The Backroom Staff - Scout: Pedro Jiménez

Scout: Pedro Jiménez

Elite scouting, data and working with Rafa Benítez

Scouting is one of the most unique and exciting jobs in football. There are over 120,000 professional footballers in the world. At the highest levels, where the margins are so thin (and millions are at stake), finding the right player can change the trajectory of an entire club.

At its most basic, it’s watching football and having some opinions about what you see - but it’s really so much more. With dozens of stakeholders involved in every transfer and jobs on the line, the pressure is high to find a hidden gem!

In this interview, Pedro Jimenez, a scout with experience in the Premier League and La Liga, shares insights on working with Rafa Benítez - one of the top managers in world football - the role of data in scouting and his current role unearthing dual nationals for the Peru National Team.

The interview has been condensed and lightly edited for grammar and clarity. 

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[ Background in football ]

I’ve been around professional football since I was a kid - my father was a football player in La Liga, he played his whole career at Córdoba in Spain, so I grew up around this, going to training sessions with my dad.

Being in this environment made me very interested in the football industry. When I was 13 or 14, I started going with my dad to watch games. He was a scout at Chelsea and many different clubs and we went, for example, to Parc des Princes - Paris Saint-Germain’s stadium - to watch big European matches. He explained to me how he was analyzing everything, the tactics, the individuals, the teams collectively. Since then, I wanted to be a scout.

I started to educate myself - I learned English and took some FIFA courses in sports management and scouting. But the most important thing I learned from my dad was how he worked with top coaches.

[ Working with Rafa Benítez ]

In 2016, after many years preparing, I got the opportunity to work with Rafa Benítez at Newcastle United. I was covering all the football in Portugal and Spain for Newcastle. They had just been relegated to the Championship but were promoted again the next year. I spent 3 fantastic years working closely with Steve Nickson, the chief scout at Newcastle United.

Later, I worked with Rafa at Everton and Celta Vigo as well. I also educated myself in data analysis, a field that is growing and growing. In 10 or 15 years, (football) will be totally different, football clubs are just starting to use this new technology in their processes.

I still work with Rafa, scouting and working with databases with different data to scout players and be prepared for the next challenge.

In addition, last year the technical director for the Peruvian national youth teams Chemo del Solar, contacted me through a mutual connection. He explained the project and since this year, I’m the head of scouting in Europe for them. Basically, I’m in charge of all the dual nationality guys who are playing in Europe. It’s very interesting for me because I’ve always worked with senior teams, but I think it’s very good to understand a different perspective and work with different ages to get a more holistic context of football.

[ With Newcastle, what kind of scouting were you doing? ]

As mentioned, I was covering Portugal and Spain - so the Portuguese League and La Liga as well as the Champions League and Europa League football involving those teams. I was traveling every week, every weekend to watch games.

We were looking for potential transfers for the first team for upcoming transfer windows. Newcastle had scouts all over Europe, about one per country. I’d make different shortlists of players that might be interesting for the club depending on the profile of the players we were looking for.

So it was mainly individual player scouting but there were times when I’d do analysis on Newcastle’s upcoming opponents. For example, using Hudl and Wyscout, for example and combining this with different data analysis techniques to make reports on Newcastle's opponents.

[ When you find a player with the right characteristics, you’ve seen him a few times, written your report - what is the next step? ]

This is a complicated part of scouting! Usually you watch a lot of players live and in video - you have to combine both to save time. Software like Wyscout and other video analysis tools give you this possibility.

Everyone will tell you different things but, in my opinion, you have to watch the player during different seasons, different games - in video and then live, to understand where he is now and his path - how he has progressed.

Then, I make a shortlist and present it to the club. It goes something like, ‘this is the center back I recommend, I think he will fit our style because of this and that and I think his market value will increase.’ Sometimes you need to sign a player for immediate performance, sometimes you can sign a player for the future - who might be better in 2, 3, 4 years time.

After this, the sporting director will look through the shortlists of players from different scouts and analyze the financial possibilities of each one. Sometimes, the club can’t afford the player or maybe financially it’s not suitable. Even if we know the player is good and can be a good fit, you have to consider things like age and resale value.

And then there’s the agents! Agents are a very important part of the business. Sometimes, even if the clubs have agreed on a transfer, the agent can block it if they ask for big commissions. There are many things we can’t control because of agents, the financial side, commissions, club presidents but these are all things you have to deal with when you want to sign a player!

[ What’s it like coming with a coach as part of their staff to a new club? ]

Each manager has their own methodology. I'm very happy to work with Rafa and to be a part of his staff, I'm proud of the way he works. Sometimes people don't know, the work is behind the scenes, they just see what they see in interviews. But Rafa is very concerned about data - he's studying everything, he’s always analyzing all the factors that can affect the game. We say he doesn't rest! We’re a small team but all the people around him are the same.

What’s it like to come with a manager to a football club? We live and die with him. At the end of the day, what happens to him, happens to you. If things are going badly and the manager is sacked, you’re going to be sacked as well. That’s how football works.

I’ve learned that football is a ‘dangerous’ industry in terms of confidence. All the big managers, all the big people, want to trust the people next to them. It sounds logical in every industry, you want people around you to be trustworthy, to not release important information. But in football, it happens a lot! It’s very easy to reveal the wrong information. That’s why it’s important to have a team you can trust. I’m very proud to be part of Rafa’s team because he’s been building his team for a long time over years and years so to have his trust is a great thing.

[ How important is it to be secretive about the player you’re scouting? Do you meet scouts in the stands and lie about who you’re there to watch? ]

I’ll always recommend to someone who wants to be a professional scout to be very concerned about the information that you have. You can’t reveal this information.

Every situation is different and any piece of information can change the signing process a lot. For example, if you go to a training ground because you are monitoring a player, you have to be very discreet - if the local newspaper or the agent finds out Newcastle is following this player, the price can increase a lot. Even €10 million overnight - so you have to be very discreet or you can ruin the transfer.

[ Can you tell me more about your current role with the Peru National Team - what does it mean to be scouting Europe for a South American national team? ]

I’m in charge of the players based in Europe from the under 20 team down (U20, U17, U15). My job is to discover and analyze players who could make the national team strong in the future.

It’s my first experience in a national team and the functioning of the role is different. I feel a little like a sporting director. Of course, I don’t have a budget for buying players but at the end of the day, I’m managing the whole process - not only scouting but working with the federation, the clubs, the players’ parents and representatives, even consulates!

For example, we have one player at Den Haag in the Netherlands who we’re going to bring in in November. I located him and scouted him but that’s only the first part of ten other things I have to do before bringing him into the national team.

I have to talk to their parents in order to understand his situation, his paperwork. Some countries don’t allow you to have another nationality for example. This is not football but it’s an issue you have to solve and is part of my daily work.

I also negotiate with clubs - recently with AC Milan, we have a goalkeeper we wanted to call up but they didn’t allow him to be released because it wasn’t a FIFA date. I had to explain and negotiate with them. So you need to be in that role of sporting director but negotiating without money.

By now, I’m a friend of many parents - I talk with them every week. I believe it’s important to create this relationship with the player and the parents, to understand about the player, their values and so on. We’re humans and at the end of the day, they’re kids so it’s right to build a relationship. And sometimes they help me as well - like if the academy director doesn’t respond or is difficult to reach, they can help us to communicate or get in touch.

[ How do you find potential dual-nationals? ]

This is not an easy task.

It’s much different to the scouting we do at a club. There, you can be right or wrong but you have the tools, the software and the data to do it. You can watch them on video and get all the right data to support your report. But now, with the young players especially, we are scouting players sometimes from 13, 14, 15-years old and there is no data available.

For this role, I would say you need some experience and networking. Luckily, I’ve built a working environment to help locate different players, otherwise it’s impossible because there are players all over. For example, I knew the academy director at Southampton and he told me about a player with Peruvian roots in their academy. You can’t find information like this in any data tool.

Sometimes parents or players reach out, the National Team even did some marketing on their channels, so it’s a combination of things to find the players.

[ Can you give us an idea of how many players we’re talking about? How many potential Peruvian National Team players are in Europe? ]

I got to know the Peru FA last year and have been working officially with them since May. We have around 200 players that we’ve located around Europe - about 80 of these we’re currently in touch with between U15 and U17. It’s not easy because we can locate a lot of players but we’re still talking about the national team, it’s another level, it’s the best players in your whole country so the quality has to be very high.

[ What do you do at Sports Data Campus? ]

The Sports Data Campus side of my experience is an important part for me! I’m the head of the data analytics masters. This is the only master's degree in the world that is 100% focused on football data analysis. We have a lot of people from the football industry - many of my colleagues are also working at big clubs like Sporting CP and Aston Villa.

That’s why I also joined this campus - the community and they are great about education. I believe in data and the need to combine data and football, so I’m happy to help people who are doing their masters or need advice about working in the football industry. I feel proud that I can share my little experience and contribute to them. It’s a perfect fit with the other work I’m doing and keeps me updated on things happening on the technology side of football.

[ How has scouting changed since you started (or since you started watching with your dad :) )? ]

10 or 15 years ago, there was only ‘traditional’ scouting, it was more subjective opinion based on what you saw. Experience was especially important. Now, data is changing many football clubs, some aren’t taking data seriously yet but everyone is starting to look at it because there’s no other way.

I think the past few years have seen many teams copying, or taking from data analysis techniques from baseball or the gambling industry - they were pioneers in this. You can see all the changes at Liverpool implemented by Fenway Sports Group (also the owners of the Boston Red Sox).

Tracking data in particular has changed the way scouting is done. You can understand the context of football - what’s happening on the pitch - immediately after the game. You have all the data, every pass, shot, event and situation. You can analyze it and understand what is ‘good’ and ‘bad’.

[ You mentioned AI, what is something that will be possible, or even standard, in scouting in the next 5-10 years? ]

You can already see with set piece coaches but coaches (and analysis) are becoming more and more specific when analyzing positions and situations - and hiring specialists in charge of specific areas or situations. I think it’s not crazy that in a few years, we will see teams with very specific kinds of attacking and defending coaches.

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