For the second year in succession, Scout7 can confirm that it will be supporting the Spax Cup, which is celebrating its 40^th anniversary in 2013. 

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

The competition is taking place from 18-20^th May.

As well as the host club, the tournament features both leading German clubs and major teams from overseas.

This year’s edition will see Borussia Dortmund, FC Schalke 04 and 1. FC Köln take part, with FC Twente (Netherlands), Beşiktaş Jimnastik Kulübü (Turkey), Olympiakos (Greece) and reigning champions Botafogo (Brazil) completing the eight team line-up.

In addition to competing in Ennepetal, Botafogo will also be taking part in the annual FIFA Blue Stars Cup in Zurich earlier in the same month as part of an extensive tour of Europe.

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

The database includes extensive coverage of youth football in Germany, including the A-Jugend, B-Jugend and C-Jugend Bundesliga regional divisions, which are the Under 19, Under 17 and Under 15 domestic leagues respectively.

Full recorded match videos for all of the games taking place will be also 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.

After successfully supporting the event last year, Scout7 Deutschland's Andreas Merkle explains why the company is continuing to partner with the tournament.

"With its history and heritage, the Spax Cup is one of the most prestigious Under 19 club tournaments in Germany," explains Merkle, who himself is a former German youth international at both Under 21 and Under 19 level.

"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.

“These players will be following in the footsteps of many illustrious players such as Jürgen Klinsmann, Dennis Bergkamp and Fernando Torres, who have all played there in the past.

"The key to the success of the competition is the quality of the teams that take part and in 2013 you will find that some of the strongest teams in Europe will be sending youth teams to compete. Added to that, for the past eleven years there has been at least one South American club involved, which is something rarely seen at 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 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.

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

1 May 2013

Click on the cover (right) to read the very first edition of a new revamped Leading the Line magazine, from which we bring you a blend of news and features involving Scout7, in addition to other wider features from across the football industry.

This edition includes the following:

• A lead feature on FIFPro disengaged tournaments
• An introduction to Scout7’s brand new intelligent Sports Framework application
• Details for the 2013 Toulon Festival and Spax Cup
• Information relating to new solidarity payment alert functionality
• Preliminary findings of a playing surface study conducted by Loughborough University

If you would like further information relating to any of the features, please do not hesitate to contact us at info@scout7.com.

Details have been announced for the 41st Festival International Espoirs de Toulon et du Var, which will be taking place from 28th May-8th June.

Having traditionally featured eight teams, made up of at least one nation from each single FIFA Confederation, this year the tournament has been expanded to include ten U20 teams as a result of many of the participants wanting to use the event as a warm-up for their participation at the FIFA Under 20 World Cup, an event which is taking place in Turkey less than a fortnight afterwards.

In total seven nations that have qualified for those finals will be involved at Toulon: France, Portugal, South Korea, Nigeria, United States, Colombia and Mexico. The latter two nations are returning to Europe this year having claimed the last two Toulon Festival titles in 2011 and 2012 respectively.

The CAF Federation will also be represented by the Democratic Republic of Congo, who earlier this season knocked Cameroon out of the African Under 20 Championships at the final qualification stage.

The lineup is completed by two nations, who for different reasons will arrive in France with well-respected reputations that they will be looking to maintain.

The first is Belgium, whose reputation for producing world-class professionals from a relatively small pool of players is the envy of many smaller nations around the world, whilst the second is five-times world champions at Under 20 level, Brazil.

The Brazilians are in fact the reigning World Champions at this level, having won the last U20 World Cup in 2011, which was held in Colombia. Unfortunately they will be unable to defend their title this year following their shock elimination at the 2013 CONMEBOL Sudamericano in January, which means that their participation at Toulon will be the only opportunity for clubs to scout their vast array of talent at a major tournament in Europe this year.

Toulon's expansion is not just reflected in the number of teams taking part either, as two new venues will also be in use at the competition for the very first time.

One of these venues is the recently renovated Stade Leo Lagrange in Toulon, which features a new stand with a unique arched roof, then after spending the first two days of competition in the Toulon area the tournament will head west to Nimes, where matches will be played across two days at the Stade des Costières.

For the last six years, Scout7 have managed the Festival's scouting accreditation and on-site support, which has included supplying scouts with their own official accreditation pack, which incorporates passes to each stadium, a tournament notebook and a map, as well as official teamsheets for every match.

This year Scout7 will also be nominating the official man-of-the-match after every game, based on feedback from scouts in attendance.

The 2013 Festival will be looking to emulate the success of last year's 40th anniversary edition, which was made into an Under 23 competition in order to allow five nations to use the event as preparation for their participation at the 2012 London Olympic Games.

The tournament was won by Mexico, who went on to win Olympic Gold in London after beating Brazil 2-1 in the final at Wembley.

The Brazilians will now have an opportunity to inflict a degree of revenge for that defeat now that the two nations have been drawn together in Group B.

The players selected for Brazil will also be looking to emulate some of their illustrious compatriots, including Kaka and Diego, who both played at Toulon during the early stages of their career before going on to becoming major global superstars.

For further information on the 2013 Toulon Festival and details of accreditation, please contact Scout7 at info@scout7.com.

Having successfully launched the Player Performance Reel late last year, Scout7 is delighted to announce that event footage for a further 16,000 players has now been made available within the portal.

The reel, which has been developed in conjunction with OptaPro, incorporates key match events involving an individual player from their last five first-team games, using match footage from the Scout7Xeatre archive.

At the initial launch, Performance Reels were available for over 20,000 players spread across five continents.

Now the introduction of these additional players, affiliated to clubs in key recruitment markets including Argentina, Colombia and Chile, mean that reels are available for every player affiliated to clubs in any domestic or confederation game captured by Opta.

The Player Performance Reel allows club staff to evaluate both positive and negative events at-a-glance involving a player from recent fixtures, providing a useful aid to assist long-term monitoring.

For further information on the Player Performance Reel, including a full coverage list, please contact us at info@scout7.com. 

This year sees the thirteenth annual staging of an event which is made up of several competitions running in parallel to each other at Under 19, Under 16, Under 14 and Under 12 level.  It starts on Wednesday 27th March and will run for five consecutive days through to the Finals day on the 31st.

Over 150 teams from all over the world will be participating, including clubs from England, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Russia, Norway, Ireland, Finland, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Japan, USA, Canada, Haiti, Israel, Australia, Qatar and the Ivory Coast, together with several local Catalan clubs.

The full event schedule and group breakdown for each age group can be found on the two attached PDF files. Over the course of the event, squads and match results for the Under 19 and Under 16 competitions will also be published in the ProScout7 database.

If you require any further information on the tournament, please visit the official Mediterranean International Cup website at www.micfootball.com or email mic@micfootball.com.

Several other players also had their contracts terminated by mutual consent.

A number of these players have elected to put their name onto the PFA Transfer List, meaning their full CV and details now feature in the PFA Widget within ProScout7. Since the turn of the year, over forty new players have already been added.

Using the widget, clubs have the opportunity to make direct enquiries to the PFA regarding a player’s availability, from where they will be forwarded contact details for the player.

Match Footage from AFE Training Camp Fixtures now Available in Scout7Xeatre

With a number of clubs from across Europe and further afield heading to Spain to undertake winter training camps, the Spanish Player Union, the AFE, took the opportunity last month to assemble a twenty-two man squad of disengaged players and arranged for them to play a number of friendly matches against club opposition.

Over a one-week period Team AFE, whose squad was made up of players of varying ages and experience and included both former Spanish youth internationals and products from top flight club academies, played matches against Shakhtar Donetsk (Ukraine), Shanghai East Asia (China), Piast Gliwice (Poland), Hércules (Spain) and FC Vaduz (Switzerland).

Teamsheets for all three matches are now available in ProScout7, together with details of other matches played by Team AFE over the course of 2012/13.

In addition, all the games played during the January camp were filmed by the AFE and are now available to watch via Scout7Xeatre.

Details of 2013 FIFPro Tournaments Published

Having already successfully staged their annual flagship tournament last July, FIFPro held two further regional disengaged player tournaments in January, one in Norway and another in Peru.

In addition to the host nation, the Scandinavian tournament featured three other teams made up of player members representing their respective national unions, from Sweden, Finland and Ireland.

In the Final, Team SFS (Sweden) defeated defending Champions Team NISO (Norway) on penalties after the game finished 2-2. The winning penalty in the shootout was scored by Adnan Cirak, who was also named the tournament MVP.

The South American tournament’s structure mirrored that to the one held in Norway but featured six teams:  Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Peru and Uruguay.

As in Scandinavia the Final went to penalties, with Colombia coming out victorious over Peru in the shootout.

The third place play-off also went to spot kicks, with Argentina edging out Brazil 7-6 in sudden death. The Brazilian side had the consolation though of having one of their players named Player of the Tournament, 22 year-old 5’6 midfielder Ramon.

Fixtures, Squads and Results from both competitions are available now in ProScout7.

For further information on any of Scout7’s disengaged player initiatives, including updates on the employment status of any player, please contact us at info@scout7.com.

Following work completed by Scout7’s research team, several new youth leagues are now available within the ProScout7 database.

In recent years, Scout7 have successfully implemented youth leagues staged in Austria and Germany, covering games at both U19 and U17 level.

Now at the request of several client clubs, we are pleased to announce that match information from three Italian youth Primavera divisions (U20), the Dutch Eredivisie A-Junioren (U20), the Polish Mloda Ekstraklasa (U20) and five German U15 C-Jugend-Regionalliga leagues are now available within ProScout7.

There has also been a substantial increase in the coverage of lower league football across Europe.  Since August Scout7 have introduced full teamsheets for eight CFA2 divisions in France, which feature several B teams from Ligue 1 clubs, as well as three new leagues in the third domestic tier of Portugal, the II Divisao.

The expansion consolidates ProScout7’s position as the undisputed number one source for emerging domestic player information in major European nations.

In addition to increasing its coverage of domestic football, Scout7 have also made a commitment to provide its clients with the largest database of tournament football, encompassing club and international competition.

During January alone, Scout7 published match information from close to twenty competitions worldwide, including the U20 CONMEBOL Sudamericano (Argentina), U18 Valentin Granatkin Memorial (Russia), U16 Agean Cup (Turkey), and U18 Al Kass Club Cup (Qatar).

In total over one hundred tournaments are scheduled to be covered in ProScout7 throughout 2013, including tournaments taking place this week in Viareggio, Italy and the Algarve in Portugal.

For further information on any of this extensive new coverage in ProScout7, please contact our database team at db@scout7.com.

In a move designed to assist clubs with an interest in applying analytics into their recruitment processes, Scout7’s partners at the Football Observatory have devised a new monthly Player Productivity Report which aims to highlight stand-out players in key recruitment markets.

Each report has been fine-tuned based on research on extensive match information captured over a five year period. The research has enabled the Observatory to weigh the value of different match events, based both on their frequency and their impact on a team’s results.

Individual reports are compiled every month for six different European top flight leagues: the FA Premier League (England); Ligue 1 (France); 1. Bundesliga (Germany) La Liga (Spain); Serie A (Italy); and the Eredivisie (Netherlands).

Each report lists the most productive teams and influential players based on several key events from fixtures that have taken place over the previous 30 days, in addition to also listing the leagues leaders in each criteria based on information obtained over the course of the entire season so far.

The criteria analysed focus on areas of the game statistically key in positively influencing the final outcome of a game, including shots from open play, chances created, successful passes, dribbles and turnovers or interceptions.

Having been heavily involved in formulating the content of each study, Football Observatory Director and Co-Founder Dr. Raffaele Poli explains why he thinks the Observatory’s reports can assist a club in identifying players that are having a positive impact on their team’s results.

“Forward thinking clubs are increasingly using statistics to support transfer strategies”, he says.

“Since 2005, our academic team have conducted extensive research to identify key performance indicators to objectively highlight players whose on-pitch productivity is having the greatest positive impact on club results.

“These key performance indicators focus on five key areas of the game where teams must have influential players in order to achieve positive results: shooting, chance creation, take ons, distribution and recovery. We also produce a general index which highlights players who perform the best in all of these areas collectively.

“Our monthly ranking classifies footballers according to their on-pitch productivity; insofar as individual performance is strongly related to collective strength, we also aim to present rankings highlighting the most productive players in a team compared to their teammates.

“From a scouting perspective, this has the added value of identifying more relatively unknown footballers in a middle or bottom ranked club, who may have the potential to successfully play for  a team operating at a higher level.”

The Football Observatory’s productivity reports have been devised with the support of key match event data supplied by OptaPro, events which are then applied to the Observatory’s unique data models.   

Reports can be ordered by clubs on an as-needs basis and more significantly, can be adapted upon request to be made more bespoke based on a club’s specific requirements.

In addition, early in the New Year the Football Observatory will also be publishing the 2013 edition of their Annual Demographic Study, which collates key attributes for over 12,000 players and establishes a number of averages and indicators based upon specific leagues and primary positions.

The report focuses on the average age in a league, in addition to the average height, the proportion of full internationals and the number of expatriate players employed.

It also identifies a number of key indicators, including the oldest and youngest squad in each league, the tallest and shortest teams and the clubs who utilize the largest number of players originally from overseas.

For further information on the Football Observatory’s Player Productivity Reports and Demographic Study, including a full price list, please email us at sales@scout7.com.

For more information on the Football Observatory, please visit www.football-observatory.com.

With over twenty current French youth internationals on its books, the Paris SG Academy is widely regarding as one of the leading youth development centres across European football.

And whilst the recruitment of several big-name stars over the past two years has taken the club’s first-team to another level in terms of performance, the integration of Academy products into the senior squad still remains a priority for the club’s management. 

This year Adrien Rabiot became the latest scholar to make his senior bow in Ligue 1, joining fellow Academy graduate Mamadou Sakho in the starting-line up against Bordeaux in August.

Rabiot has also featured regularly in the NextGen Series this year, where the U19 side currently sit top of a group including fellow European heavyweights Juventus, Manchester City and Fenerbache.

And as the club looks to maintain this level of performance, they are using the Scout7 Training Ground application to assist with the management of all aspects of its Academy.

Developed in conjunction with several major clubs around the world, Scout7 Training Ground is a player performance management and development solution, which gives clubs the ability to monitor the daily activities of all the youth teams and senior squad.

It incorporates modules designed to centralise all types of information across several departments, including coaching, training sessions, fitness testing, sports science, injuries and rehabilitation, match assessments, youth recruitment, administration and financial correspondence.

Academy Director Bertrand Reuzeau, who has been involved with youth development at the club since 2005, explains how having all this information available from one source is assisting him monitor every activity taking place across the centre.

"We closely follow the development of each of our players, from the moment they are recruited into the centre to when they complete their scholarship,” says Reuzeau.

“The Scout7 Training Ground platform provides me with an overview of all the work done with every age group. Each coach has a login, where they must enter information from every session they take, which is essential for monitoring.

“We work for the long-term, so it is important to have information readily available when we need it – from one central area."

With the ongoing objective of retaining an upper hand over its rivals, Reuzeau is keen to ensure that no stone is left unturned when it comes to monitoring every facet of a young player’s development, including their personal development as well as their sporting progress on the pitch.

The aim of this due-diligence is to ensure that the Academy has all the information available at its disposal when it has to make decisions relating to the future of a scholar, which includes the very difficult decision of whether or not to offer a young player a professional contract.

“When I arrived at the Academy, I implemented strict directives and objectives for every member of my staff, to try and ensure that every player coming into the youth training centre has every opportunity to achieve their goals,” he says.

“This included setting up large and comprehensive processes for player monitoring, covering sporting, educational, administrative and medical matters.

“In my first year here the club did incredibly well, becoming national champions at U18 level with several players who went on to become professionals, including Chantôme, Sakho, Mabiala, N'Gog, Mulumbu and Arnaud.

"Since then we have strived to maintain the same level of performance and this continuity has paid off to a large degree because our U19 side became national champions for two consecutive years in 2010 and 2011. At the same time, the U17 team were in the top two nationally, becoming champions in 2011 with the likes of Rabiot, Ikoko and Yaisien featuring.

"These titles are important, but the main goal is to produce players ready for the first team squad, just like Mamadou Sakho and Adrien Rabiot this season.

"And since I became responsible for this Academy, I am proud to say that every year at least one scholar has signed professionally with the club.

“We also try to do our best to try and help players who are not kept on to find another club; and it is pleasing that several players have been able to pursue their careers elsewhere having come through the Paris SG system.”

The high standards maintained by the Academy is also reflected in the status granted to it by the FFF, who place it both in Category 1 and Class 1 nationally.

And through the daily monitoring of all their player information via Scout7 Training Ground, the club is taking all provisions necessary in ensuring that Reuzeau’s standards are maintained for a long time to come.

For further information on Scout7 Training Ground, please contact sales@scout7.com

This mesmeric rise is the result of back-to-back promotions from the Blue Square Bet Premier League and League Two in 2009/10 and 2010/11 respectively. They also narrowly missed out on an unprecedented third successive promotion last May, losing out by a single goal against Sheffield United over two legs in the end of season play-offs.

Now one-third of the way through 2012/13, the club, which has no debts and a positive Balance Sheet, have continued to maintain this outstanding form currently sitting in the top six of League One.

This achievement is all the more remarkable considering the major upheaval in the club’s first team squad during the close season.

In total fifteen players, including several first teamers who were integral to the club’s run of success during the previous three years, elected to move on. Collective transfer fees earned from their departure, together with a lucrative FA Cup run in the Spring brought a surplus of £1 million into the club, which was reinvested into infrastructure, both on and off the pitch.

This included a move to a new 42 acre training ground, new office and hospitality facilities at the stadium and investment in the club’s youth development centre, in addition to the recruitment of sixteen new players.

This recruitment drive was led by the club’s Manager, former Colorado Rapids Head Coach Gary Smith, and Head of Recruitment Leon Hunter. Both men were appointed in January this year following the departure of the previous Manager Graham Westley to Preston North End.

Hunter’s appointment was significant in the wider development of the club, as it was the first time that Stevenage had appointed an individual to head up their recruitment operations on a full-time basis.

It also resulted in a different way of working internally, as Hunter explains:

 “Stevenage are looking to improve all the time, which we are doing, and the recruitment operation is changing dramatically,” he says.

“The club have never had a network of scouts before. Gary is slightly different in his approach and when he arrived he was happy to leave me to do the player negotiations, so in many regards I am a bridge between the Chairman and the Manager.

“We don’t have any other scouts in place as yet, so we are very tight knit. Gary and his assistant Mark Newson get out to games, as does Darren Sarll, our Head of Youth, in addition to the games which I watch myself. Between us we probably cover around eight games a week on average, including first team, under 21 and reserve team games.

“Of course, Gary has the final say on any players who come in and it is my job to recommend players based on his requirements. That is the way any club has to be otherwise the relationship between the Manager and the Head of Recruitment would almost certainly break down.”      

As the club planned its summer recruitment drive, the senior football staff decided upon criteria for the players they wanted to bring in. Specifically, they were looking for younger players with not only experience of the division, but also who had good schooling at Premier League clubs.

Another key ingredient was hunger to achieve and play at a higher level, mirroring the club’s own ambitions.

A number of these targets were successfully recruited and brought in on longer term contracts, allowing the club to build a team with a longer term vision, which was the first time that Stevenage had ever given deals to new players running longer than one year. Most arrived on free transfers and only two came in for transfer fees.

As they were putting together their targets, the club was using their own ProScout7 application to assist with their due diligence, as they completed dossiers on all the players on their radar.

As Hunter points out, it was absolutely crucial they brought in the right players, as they had hardly any margin for error.

“The club needed a foundation of players coming in,” he explains.

“A turnover of sixteen players is far too high for any club and we didn’t want that to ever happen again so we needed to build, and build well, within our budget.

“We did a lot of homework on all the players – if you are Stevenage Football Club and are going to give a young player a longer term contract, one that is longer than you have ever given before, you have to know everything about them, because you cannot afford to make many, if any, mistakes.

“Our requirements were based on the different positions we needed to fill and Gary’s own ideas for those positions.

“If he or I liked a player we would follow our usual internal processes, which included me putting together an exhaustive dossier for him.

“All this data we compiled on the player internally went into ProScout7 for Gary to check. You must also remember that Gary had only returned to the UK from coaching in the US in January, so he needed a tool to get him back up-to-speed with what was going on at League One level in England.

“ProScout7 gave him the facility to print off every stat for every player we were looking at, as well as establishing the names of every Manager that a player had played for during his career. That in itself is a very clever information field, as we could use it to research the players further, and between us we contacted all the Managers we knew to obtain references.

“There were also a number of scouting reports from last season which had been compiled by Scout7 which we could reference - and I am happy to say that a couple of the players that we brought in were initially flagged up by the opposition assessments provided to us by Scout7 last season, which were very in-depth and on a par with Gary’s own opinion of the type of players he wanted to bring in.”

The opposition assessments Hunter refers to are detailed team reports supplied by Scout7’s Consulting arm, which are produced to assist preparations for every first team match played during the season.

They include a breakdown of all team set pieces, general comments from open play and overviews of each player, which supplements the club’s video analysis on opponents compiled internally by their two performance analysts, Mitchell Jones and Donald Buchanan.

Hunter explains: “Scout7 do all of our match reports and they are fantastic.

“When we first started working with Scout7, Gary actually watched two of the games we asked to be covered himself and compared the reports with his own. They matched up so well that they were almost symmetrical, so we were very happy.

“Each of the reports include a detailed overview of team shapes, strengths and weaknesses, together with assessments on all the individual players. They are something that we have come to rely upon and use alongside our own reports and DVD footage, and are a big chunk of our armour which we can use to help us win football matches.

“We trust the service, it is not only accurate but also reliable. If we have an upcoming game on a Tuesday night, we have a report from the previous Saturday ready for us by 9am on the Monday morning and we cannot ask for any more than that.”  

Looking towards the future, it would be easy to think that the recent on-field successes at Stevenage would have brought with it huge expectation, both internally and from supporters, for continued success.

However whilst the club remains keen to continue pushing boundaries, there is also recognition that it must work within its resources and consolidate its position without compromising its future, a point stressed by Hunter.    

“We have a very ambitious Chairman and we have a very ambitious Manager, but both are realists and looking at the size of the club and the size of the attendances, we need to get more people through the gate if we are ever going to compete financially with the bigger clubs.

“If we can do that we can look to bring in better players and when you bring in better players then hopefully you will have even more success.

“But we have to have aspirations. If you look at the infrastructure of the club: the new training ground, the improvements to the stadium and the players we have brought in; the club has a real feel-good factor to it at the moment.

“The club is on a stable financial footing so we could potentially have a real go at getting promotion, but getting it is a very big ask and we really have to take it one game at a time.

“Fortunately we have started the season very well when you consider the amount of players we were forced to bring in, but we have good players and a good Manager, so like around 12 other teams in League One, we feel like we are in with a very good chance of promotion again.”       

The reel, which is presented in the Player Record via the application’s video player, incorporates key match events involving an individual player from their last five first-team games, using match footage from the Scout7Xeatre archive.

Performance reels are available for every player affiliated to clubs in all domestic and confederation competitions captured by Opta. This totals over 20,000 players spread across five continents. 

The facility allows club staff to evaluate both positive and negative events at-a-glance involving a player from recent fixtures, which is a useful aid for monitoring any player within a key recruitment market.

Position Specific Events

Each year Opta collects, packages and distributes information on around 60,000 fixtures from over 30 different sports in around 70 countries.

They are the global leader when it comes to capturing and collating 100% of all events that take place in a match, which are then tagged both to the team and the individual player within their event database.

For the purpose of the Player Performance Reel, these events have been broken down to highlight the key events in a match, which are defined based on a player’s primary position.

As a result, the highlights for a Goalkeeper focus on all saves and sweeper actions, whereas Defender actions cover all aerial duels, tackles and fouls. 

Midfielder events incorporate all tackles, shots, take ons, corners and free-kicks, whilst Strikers have all aerial duels, shots, take ons and free-kicks included.

Within the reel, the video player defaults to showing events from the start of the most recent game and then plays them in sequence, however club users can also elect to view specific events by clicking on  them from the menu which sits alongside the player.

The Player Performance Reel is the latest in a long line of innovations introduced into ProScout7 during 2012, all designed to enhance a club’s recruitment operation.

These have included the integration of Opta Widgets for key recruitment leagues, which are made up of both player and team comparison event data, as well as heat maps within the teamsheets of individual fixtures.

More recently Scout7 also introduced a new team homepage within the applications general database, which in addition to improving squad presentation also includes recent form and match formations.

There have also been enhancements to the Recommended module and the introduction of a PFA widget, which allows clubs to make enquiries about any player on the Association’s Transfer List.

For further information on the Player Performance Reel, including a full coverage list, please contact us at sales@scout7.com.    

In a major development in its coverage of domestic football in Germany, Scout7 is delighted to announce a tie-up with Die Ligen GmbH.

Since the start of the 2012/13 season Die Ligen GmbH, with the full support of the DfB, have been filming every game played in 3.Liga and in the three domestic U19 leagues: A-Junioren Bundesliga Nord/Nordost, A-Junioren Bundesliga West and A-Junioren Bundesliga Süd/Südwest.

As part of Scout7’s collaboration, clubs operating in any of these competitions have the opportunity to subscribe to 100% of all the games recorded in their league throughout the season, delivered exclusively throughout the ProScout7 video player. 

For clubs operating in 3.Liga, the terms of Scout7’s collaboration with Die Ligen GmbH mean that no other teams will be able to access footage of their games - the coverage will remain private within the league community.

A similar private structure is also in place for the U19 leagues, however games filmed across all three divisions will be available to all the 42 clubs.

Subscribers of the footage will be able to attain several competitive advantages over non-subscribers, particularly when it comes to enhancing their match preparation.

Through being able to access a large number of recent games featuring upcoming opponents, clubs will be able to prepare tactical summaries, evaluate a team’s collective strengths and weaknesses, conduct detailed set-piece analysis and compile player assessments before every game they play.

Through the ProScout7 Video Player, games can be streamed via PC, laptop and iMac, or can be downloaded for viewing remotely.

In addition, the Player is also compatible with the iPhone and iPad, allowing club staff to watch matches on the go.

If you are interested in a subscription to every game played in your league this season, please contact Scout7 Germany’s Stephan Hanke (stephan@scout7.com), who will provide further details and a full price list.  

Scout7's have today launched updates to the ProScout7 Recommended Module.

The updates incorporate three new strands of functionality, all designed to enhance the presentation of individual players listed.

By using a new Manage Players facility, ProScout7 users can highlight individual players in different colours on a Recommended List from a preselected palette. The facility can be accessed by clicking on the edit icon in the top right hand corner of any position within the display.

By utilising different colours, scouts can differentiate between different players assigned to one position based upon their club's recruitment priorities.

Within Manage Players users can also assign individual age groups to a player, ranging from Senior through to various youth age groups.

Age Groups are assigned by choosing from the dropdown and will then appear in brackets within the Recommended display alongside the player's name.

The final innovation allows club staff to reorder players within a position on the Recommended list.

If you require any further information or any assistance relating to these changes, please contact our support team at support@scout7.com.

Based in Paris, Visiofoot film hundreds of matches played at CFA1 and CFA2 level domestically throughout the season, capturing full games featuring some of the country’s leading amateur clubs, together with emerging players breaking into the B teams of Ligue 1 sides.

Since January 2012 Visiofoot have recorded approaching 200 games, both at this level and within local Parisian amateur leagues, averaging eight games per matchday. They have also been filming at several domestic competitions, including Tournoi des Centres de Formation.

To coincide with the availability of Visiofoot matches, Scout7 have also expanded its domestic coverage of French football, publishing teamsheets from all CFA2 divisions within ProScout7 for the first time.

This means that fifteen domestic senior leagues are now being covered in France on a weekly basis, together with all domestic cup competitions.

The expansion consolidates ProScout7’s position as the undisputed number one source for comprehensive player information across French football.

For further information on Visiofoot, including a list of all games broadcast so far this season and subscription costs, please contact us at info@scout7.com.