体坛英语新闻：Interview: Johannes Spors' advice for scouting talented football players

BERLIN, Aug. 13 (Xinhua) -- 33-years old, a sport and political scientist, head of Scouting at the Bundesliga club TSG Hoffenheim - Johannes Spors and his team are working on two main topics: First and foremost they take care of Hoffenheim's worldwide scouting system. Additionally they analyze games and training sessions of TSG and uppcoming opponents.

Hoffenheim has one of the youngest teams in the German Bundesliga and is regarded as one of the leading clubs when it comes to finding talented youngsters.

Xinhua: Hello, Mr Spors being able to drive a car and talk on the phone at the same time shows us that as a good scout you at least need to be able to do two things at once?

Spors: (laughing) As long as you have both hands on the steering wheel and use a hands free kit. But your question is leading into the right direction. You need to be well-organized to do a job like this.

Xinhua: Well, what makes a good scout?

Spors: You can compare it with a gold digger's mentality. I want our scouts to press the alarm button, no matter what time of the day it is, no matter from which football stadium around the world they are on their way home from. I want them to call and tell me: Hey Johannes, there's a guy doing something special on the pitch. There's somebody that would be perfect for us. I tell them to be like a truffle pig and be able to fall in love with a player's style. Of course most of the time you sit in an arena and you don't have a feeling like that at all.

Xinhua: Meaning in addition to scouting skills, a scout needs a lot of passion. Maybe you could call it certain kind of hunting instinct?

Spors: That's the basics. But more important is that the candidate fits our philosophy which is clearly outlined and is different to others. We prefer a game where we quickly change from defense to attack after winning the ball - six to seven seconds later we should be able to score. As a scout for Hoffenheim you need to keep that in mind. There are many good players around but not are all suitable for us.

Xinhua: What kind of training does a scout need and is there a special program for all scouts?

Spors: Every one of them needs to be an analyst of the game. Call it an analytical ability. It helps when you have previously analyzed games for a coach. That means you need to know what a defender has to do in a particular system. You need to be able to see if a player has the skills to satisfy your individual demands. But generally as of right now there are no real guidelines when it comes to training scouts. In Germany we are on the verge of developing a scouts training program. Training at a private university will start soon. In general though, it is up to the clubs to train their scouts.

Xinhua: What age groups do you have among your scouts?

Spors: It is an advantage when you have different age groups and characters in your team. They have different views of what is going on. We have one staff member who is 63. He's highly experienced and used to be a successful youth coach. On the other side the younger ones are clever when it comes to modern support systems - technical data banks for example. I like the combination we have. It helps to gather as many bits and pieces about a player as possible.

Xinhua: What do you look at when you visit a player?

Spor: His technical ability which I can see on the pitch when he plays. If it is what we are looking for you then look at his attitude around the game. What does he do before the game, afterwards and when sitting on the bench? What can you say about his character? You might visit a training session and try to find answers to various questions: Is he training intensively on normal days when no game is around the corner is one of those. Then it comes to the off the pitch things. Trying to find answers about a player where it helps to have different perspectives.

Xinhua: So you employ full-time scouts like yourself and freelancers?

Spors: We mainly employ full-time scouts. In addition we have freelancers who are working part-time for us. You can't be everywhere and you have to be careful with your time. The most important things for a well-working scouting-department are a good in-team structure and a definite distribution of the tasks at hand. This is the only way to scout actively for players that fulfill our criteria. On top of that is essential to have a great network.

Xinhua: In which part of the country or world do you look for talents?

Spors: There are different systems available. Either you have a gigantic network around the world or - more like us - you decide what markets or countries you want to look at and concentrate on. For instance, you decide the market in Asia is interesting at the moment. You have tournaments like continental championships to cover. You watch for instance the under 17 World Championship, the U-21 Copa in South-America. You can also use TV scouting. In the meantime you get every game that is played around the world on tape. When we see a particular country as being interesting, then one of us will watch all the league games of a match day which takes two or three days. Doing that is quicker than sending someone to a country and having him stay there for four weeks. One thing is fundamental in scouting, you have to be fast. Therefore you can't waste too much time. Therefore you need to well-organized.

Xinhua: What age groups do you start with? And when is the time to say this or that player will make it to the top?

Spors: First we look around our club in a radius of 80 to 90 kilometers. There we take a look at the 11 and 12-year olds as well. We have a team for future prospects. We leave most of the talented youngsters at their clubs but invite them on a regular basis for special training sessions. They come for a vacation camp but are still players of their club but have started a bond with us.

Xinhua: And what about your age-groups?

Spors: The normal scouting starts with the U-14 teams. From the U-16s, the players stay with us all the time and are located in our academy. The U16 age group is when you would allow players from further away to stay with us. You have special trained scouts specializing in younger age groups rights up to ones scouting for the first team. The professional scouts start with players at the age of 17 or 18. At this age players have a chance to break into the senior side.

Xinhua: Meaning at an age of 17 or 18, you can tell this or that player will make it?

Spors: The step up from the youth teams to the senior team is the biggest one of them all. First talented players play in our U-23 team in a lower league and can develop. Only a few of the U-19 team make it directly into the senior team. For every single player you start to develop an individual career plan. Most players need some time to adapt to the senior setup. Some develop perfectly in our U-23 team, some go on loan to other clubs - maybe in the second division for a year - to develop.

Xinhua: How is your data bank set up?

Spors: Every scout reports on every game he watches, you start to design a player profile - you find out about abilities and add a judgment on, for instance, his tactical ability, his general coordination, his physical development and so on. You take a close look at his potential for the future. You can imagine that we watch a lot of games and players during a week - to benefit from it all, it is essential to have a well-designed and organized data bank. It is a huge amount of information that is lost if you don't enter it in your data bank in a way that it can be used easily.

Xinhua: Is there a certain codex for scouts or is it up to the individual club to determine how they should do their job?

Spors: There is no general codex but there is no doubt that we demand high standards. We don't make promises we can't keep - for instance. In our club at Hoffenheim, it is not the scouts who give contracts to players. If it comes to a contact with a player or his parents, we help, but then it is the job of the general manager to do that. And there is one important thing: The way you work quickly becomes known, meaning if you are reputable and reliable people will come to respect you. We can't promise anyone that he will play in the first team within the next three years. I can promise him we will give him the best possible education and be honest with him.

Xinhua: meaning showing that young players have a chance to play in the first team is worth more than money.

Spors: This season we again will have an extremely young team - that is a message for all footballers and young talents.

Xinhua: What would you recommend a huge nation like China as regards a scouting support system?

Spors: The most important thing is a clear structure, an excellent spread of the staff members and a clearly-structured job profile for scouts. You have to carefully select your scouting staff and ensure they are continually trained and go on courses every few months. Training coaches is important too, you need hot spots for talents in different regions.

Xinhua: In China you don't have such a widespread club system as you have in Germany, sports and football is done more via a campus and school system?

Spors: In a big country like China, the best way to find talented players would be via regional championships or college championships. You need to set up a system of regional championships. That would be a kind of tournament system. The tournament character secures a good overview of players and talents. And don't forget about scout and coach training. Over and above the regional championships you would need tournaments for bigger regions and so on. Only looking at the number of people in China and the enthusiasm regarding sport - it seems to be a paradise for scouting - and a lot of work.