Video Evaluation is one of the 3 Areas of Assessment for Football Recruiters. The 3 areas of assessment are:
- Live Assessment
- Video Evaluation
- Player Analysis and Assessment
All professional football clubs use video evaluation as a fundamental tool for identifying and recruiting new players, and the video scout plays a critical role in this.
They work with the Head of Scouting, the live assessment team and the player analytics teams to create a holistic view of each potential player. By identifying football players using video and numerical analysis, they can study all areas of a player’s ability. They also develop the new best practice for evaluating player and team performance.
How Video Evaluation Works
During a video evaluation session, the video scout will use software specifically for football video analysis, allowing them to edit and analyse games. This means that more time is free for scouting. Scouts and coaches can also record games and pass them on to the video scout to enter into the software.
Not only does video evaluation enable coaches to improve existing signings, but it also helps scouts and academy recruiters to new spot talent. All uploaded video clips are marked and tagged, which enables the video scout to instantly watch a football game for specific highlights, situations, and players.
Common tags used are: forwards, wings, defence, free kicks, corners, formation, play types, shots on goal, possession, tackles, challenges.
It would take scouts hours to individual review recorded game footage. However, video evaluation software allows them to view game stats of key stats for both players and teams. enabling the scouts to create video presentations for other scouts and recruiters to consider, helping football academies to prioritise who they should be watching.
Data collected by Video Evaluation
Examples of the data you can collect from your match and training performance used in player performance analysis software are:- Personal stats (weight, height, age, birth country)
- Position/s played
- Preferred foot
- Awards / Trophies won
- Number of penalties taken / scored
- Number of Yellow / Red Cards
- Number of Goals per match / season
- Minute when goals are scored
- Number of Assists per match / season
- Outcomes of different competitive situations (1v1’s, penalties, free kicks, open goal, corners)
- Personal records
- Bleep test scores
- Average Kilometres travelled per game
- Sprint time for 60m
- Team possession
- Player possession
- Player run comparisons
- Player heat maps
- Player tracking
- Ball tracking
- Complete training and matchday cycles
- Real-time scores
- Historical sports information
Video Evaluation Software
By signing up for your own video evaluation software you can make your own video analysis highlights to send to recruiters, and also pick out areas for improvement in your game, or even suss out your competition. The below is a list of the main video evaluation software used by professional football clubs:
- PROZONE http://prozonesports.stats.com/
- SPORTSCODE http://sportstec.com/products/sportscode-10-whats-new
- WYSCOUT http://wyscout.com/
- IDSWAP https://vidswap.com
How to Influence a Video Scout
Collect data regarding your match and training performance. As all video scouts deal with stats and player performance data, it is important that you track your own stats. This allows you to illustrate your talent, or continuous improvement, as this communicates to the video scout you know of the importance of your statistical records.Characteristics of a Video Scout
A video scout will usually have started out as a generic football scout, and typically has expertise in the following areas:- Sport Science
- Coaching
- Individual and team performance and analysis
- Previous scouting experience
- Strong technical football knowledge
- Observation with a solid grounding of varying working methodologies
- Excellent at manipulating data regarding player performance in training and matches
- Managing online performance
- An extensive ‘real world football’ knowledge
