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.

To mark the 10^th anniversary of Scout7, we have teamed up with Leaders in Performance to offer our clients a 20% discount on attendance at their upcoming 2011 conference.

Now in its third year, Leaders in Performance brings together over 300 elite industry professionals from a variety of sports worldwide, to discuss the identification, development and management of both established and emerging professional athletes.

The event is taking place at Chelsea FC, Central London, on Wednesday 5^th and Thursday 6^th October and confirmed speakers so far include Hamburger SV Sporting Director Frank Arnesen, Oakland A’s General Manager Billy Beane, San Antonio Spurs General Manager RC Buford and the Performance Director of British Cycling, David Brailsford.

These keynote speakers will be presenting to a wide range of senior figures from the world of professional football, including Manchester United, Chelsea FC, Liverpool FC, AFC Ajax, FC Zenit St Petersburg, LOSC Lille Métropole, Rangers FC , and many more who have all confirmed their attendance as official delegates.

In addition, we are also delighted to announce that Scout7 will be sponsoring a drinks reception on the opening day, which will be taking place immediately after the conclusion of the day’s final presentation.

At the reception, every delegate will be invited to share a complimentary drink with us to mark our first decade of delivering pioneering scouting, recruitment, and squad development solutions to professional football clubs, of varying size and infrastructure, all over the world.

Having already staged two hugely successful conferences and a US Study Tour, Leaders COO Simon Lau explains what professional clubs can expect from the event next month:

“Leaders in Performance provides a unique platform for professionals tasked with managing and coaching elite teams and athletes to share ideas and learn from their respective peers.  This year’s event will once again bring together senior sports figures from around the world to discuss sports science, performance innovations, recruitment, analysis, psychology, decision-making, lessons from business, and leadership.

“We are delighted to be inviting Scout7’s global network of scouts and analysts to our event this year, and through our collaboration they will be able to attend at a discounted rate. We are also pleased to be providing Scout7 with an environment to mark their 10^th anniversary within the event.

“On behalf of everyone involved at Leaders in Performance, we are looking forward to staging yet another world class event for the benefit of world class football clubs and sporting organisations.”

If you would like to join Scout7 in London next month and benefit from this unique opportunity to attend one the world’s leading performance events at a special discounted rate, please email performance@leadersinevents.com

Alternatively, please contact the Leaders team via telephone (+44 (0) 20 7042 8666) or visit the website at www.leadersinperformance.com

Having won automatic promotion back to the Championship following a hugely successful end of season run, Southampton will be looking to carry on where they left off once the 2011/12 season gets underway.

Nigel Adkins’ side won 13 of their final 15 matches on their way to securing the runners-up spot in League One and as they prepare for life back in the second tier of English football, the club’s recruitment initiatives will be supported by the full suite of Scout7 technologies.

In the summer of 2010 Southampton introduced a brand new Football Development Support Centre , an infrastructure which oversees all performance-related internal practices, managed by former FA Technical Director Les Reed.

Part of the new department’s remit included the club’s player recruitment processes, which resulted in the appointment of David Burke as Scouting and Recruitment Manager.

Burke, who has had previous experience in setting up Talent Identification departments at a variety of clubs both in the UK and abroad, is responsible for the club’s scouting at all levels.

He explains where his role sits within the infrastructure:

“In my position I oversee four individual branches of the club’s recruitment and player analysis,” says Burke.

“These branches comprise of international scouting and domestic scouting at senior level; players aged between 15 and 21; and local Academy recruitment. Each of these branches has its own Manager, who each sit alongside the club analysts.

“This structure is a key part of the club’s overall philosophy, which is in place to support all aspects of the club’s First Team management, including player recruitment, squad management, strength and conditioning, medical and so on.

“Within the set-up it is my role to work closely with the First Team Manager in order to provide The Chairman, Nicola Cortese, with high quality accurate information with regard to the recruitment of players that fulfill the Club’s requirements.”

Following Burke’s appointment, Southampton became one of a growing number of clubs in League One to incorporate ProScout7, primarily to manage information on players and teams being monitored by their own internal team of scouts.

In addition, the club also chose to integrate Scout7Xeatre.tv into their ProScout7 solution, allowing them to not only access a comprehensive season archive of match videos, but also upload internal videos for central management.

Burke believes that allowing senior members of staff to share information entered by a team of scouts and analysts is where the club sees the biggest value in their ProScout7 technology.

“From a database perspective, the key benefits for us in using the system is collating all a player’s information based upon his age and career history,” he explains.

“Being aware of where he has played previously, his nationality and his international statistics are very important to us in profiling the player and helping us make informed decisions.

“We also use the system for managing all our player and match reports, including our opposition analysis, where again the database is of value as we can get the information on the players in our opponent’s squad to aid our preparation.

“However the key thing from an operational perspective is that it is an online application, so it allows us to obtain any of our information immediately when we need it – there is no reliance on receiving an email or a telephone call, we simply login and get it.

“Having used Scout7Xeatre.tv for a year too, we have found the ability to upload DVDs of players and teams centrally is of real benefit, in addition to using the video library to source footage of players.

“It means we can obtain all the information we need from one webpage, rather than having to open three or four different applications to obtain information.”

A year on from the introduction of the new club infrastructure and with a promotion already under their belt, Southampton will be looking to build on its recent success as they work towards consolidating their position over the course of the next twelve months.

And through their use of Scout7 technology, their scouting and development staff have the tools available at their disposal to manage processes that allow sound, well informed decisions to be made, supporting the First Team Management team in their endeavors on the field.

Scout7’s commitment to supporting youth development around the world has been strengthened after the company struck a partnership with one of French Football’s major regional Technical Centres.

Based in Brittany, Le Centre Technique National Henri Guérin is one of nine elite Academies which sit within a centralised domestic infrastructure, focused on training emerging youth prospects across the whole country.

The Centre also hosts a three day tournament each year, Le Tournoi National des Centres de Formation, which involves eight professional clubs who send teams made up of players aged under 21 from their reserve and academy squads.

This year’s competition, which is also backed by several stakeholders of French Football including the LBF-FFF and UNECATEF, is taking place from 22-24 July and features Lens, Le Havre, State Rennais, Montpellier, Toulouse, Saint Etienne, Lorient and Guingamp. Its format comprises of an initial group stage of fifty-minute matches (two halves of twenty-five), staged over the first two days, followed by four play-off placement matches, including the Final, on the third day.

As part of Scout7’s partnership with the Centre, the company will be heavily involved in the organisation of various aspects of the 2011 tournament. This includes inviting professional clubs from around Europe to attend, managing accreditation and providing information on competing players.

In addition, Scout7 will also be responsible for nominating the best young player of the tournament, selected by professional football staff working on behalf of the company.

The winner of the award will be looking to follow in the footsteps of previous players who have competed in the tournament, which include Steve Mandanda, Jérémy Toulalan, Yann M'Vila and Kevin Gameiro, who have all gone on to play senior international football.

Further information on the competition can also be found on the Centre’s official website: http://www.ctr-foot.com