf of Scout7 Consulting. In addition, match footage from selected matches at these competitions will be available to users of the Scout7Xeatre.tv video, editing and analysis application.

For further information or to order any of these reports, please email us at info@scout7consulting.com

The final quarter of 2011 has seen a significant increase in the level of youth international football being made available to client clubs via the ProScout7 database.

The recent launch of the NextGen series has resulted in match information being published from matches involving development squads at 16 of Europe’s top clubs, together with all teamsheets and player information from the Under 20 and Under 17 FIFA World Cups respectively. In addition, friendly international tournaments played at all levels, including the Nordic Cup, Syrenka Cup, TOTO Cup, Milk Cup, Tournoi Val de Marne and Tournoi Limoges have all been entered into the application by Scout7’s international correspondents in recent weeks.

Looking ahead, all the information on the various Under 23 Olympic Qualification competitions will be available to clubs and Federations over the next few months, starting with the CAF qualification later on in November, which is taking place in Morocco.

For further information on the competitions being covered in ProScout7 in the coming weeks, please contact updates@scout7.com to obtain the company’s monthly tournament schedule.