How Clubs REALLY Find the Next Lamine Yamal - Eyeball - Deep Dive Into Soccer - Football

I've never heard anyone talk about this, but it's one of the

most important things to get signed.

They saw what others missed while the football world chased

the spotlight. They looked underneath it to

back pitches, playgrounds and remote academies, to the

overlooked and the under scouted.

And this this doesn't just apply for the top 1% of the players in

the world, this applies to everyone.

That's where Eyeball Football Technology stepped in.

They're building 1 of the largest video databases in youth

football, with coverage stretching from France to

Scandinavia to West Africa, helping the best clubs in the

world uncover tomorrow's stars today.

He told me after that, after 15 minutes of watching that game,

he was like, this is a good player, but he's nowhere near

the mid league level. And this is how you or the

Starboy you know could get signed.

Modern scouting, real access, untapped potential.

This is perspectives. And joining us to share the

story of Eyeball are key staff members Benjamin Balkin and

Fernando Mendeville in their own words.

My biggest mistake was. My biggest mistake was.

My name is Benjamin Balkin, I'm one of the Co founders of

Eyeball. My name is Fernando Mendevil.

I'm the head of product for Eyeball.

This is perspectives. For right in bollard all.

Right, guys, First of all, thank you for joining us.

Welcome to RB Ben. We'll start with you as as the

founder. I know you started out as an

Academy prospect at Monaco. Talk to us a bit about your

journey and you know how you discovered kind of that early,

early career, I guess. Sure.

So my name is Ben Ben Balkin. I am Danish of, of passport,

actually. I was born and raised in the

southeast of France. Yeah, football's always been,

you know, everything I can remember really from from life

as a as a kid, I came up through the ranks at IS Monaco, started

playing there. It was my first club really when

I was, you know, 5-6 years old, started playing there.

And when you're that young, you can just rock up to like a a

mini trial and they they, they take you in.

So that's kind of how I started and I played there all the way

to yeah, the second year of under seventeens.

So yeah, I had some great memories.

This is everything I ever wanted to do really, you know, play

play football in the weekends. I was a ball boy at the at the

stud leader, you know, trying to grab shirts of of of the first

team players over there. So that was really my thing.

That was that's my city, that's my club.

And my dream as a kid was really to to go and play for the first

team there. I had yeah, the Academy.

So in France, like the Academy system starts at under sixteens.

So first year under seventeens they call it and then I kind of

stopped. I won't blame it on the injury,

but that that for sure didn't didn't help.

He's laughing. But but yeah, that's that was

part of the story. But I had a period where I get

went like 2 years without playing football, without

touching a football. And whilst I was injured there

was a Youth League game against Benfica.

In Benfica, they had a player called Renato Sanchez and he was

just on another level. And in Monaco we had a guy,

there was a guy called Tristan Muyumba, who's 97, so a year

older than me. And he was just toying with him

and just both of them in the midfield like this.

And I was #6 as well, I just remember watching this game, I

remember like it was yesterday and I was like, it's probably

good that I'm injured because I would have, I'm never going to

be at that level, right? So that was that was kind of a

moment that that stuck with me. And when I was 18, I decided to

move away from Monaco. I felt like I did, I, I needed,

you know, to experience something different.

And I went to, to Copenhagen, decided to move to Copenhagen,

kind of my home country, reconnect with my with my home.

I studied over there and that's where I met the other Co founder

of, of eyeball, Emil Kielson, who couldn't be here with us

today, but who's also an essential part of, of eyeball.

So we met at university in Copenhagen during studies.

I completely cut with football, cut with everything, didn't

play, didn't do anything really related to football, then

started to miss it. And I found I met a few people

that were that introduced me to something that I didn't really

know existed before. It's something called scouting.

I started to do some something that we called scouting

consultancy. So I I met a guy who was

basically what he was doing. He was helping clubs, He was

living in Copenhagen and he was helping clubs outside of Denmark

who had no scouts in Denmark. Map out the best Danish

youngsters really. And I thought that was really

cool. I thought that was really

interesting. And he started explaining, you

know, how clubs were working and how scouting worked and how this

player moved over there and why this player didn't because, you

know, I thought that was really passionate.

I told him maybe I could do the same for France.

You know, maybe I maybe I could do the same for France.

I know the system in France. I know I have quite a good

network. I know a lot of players, all of

that stuff. And that's how I got introduced

to scouting and started started scouting.

So yeah, that's my. Story How many years were you

doing the consultancy stuff? A year really.

But but whilst doing this I had the idea of of eyeball.

The whole concept came to me. So yeah, I don't know if you

want to get into this right now or or later, Yeah.

Far over to Fernando, similar but obviously different story.

You played semi pro in Mexico. Talk us through some of that

kind of early context for you and why, why, why didn't you

take up the invite to join our professor?

Team, we're just getting started and you want to make me cry

already? It was a long time ago.

This was back in 1999. There was no social networks

like the Internet, which is kind of starting.

There was no video data, anything.

It was just pure sweat. So I was, I was a bit late to

the sport. I started when I was 8, maybe at

school, not in an Academy. My parents were not related to

the sport at all. So I discovered it by, you know,

myself and started playing informally.

I got in love with it. Turns out that I was pretty good

at it and when I was 14 I received this call from a club

called Pachuca. So they, they were new to the

Premier League of Mexico. And when, when they made me the

offer to relocate to Pachuca and join their their football

Academy, I felt I deserved more. I felt I deserved a better club,

like, I don't know, Chivas or maybe Cruz Azul America, one of

the big clubs in Mexico. But I didn't know that saying no

to that will generate a big silence.

And I pretty much became invisible after saying no to

that opportunity. And then I just saw how two of

my friends that said yes to the same opportunity, one of them

made it all the way up to the national team in Mexico.

And I was like, damn it, maybe I should have said yes, but I was

also afraid. I was also afraid because I'm

not coming from a rich family or anything, but I was fortunate

enough to have education, food on the table all the time.

And when you live in Latin America, you realize that 99% of

the players that make it to professional are under this

situation where they either make it or they're condemned to just

stay poor and there's no way to, to have any social improvement.

So they do it for their families.

And it's, it's really hard to fight that hunger.

It's really hard to fight that hunger when all you want is this

desire to become professional. So that's part of the story.

I, you know, I became invisible for like 3 or 4 years.

Then I decided to go to college. I did tryouts for, you know, the

first time in my life. And it, you know, I became

visible again. I was, I was picked among, I

don't know, 300 players of the university.

And I was one of the, you know, starting 11.

And I felt good again, got a scholarship, which is kind of a

translation of getting paid for playing.

But yeah, that's that's pretty much how I got started with the

sport. For sure.

Do you, do you regret your decision not to take up the

offer? We'll see.

And do you think maybe this isn't a question you want to

answer? But would you, when you look

back at that, do you look at it as kind of a fault of how

Mexican football set up for youth prospects or is it more of

a fault of yourself? Yeah, like the, the I, I don't

regret it because decisions are decisions and so many good

things have happened to me and during my life, including

entrepreneurship. Nothing crazy things like just,

you know, I was on the Shark time show in Mexico and you

know, I was able to to receive investment in other companies

from my biggest idols like graph of Marcus and Miguel.

You own like big names. So it's been fun.

But but I I can't deny that I always ask what if the problem

wasn't my decision? The problem was visibility.

I only had one opportunity and, and I think that nowadays that's

not necessarily the case, especially not thanks to

eyeball. Now you can have maybe more than

one shot. I could have been scouted by a

College in the United States, for example, an MLS club or

even, you know, other clubs in, in the region.

But I, I, I didn't receive that call anymore.

So no one was watching. That's a problem.

For sure, before we get on to kind of eyeball then, I'm just

wondering, so a lot of our viewers are probably aspiring

football players or they wish they were aspiring football

players. And I think like a story that's

as old as time is football players who maybe don't make it

as far as they feel they could have or should have.

What was some like mental challenges that each of you

faced back then? Because this can be quite a

lonely Rd. I think sometimes, especially

like when you get released by clubs and things of that nature,

just as anything that kind of comes to mind from that.

Yeah, for sure. Don't know where to start

really. There's, you know, you're in a,

you're in a dressing room with 20 other boys that have the

exact same role as you. And we all know deep inside that

maybe none of us are going to get through or maybe it's going

to be 1 and we kind of have an idea who it's going to be.

But no one really says it. And when you get a set back

like, you know, a big injury or you get released and so on,

it's, you know, no one can make you feel good, right?

Like it's you against you. And I think one thing that I

wish I knew when that moment happened to me and I kind of

understood that this was it like the the dream I had I had since

I was five years old was not going to happen.

It was if you don't become a professional footballer, there's

a million other things you can do to work within football and I

had no idea. I was clueless, I had no idea.

No one ever told me. I had no idea.

I thought if you want to like football player, that's it, you

have to play. But there are 5000 professional

football players in the world, 5000, that's it, that's it.

Those are guys that are just full time professional football

players. That's it.

No more. So if you are the 5002 you know

best you, you won't be a professional.

Maybe you might be semi pro, you might be not going to have a

good life. But no one told me you could be

an entrepreneur within football. No one told me you could be a

sporting director. No one told me you could be a

scout. I didn't even know it it

existed. And I'm sure 99% of you know

players under the age of 15 don't even know what a scout

really is like. You probably heard of them, you

think that you see them with their big jackets on the

sideline of the pitches, but you don't really know what it is,

what it means. You know, how much weight do

they have within in clubs and all of this.

You can be a physio, you could be anything.

There's thousands of jobs, right?

And this is, this would probably be my message is.

And sometimes, whether you want to accept it and admit it or

not, you'd, you'll have a better career and you'll be more

successful if you're not a player because you're probably

not going to be good enough. And that's just a harsh reality.

And this realization came to me quite late with maturity.

And you start watching, you know, training sessions of

really, really good teams. And you start watching you watch

those players, you're like, like, you have no idea how good

you you need to be to play just, you know, second division of of

the top five country in Europe. Like you have no idea how how

good you need to be. And the players that you see on

TV, you're like, I don't think he's that good.

May I promise you I'm telling you.

I'm telling you he is. Yeah.

So this would be, this would be my kind of thing that I, I, I

wish someone told me when I was like 15, you know?

Yeah, those top level players make it look so easy, right?

So that's kind of the illusion that it must be.

It's insane you take it for granted on TV but go and like

invest in a in an expensive ticket and go and sit like 5th

row in a Premier League ground. Just pay whatever cost.

Just pay it and go and just watch how those boys control the

ball, how they, you know, pick out how they scan, how how fast

they pass the ball, how fast they are, how strong they are.

And then you'll just go back and try, try again and understand

how bad you are. That's that's the truth.

That's the truth that no one wants to hear, but that's that's

how I feel for. Sure.

Anything you want to add, Fernando?

Yeah, so competition is fierce and, and if you think about it

as a person, you're going through all of this when you're

still a kid. You're 14, you're 15, you're 16,

right? I'm 41 and I still, you know,

struggle with a lot of things when it comes to mental strength

and, and making decisions and, and trying to survive in the

business environment. So picture you as a 14 year old,

15 year old trying to survive to this, right, trying to survive

to a bad weekend, to a bad game, to, to comparing yourself to

others all the time, knowing that they're chasing the same

spot that you're chasing. It's just, you know, Ben just

mentioned. So sometimes it feels like it's

just about the talent, But it's not just that it's, it's a lot

of things. Parents play a big role here,

coaches, which is also one of the things that you can do to

stay around the sport. They they play a big role here.

Your friends play a big role. I remember how as soon as my

friends who were supposed to be my friends find, found out that

I rejected that opportunity, they started inviting me to have

beer for the first time. Like that's not the thing.

So there's a lot of peer pressure outside.

But I think the message here is it's going to be OK.

Even if you don't make it is going to be OK.

There's going to be so much to do in your life.

So learn from the process, Learn, learn and get, get strong

out of the process, even if you don't make it, because you're

going to need that for whatever comes next, whether it's

football or not. You just need to go through it.

So mental, it's, it's a trend now.

It's been, you know, a trend for years now, the mental health

that, you know, the health issues and all that stuff, but

it's been always there and, and you need to get surrounded by

the right people if you want to go to war and have a chance to

succeed. Well, kind of on that note then,

Eyeball, I guess you've alluded to it a little bit, but what was

kind of the inciting moment for that light bulb moment, I guess

of coming up with this idea? And then also, crucially, what

is it? What is it?

It's, it's a video and data scouting platform for the elite,

really like the highest level of youth football in in the world.

That's, that's what it is in one sentence.

It started in 2019, I would say, when I was doing this scouting

consultancy, I remember having a conversation with a scout.

He was a French scout for Southampton.

So like his job was to bring there's, this was before Brexit.

His job was to bring one or two top prospects from France

directly to some professional at 16 at at Southampton, right?

He was the guy that brought Jan Valerie to Southampton, for

example. That was like his thing.

So he would be, he lived in Paris.

He would constantly be, you know, going out watching games

live. He'd be very well connected to a

lot of agents. A lot of people wanted to know

this guy because they could recommend him players for

Southampton. And I remember him telling me

like, yeah, next weekend I'm going to the southwest of France

because I'm, I'm going to watch a defender.

I was like, OK, how did you know?

Who is he like, yeah, this this player, you know, there's this

agent I know recommended me the player.

He called me. He said I have this, I have this

defender. It's 2005.

So this was 2019. So you can calculate the age

around around 1616 years of age. He's 1415 years, 15 years of age

2005, you know, tall like really, really good prospect

could really be something we're looking for.

It was a tip from from my friend, this agent.

So I'm going to go and watch him.

I was like, oh, OK. So so he invested in a in a

plane to go there because France is a big country.

Plan to go there hotel night woke up breakfast, went to the

game and I, he told me after that after 15 minutes of

watching that game, he was like this is a good player but he's

nowhere near Premier League level.

Like he'll sign for second division club in France, the

club in France easily, but he's nowhere near being good enough

for us. And he left at half time.

And that was a moment where I thought, there's nothing wrong

with him getting a recommendation from an agent

about a player, a tip. We we call it in scouting.

That's that's fine, that's perfect.

That's never going to go away. And it shouldn't because a lot

of great stories have happened from tips.

But the first thing I was like, the first thing he would have

done if that player was not 15 years old, but if that player

was 22 and professional player, he would have opened his

computer. He would have turned on the TV

and he would have watched the full game from his home.

And then he would have decided, is that player good enough?

Yes. OK, I'm going to go and see live

and, you know, check if this is a good enough player.

You know, I'm going to see how he warms up.

I'm just going to check out the rest that I couldn't see on TV,

which is that's how it works in professional football.

That's how scouting works. But because this kid, there was

no video on him. The only way to watch him was to

go and travel down there. And this was within France.

But this happened all the time, going from France to Africa to

South America, from Europe to South America, all of those

English scouts travelling to Brazil to go and find, you know,

Brazilian players and all of that stuff.

So I was like, this is as inefficient as it can be.

It's very costly for the clubs. And this just like you can't be

everywhere. You are missing out.

So because this weekend he watched no other games, right?

And then youth football, everything is played Saturday

and Sunday. So from Monday to Friday, he's

kind of like waiting and writing his reports from the previous

weekend and the bad player that he saw and waiting for the next

weekend to go and see the next player that someone recommended

him. That was so inefficient.

And that was the moment where I thought, you know, we need to we

need to find a way so that this player is on a platform where

you can just watch loads of video on him.

And I asked myself the question, why are those games not filmed?

And you keep going to the and you have it in England as well,

right? You like those private

academies, those, you know, just Academy football in general.

There's always scouts everywhere.

And you keep thinking like, why are those guys here?

Why are they not, you know what, what are they looking for?

And yeah, I'm just, you know, I'm, I'm looking for a defender

and I go to this one game and I hope, I hope that there's going

to be a good defender. So we analyzed the problem a

little bit and I thought, what's the reason for this club?

Why? Why are they not filming their

games? And the answer was that the

clubs that are usually developing players are not

necessarily the ones with the most money, right?

You hear all these stories, and I heard all these stories when I

was doing this in the Paris region.

You know, those amateur clubs, those clubs where like there's a

club called Sacel where Riad Mahres comes from.

Like this club is probably the best club in Paris in terms of

they play at the absolute highest level from under 12 to

under 19. It's insane.

They send between 15 and 20 players straight from amateur

football to academies every single year.

Their games are not being filmed.

There's something wrong with it. But for them investing €3000 in

a camera is a huge investment. Their budget for the whole year

is €40,000 for traveling, for paying coaches, for paying kids,

you know, so they can't. So we thought, OK, if we can

remove this financial barrier and give them the camera, then

they'll film. So this is what we did.

So we decided to kind of sponsor the cameras for the for the

clubs. So we mapped out, it started

with France, but now we're in 35 countries across 3 continents,

including England. We start with France.

We mapped out like the best, we, I call them talent factories.

Where are the talent factories? Where does Kilan and Bape come

from? Where does Colomoney come from?

Where does William Seliba come from?

Where do they come from? OK.

But we're going to put cameras there, there, there, there,

there. Where does that, Fernando?

Where does the next Fernando come from?

Not from Paris. Not from Paris, actually.

Unfortunately, and we decided to give them cameras and the deal

is they film, right, They record everything.

They have access to it themselves.

So they'll use it as a like analysis tool, training tool.

So for the first time ever, those kids can record

themselves. Keep in mind that I played in

Monaco for more than 12 years of my life.

I have never seen myself play football.

Wow. Because we just didn't film our

games. There was not a thing.

Yeah, I just, I, I've never seen myself play football.

Maybe that's a good thing, actually, I don't know.

But and then all of those games came up on on a platform and

then professional clubs, scouting departments can buy

access to that platform to access the database, right.

So on top of the recording of the game, we gathered everything

from, you know, date of birth on players, height, weight is the

right footed left foot. What's his position?

You know, we did like a whole profile of the player.

We got the team sheets, which sounds super simple, but it's

the most difficult thing to get usually in youth football is a

proper team sheet that matches the actual shirt numbers on a

game. And you know, that's, that's how

you know, crazy it it used to be.

And we put that on the platform and we just exploded by by doing

this. There was a really, really,

really need in the market for this.

I remember, I remember working with two guys at Huddersfield,

the Academy manager and the head of Academy recruitment, and they

had identified that they're in a region in Huddersfield in

Yorkshire where they are competing directly with Man

City, Man United, Leeds, Sheffield United, Sheffield

Wednesday. So they were always in a

situation where they were getting, if they wanted to play

in a certain position, they were always getting like the 5th, 6th

best player of the region and there's not endless talent in

that area of, of England, right. So they thought, OK, we need to

go and find players in a region where there's an overload of

talent and not enough football clubs.

And they had identified Paris as that source of talent.

Cause in Paris you have PSG and you have Paris FC.

Paris FC just promoted to Ligand now.

But I can tell you five years ago they were in 3rd division or

like bottom of second division. Not a great project but you have

12 million people who live in Paris and it's like a football

mad region and I was working with them and they were the only

way for them to like map out players in Paris was to fly.

They had to drive from Huddersfield to Manchester, fly

Manchester to Chal de Gold Airport in Paris.

I picked them up in the car and we would drive around on a

Saturday afternoon watching 20 minutes of this game where I

knew there was a good winger, 50 minutes of that game where I

knew there was a good left with it said to have 20 minutes of

the other game and they would write on their phones.

Yellow team, I like number 3710 blue team #5 red team of the

next game #9 And at the end of the weekend, they would send me

that list. And I had to go and figure out

who #9 from the red team was calling coaches.

Like that's how we would find information on players.

And then we realized that player doesn't have a French passport,

so he can't transfer at 16, so he's useless for you.

Just wasted a whole weekend. That's how it used to work.

So we just thought, OK, we need to digitalize all this and not

only for the club but just also for players to get more

opportunities, man, because that's also what it was about.

So for sure that's what I always.

I guess like it's probably the same for all the best ideas.

It's something that seems so obvious in a way that it's

amazing nobody was doing it. So I think like what you've kind

of filled in that gap is is really important.

Fernando, did you want to explain kind of the elite and

discover aspects of the platform?

Yeah, maybe before we go there, I would like to share when I was

invited to join AIBO as a head of product.

And when they explain it all to me, I can help to think that

AIBO was the missing layer between a talent player and

their future, because it connects everything.

And then this is not just about the lead.

And and because if you if you, if you say the word elite, it

seems like a super high thing, right?

But elite is relative. What's elite for Ben or for me,

it's definitely something different from a player in India

that is trying to make it for a certain, you know, very specific

team. Elite could be just making the

local league and that's, that's, that's good enough for you.

And, and you know, if, if, if you look at the, the story that

Ben just shared with us, of course, we started with the top

1% because it's not so obvious, but it's kind of easy to

understand that and to, you know, to add value.

But, but this was always meant to be for the other 99% too.

So, you know, we'd like to say talent is everywhere, right?

And visibility means opportunity.

And this is this doesn't just apply for the top 1% of the

players in the world. This applies to everyone, to

everyone that wants to become visible and get something and

you know, get something better in their football career,

whatever that means. So when you are creating a

business, you need to make sure that you find something valuable

as soon as you can, because then you can grow on top of it,

right? You need to find stability in

terms of financials and business so that you can dare to go for

more. And I know we all hear these

crazy stories about startups where they magically found the

idea and then three months after they were everywhere in the

world and when they were servicing everyone and it was

magical. That's very good for a Netflix

show, maybe, right? Or for a short movie.

But the reality is not like that.

The reality is that you usually have an idea, you identify a

problem, you try to solve it, you failed, and then you try to

solve it again, and then you fail, and then at some point you

get it. What happens next is what makes

a company takes a company from a good company to an amazing

company. And for eyeball, that's the

other 99%. So there's a difference between

what's coming next and what we have built over, you know, the

past five years and now. It's about democratizing access

to video data and way many other things that I'll share with you

for everyone around the world, one country at a time, one

category at a time, one person at a time.

So yes, it's about optimizing the way scouting works because

there's still a lot to do there. I'm just waiting and looking

forward for I will to get to Mexico because I want to see my

fellow Mexican friends getting discovered and getting more and

more players in the best leagues in Europe.

But at the same time, I'm so looking forward to get that

little guy in a small town that is looking for a new opportunity

that, I mean, just a, you know, a basic elementary school

scholarship. They get good or you know, high

school scholarship. It's just survival, right?

So that's what discovery is for. So yes, it's about talent, yes,

yes, it's about visibility, but it's also about progression.

If you want to get to the next step, you need to get better.

How do you get better? How do you get seen?

That's what I will discover is about.

I made a lot of sense. I think, yeah, it's going to

change a lot of people's lives and careers, hopefully.

With that in mind, who is currently using the platform in

terms of clubs, leagues, etcetera?

So there's the thing with eyeball is it's a lot of people

have called it a win, win, win. So kind of everybody benefits.

Everyone in the ecosystem benefits from using this

platform. So we of course have the

professional clubs. Who is that?

That's anyone from analysts, scouts, Academy directors,

technical directors, sporting directors, people that are in

clubs who have the opportunity to, you know, find players and

recruit those players. The thing we must never forget

is that those clubs have something that every single

player wants is they have minutes that they can give to

football players in a football club.

And that's one thing that they have that no one else has.

So those guys are using the platform, they're browsing

eyeball, they're using, you know, watching hundreds of games

every week on the system trying to find the the next player.

Then we have what we call the partner clubs.

So the partner clubs are the clubs that I was telling you

about previously that have a camera that's all displaying

their players on iball, right? So those are the thousands of

youth clubs that we have partnered with throughout the

world. So we have more than 5000

partner clubs now around across Europe, Africa and South America

also, which is something it's almost the most exciting project

we've, we are working on right now, South America.

And then we have players, right, The players also impacted.

The players can also watch their games back.

We have more than 1/4 of a million players on the platform

now. So the players are also impacted

and of course their closest friends and and and family who

can finally watch the games of of their friend of their sons,

the sense back. So those are the three

categories of people that are using eyeball at the minute.

Wicked. I think we've kind of touched on

it a little bit in terms of like scouts flying to different parts

of the country, watching one game, having to go home.

I guess in like a broader sense for people that don't know, how

does like scouting and signing for a club work?

Because I think like, it's probably different for every

club and it's a question you can't necessarily answer easily.

But like, you know, you have directors of football, you have

managers who sign players, you've got chief scouts, just

kind of is there like a broad picture you can paint on that

process? I can tell you how usually most

clubs are structured more or less, which will be, they'll

have a a sporting director for the first team and then they'll

have a a recruitment and scouting team for that first

team. So that usually be usually be,

as you said, a chief scout or head of scouting and under that

you'll have anywhere from one to sometimes hundreds of scouts

that are either responsible for certain age groups or certain

age groups within certain regions.

So you can be like French scouts responsible for France from

under fifteens to under nineteens, right?

Or you could be, it could be anything really.

And then you'll have more or less the same set up in the

Academy, but you'll have an Academy director, you'll have a

you'll have a head of Academy recruitment and the same under

him. You'll have scouts and analysts.

There's some clubs have something in the middle which

they call an emerging talent department with a head, head of

emerging talent and emerging talent scouts.

Emerging talent is like the 16 to 19 brackets usually.

And Academy will probably be younger than that.

Again, depending on on the club. Clubs will usually work with

something that we call shadow teams.

What is a shadow team? It's you'll have like your 11 as

you can imagine it with like a, let's say a 433.

And for each position, clubs will have their top three or top

ten players that are their preferred players for this

position. It will be players that are not

in the club currently. So you who are watching this,

you might be on a shadow team of a club without even knowing it.

That's how they work. So they'll have, I don't know, 7

left backs #1 being their top priority, the one that they want

to recruit. And if they can't recruit that

one because he's going to another club or he's too

expensive or he gets injured or, you know, might be a lot of

different reasons, then he goes out and then the second comes to

1st pick and then they'll try to recruit that player.

So usually a lot of clubs work with shadow teams per country

and per age group. So you'll have a 2008 year of

birth age, shadow team, 2008 shadow team, 2009 shadow team.

You know, that's how it works. And it's the same on, on, on,

on, first team across across the globe.

And then the dynamic is that the scout is the scout is missioned

with the identification of players.

Then he has to write what we call a scouting report.

So it's usually a AA1 page of I think this player is really good

at this, this, this. I think he's less good at that,

that that, and there'll be an overall rating.

Each club has different rating systems.

And that report goes into a internal database with a lot of

reports on thousands and thousands of players.

It's crazy to see actually. And from that the chief scout

will pick up, pick out certain players, certain reports and

will then promote those players to a sporting director who then

will make is eventually the one who has to make the decision on

the sporting side of which player do we want to move

forward with or not. And from that, once he has that

list and he goes to someone higher up, could be a chief

financial officer, could be ACEO, could be a chairman, could

be an owner, sometimes directly or general director.

The naming depends on the country.

And then financially they will decide can they afford this

player, what do we offering, etcetera.

And this is where negotiation will start with agents and so

on. So that's usually kind of how it

works. And I had no idea that this was

the case until I was probably 21 years old.

And I know a lot of players that are young players that are

playing regular first team minutes right now that still

have no idea that this is how it works.

And for me, this is insane. And I think players, it's

really, really important to understand how this industry

works behind the scenes behind the football pitch, because if

you understand how clubs scout, how they recruit, what they look

at when they recruit, then you can adapt your life, your

playing, your playing style. You can certain things that you

want to do on purpose or want to avoid on purpose as well,

because you know this might cost you certain things, right?

So that is that is how it how it works.

What, what can you tell for for the players that are watching?

At least this was the case when I was young.

I thought that scouting was based on this one performance,

one time when they see me. But you know, it's not like

that. It's about the story, it's about

how you progress. Can you share something with

them and how I was very relevant for that piece.

It was the case when you were younger and when I was younger

because you would usually only have the opportunity to see a

player once because it was only live scouting.

So when you see that player, whether he has a really good

performance or really bad one, that's the one you'll stick with

and that's the report you'll write.

And that's what's going to be remembered in the system

internally. But this is changing now with

eyeball and with video scouting in general, because you'll see

that really top performance and then you can go home and watch

five more games in one day and go, well, actually this was this

was not his normal level or the other way around, poor

performance. But you see some things be like,

he was not on it today. You go home, you watch five

other games from months ago and you're like, OK, he's actually

much better than I thought. So this is how it has, it has

evolved. And This is why today as a as a

young football player, you can't really rely on scouts being at

the right place at the right time anymore.

When you've had that top game, you have to be super consistent

because scouts will never evaluate you anymore on just

that one performance. They will evaluate you over a /

a season or seasons even. I've seen scouts go back two

seasons to watch, you know, a game of a player that they were

trying to recruit now to see how has he, you know, was he better

two years ago and has he gone like this, which means he might

keep going like this or was he, has he become a better player?

Which means this, it's hopeful for us that he will continue

improving. This is, this has changed the

game really. So players must be extremely

consistent in their performance because they have to know

they're being watched at all times. 100%.

Like if you, if you're a player, in other words, you are in

control now, if you, if you dedicate yourself to improve it,

you know, every day, every week. And I always remember the Kobe

Bryant thing saying that just get 1% better each day and so

on. If you focus on progression,

you're going to have a chart now.

It's not about a lucky shot. It's about just being

consistent. Understanding not not.

It's not just about training hard, it's about knowing what to

train now because that's how you get better.

Definitely. So in in terms of professional

clubs also who are using the platform, I think it's worth

mentioning that most clubs in the top five 7 leagues in Europe

are now using this. So there's only two clubs in the

Premier League that are still not using eyeball.

You've got only like the same 2 clubs in France that are the

France league and that are not using it.

So most have really adopted and put it at the core and the

center of their strategy. And that includes, I mean, we

can't really name names of clubs because of confidentiality and

stuff. They're not really too happy

with us dropping their names and logos everywhere.

But the bigger, the bigger clubs in the world are are using it's,

I think in this season's Champions League, we had 80% of

clubs that were that were actually using eyeball in their

emerging talent scouting strategy as a tool that they use

on a daily, weekly basis. So it's been really implemented

and you wouldn't know about it if you're not working in a

football club. It's very niche, but it's

implemented really, really at the core of of professional

clubs because the challenge of finding the next top young

player in football club has never been more important than

it is today, right? 100% jumping back forward.

Then we kind of spoke about the process of scouting and signing.

Apart from like I guess ability and injury, what are some issues

young players maybe face that people don't know about?

Like behind the scenes stuff, maybe political stuff in the

game? Is there anything you can touch

on in that regard? You're right, it's not all about

your ability. And sometimes as a player you

might do everything correct, but the right club is just not there

for you because they might already have in house a player

that they've already invested in and they for, yeah, political

reasons, you can call it, they don't want to push competition

to that certain player because he signed a big contract or the

agent is really influenced inside the club.

You know, those might be things that kind of remove an

opportunity for a player. There's also something that I've

never heard anyone talk about, but it's the importance of

language for for a player. So you've got a lot of clubs,

like international clubs, clubs in in England, but also in

Belgium, in Scandinavia, in the Netherlands.

If they look at a player who plays in their country, it might

be Mexico, Spain, France that does not speak English that

might rule this play out because they'll be scared that he

doesn't adapt well. And he comes training and

training is in English and he just doesn't get it.

But he doesn't, he doesn't understand.

He cannot speak to the coach. The coach cannot transmit things

to him, but he cannot speak to the physio, he cannot speak to

the doc He can't. You know, that's the thing I

never heard anyone speak about. And for me, I hear it all the

time when we have meetings and you know, close asking about

certain players and close asking us like, can you put on the

platform what languages the boys speak?

Because we want to be able to filter Spanish speaking players

or English speaking players. And if they don't speak that

language, they're out. I never heard anyone speak about

this, but it's really, really, really something that's being

discussed in clubs a lot. So if I can give one piece of

advice is learn, you know, try to have one or two languages.

Learn English. If you're not an English

speaker, if you speak, if you could speak English, it would be

massive for you. And it might make the

difference. If clubs are hesitating between

two players and one speaks English and the other one

doesn't, they might pick this one.

That's really how it works. Yeah, it's not just about your

abilities, about where you fit, and that has a lot of things

surrounding it. In the same way, it already

evolved, like scouting already evolved from this one shot one

game to a series of performances that can be evaluated still.

That's mostly video footage and metrics.

But there's also a lot more about a player.

There's a lot more about you and how you think and how you,

whether you're a leader or not, the English skills or any other

language, your education, your resilience, whether you're going

to support. So that's the next evolution.

So I will include your personal story when it comes to scouting.

So scouts are going to be able to know way more before making a

decision, not just based on video and metrics, which is

amazing already, but about the person, about how they behave,

about how they think about how smart you are and what type of

in what you're smart and where there are opportunities where

you can improve. It's going to continue to

evolve. And it's not just about how you

kick the ball or how you move without the ball.

It's about a lot of other things that we're going to bring

together in the same platform with this cover.

Yeah. You spoke earlier about kind of

the 1% of talent. I guess this is like the 1% in

people that will make a difference.

Do you know what I mean? I've seen players being ruled

out because of attitudes like, you know, being I've seen I've

seen a a stand at a like youth international game in a big

under eighteens tournament full of scouts from every country in

the world. And I knew everyone was coming

to watch this one boy and his on the ball is unbelievable.

Never seen anything like it. A winger when he when he was

substituted, you know, like this to the coach and kicking the

water bottle and spitting and not just just sitting alone on

the bench like, you know, few meters apart from from the other

guys. And you know, at the end of the

game, just not shaking hands straight into the locker room.

Everyone in the end where all the scouts were having a chat.

It's like he's out, he's out. We can't deal with personalities

like this. So even if you are frustrated,

keep your head up, be respectful because those things, This is

why clubs also go live after they've validated the play on

video on video they go live or they invite them on trial to

just see you as a person and try and speak with you.

Because usually how it works nowadays is they'll be like

different filters just like funnel like this where it starts

with identification of players with data.

So close will be looking for players that are strong in

aerial duels, passes, forwards, one of the ones breaking the

lines, whatever it might be, and that have a certain profile left

footed, bigger than X height, etcetera, etcetera.

Then they'll get a list of let's say 30 players.

This list will go to scouts and analysts and they will all watch

those thirty players. And then they'll boil down the

list to three players and then someone will go out and watch

those three players live. And then you're going to

recruitment process. So you can be eliminated at

either step really. So a lot of players get

eliminated at the first one, Some get eliminated with the

video and some believe it or not, get eliminated in the life

scouting process. And then there'll be a last one

who was eliminated in their recruitment because the agent is

crazy and wants too much of A Commission or is difficult to,

to speak to and so on. And then you're the one.

So, so yeah. And I, I speak to, I, I've been

speaking to a player about this recently, someone that I know

who, who had no idea about this data aspect, like he was, he had

no idea that I know like a metric that a lot of clubs

filter to find modern midfielders is passes forward,

like passes that break the line, you know, and he was playing too

many easy passes. He was playing back.

And I thought if he knew that this was how it works, he would

turn around and play it forward because he could.

He might as well have done that. Like there was space in that

game. So understanding also this

aspect is important, but there's no, no one knows this.

No one knows this like just winning that aerial duo, just

like just try and jump like just a little higher and win that do

it'll change. It can change everything for

you. You might be sorted right there

on those on those small things. And in modern football, clubs

are looking more and more because of data.

Scouting clubs are looking more and more for profiles more than

for good players. No one's, when you ask a club

what are you looking for this summer, they won't tell you

we're looking for good players. It's very, very rare.

People will tell you we're looking for this position and he

needs to be good in the air fast, boom, boom, boom, boom,

boom. Like a, you know, very robotic.

And for each position, they'll define their own profiles.

So for our left center backs, he needs to be good in those on

those data points. And then they go and find the

players. And I remember speaking with my

friend Christian Kia, who's the technical director at FCMH Land

in Denmark, one of the best clubs in Denmark.

And he was saying that if you take 10 attributes where a

player needs to be strong in, he would rather have one player

who's 10 out of 10 in three attributes than 7 out of 10 in

all the 10 attributes. Pick something and be really

good at it. Choose three things.

Identify yourself, what you're good at and what you want to be

good at. Is that turning with the ball

and driving? Good?

Become the best at that. Is that heading the ball good?

Is it speed good? Pick something and just become

the absolute best you can be at them do.

You think that's a reflection of the modern game in a sense, Like

a lot of teams now have become really system oriented like at

the top levels. So you need these like round

pegs to fit in round holes rather than just players that

are good like you said. Do you think that's a reflection

of the game changing itself? I think so, yeah.

And that that's there's there's another challenge.

You asked about that and it's very related to this.

And Ben is actually like identify three things and get

better at them. That's a challenge, you know,

just just understanding and being self aware about what's

going on with you. That's where the coach is

jumping. So as a head of product, you

know, part of my job is to talk a lot to coaches, to coach

direct, you know, to club directors and, and trying to

really understand a lot of things that are not quite

obvious from the very beginning. And there was this one time that

I asked a coach for an explanation of how they develop

a player. And he he told me something that

I never forget, like elite is not where the player is AT.

Elite is where the player can be at.

And how do we take them there? And in order to take a player to

a better place or to a better level, whatever it is, because

remember, it's relative. You need to understand things.

You need the video, you need the data, you need this and that.

But you also need other communication tools that allow

you to develop the player and kind of not, not just get

limited by the time you have with the player, because that's

how as a code, you can teach them something.

But if, if you have 23 teams or you're coaching three teams and

you know, that's, that's 69 players already.

And, and then how do you spend time with all of them so that

you can individually develop a player that, you know, that's,

that's a challenge, right? Because otherwise you're by

yourself. So you, you're by yourself

trying to identify what you can improve, what you should just,

you know, you're fine, what others are looking for.

That's why you need your coach. They're a key piece of all this

ecosystem because youth football, yes, scouting is a big

part of it, but it's a whole ecosystem.

Like you shouldn't be building your story when you think that

you want to GoPro and you're ready 15 or 14, your story

should start. And this means video and data

when you're 10, because that's how you can show progression.

That's what's going to become interesting.

That's how you get to do better. Like if you're not the way to

say like what it's not measured can be improved.

And that's a reality. But if we give players the

metrics that we're currently providing to an analyst, I mean,

players might need a PhD to understand those metrics.

And, and I, I, I don't have a PhD like those metrics might be

even confusing to me. So how do we make it easy for

the players? How do we make it digestible for

them, actionable? How do you know what to train by

yourself? How do you know, how do you know

what to train when you stay 15 minutes longer at the training

session or something? So we're, we're translating that

so that everyone understands it as a parent.

I'm a parent. My daughter plays football Now

I'm in the dark. I, I, I promised myself that if

ever I had a kid that played football, I wasn't going to be

that parent. That it's kind of a cycle in the

sideline. She's, you know, gelling things

and trying to coach my daughter or my kids.

And I remember the first time, Oh my God, like the first game.

First of all, I have three daughters.

So when I had three girls, because of the culture, I, I, I

always saw that, OK, my football story is, is, is done.

Like the moment I retire, there's not going to be any more

football around my life because, yeah, girls were not playing

that much. Anyways, when she told me,

Daddy, I want to play football, it was probably one of the best

days of my life was like, yes. And then I went to the first

game, right? She, you know, she started

training whatever and she was, she was playing with boys

because there was no other team. And something happened, a simple

thing they throw in, she grabbed the ball right.

And of course I was just watching like she's she's going

to just do the throw in. She launched the ball up and

then she hit it with the head. That was supposed to be a throw

in. She was, she was training for

three weeks and, and of course, you know, it was funny at the

beginning, but then it was frustrating because like, what

is she learning then? And, and that's the thing, like

parents, we are a big part of this, but we're usually kept in

the dark because there's no way the coach can explain to us

what, you know, they're coaching or they're teaching our kids or

how they're working individually with each one of them.

And, and, and, and that doesn't allow us as parents to support

our kids development, even the food, even something like, hey,

get some rest because you know, whatever all you, your training

was so hard today and demanding. So I'm going to try to support

you in this other way. So it's an ecosystem full of

challenges that have a lot to do with the lack of visibility, you

know, for, for for the coaches, for the players, understanding

the metrics for the parents to action to take some action and,

and try to work. So there's a lot.

Then we're fixing all of that one step at the time.

This might link into some of what you just said, but I think

kind of another trend or change in the modern game, even at the

highest level, is that I feel like football's getting younger

in a sense. Like not all, but a lot of the

top players in the Premier League are probably 23 and under

right now. Players are making their debut

at 19 and becoming regular starters.

Whereas, you know, 10-15 years ago 2728 was maybe the prime

age. I feel like that's maybe got

younger in the eyes of clubs. What are your thoughts on that I

guess, and also what changes will it make in a landscape of

scouting? It's, it's my favorite subject

to speak about because it's it's very true.

And it's important to understand that football is not getting

younger because someone woke up one day and decided that we're

going to recruit younger players and because they're better.

It's because for 99% of clubs, the best players have the

players that they really want at the age that they really want

them, have become way too expensive.

And something happened in, I think it was 2017.

There's a player called Neymar. Never, rather than just just

kidding. He's Mexican.

I know, I know the one. There's a player called Neymar

who changed the football industry forever without knowing

it. It's not just him, of course,

also the FC Barcelona and PSG who involved in that transfer.

But that transfer for more than €220 million changed the

transfer market forever. Since that transfer happened,

every player's value increased on the market just because

every, everyone just increased like just by 20 million, almost

like it was insane, right? All of a sudden you see players

that you thought he's maybe like a £10,000,000 player, go for 50.

I mean, you have, when I say this, you must, you have a lot

of examples, right? And he's like, he's never £100

million player. Well, in today's market he is,

which means that for most clubs, as soon as a good young player

starts playing regular in the first team, he's going to be

more than seven, eight 910,000,000 lbs.

Which means that he's out of most clubs reach because most

clubs cannot pay more than 567 million for a for a player right

in a in a transfer. So the whole industry turned to

OK, how can we find good players cheaper?

Well, we can find them when they're younger, before they

peak, before we are sure that they are ready for the top

level. So we'll take a little bit more

risk. So everyone started to look just

a couple of years younger. So the clubs at the top, top,

top Real Madrid, you know, Barcelona, Liverpool, all of

those immense clubs, instead of taking players at 28, they would

take them at 26, which means that the club that are selling

to Real Madrid, instead of, you know, they have to, in the past,

they would take players at 24, develop them for two years at

26, sell them. Now they have to take the player

at 22, play them for two years and then sell them.

And the club that is selling to that club before they also have

to start. So that's, you know, that's how

it kind of boiled down. And as a, as a result of this,

I've been in meetings with head, you know, sporting directors,

head of scouting in, in clubs that have showed me their system

and told me we are not looking at players that are over the age

of 24 years old. Huge clubs, clubs that are

playing Champions League, you wouldn't believe it, 24 years

old or more, you're out of our system.

So what does it mean? It means that you need to know

the player when he's 16, right, if you're going to recruit him

at at 22. And it means clubs that are

going to be at the first, you know, at the first step of the

pyramid, they have to promote players as young as they can.

And some clubs have built the whole, their whole business

model on this, just giving debuts to players, giving debuts

to young players because they know the moment they start

playing them, they'll be 1,000,000 lbs players.

And that's, that's, that's where the industry is is going right

now. So at at 41 I have no chances.

You have no chance. You have no chance my friend.

You have no chance to be honest. You have no chance as a average

player now to go to top club if you're 25.

Yeah. Which is insane.

You kill all my hope. I'm sorry.

Thank you man. I guess that kind of underscores

why video and data are so important because you have to

catch them now earlier, yes, even on a from a club's point of

view, but also a player's point of view, their windows may be a

bit shorter now, like you just said, 25 and over.

The big deal might be gone, which is crazy to think about.

No, it's true. And the younger you take, no one

here and no one has ever been able to predict if a 17 year old

is going to have a career or not.

Like no one can do that. There's nothing that has been

developed to predict that. It's instinct.

There's things you see, but there's been top, top players.

I don't know. The first one that comes to mind

is Mastor, Hashim Mastor, who was in the like a top talent at

AC Milan at 1617. He's having a career in the

lower divisions, but he never had the career that we thought

he would have. So no one can predict anything.

And there's players that at 17 you would never have thought

that's Emreche Eze you. No one would have bet you on him

that he would be a mega start at his age now when he was 17.

So you can't predict that. What you can try to do as a

football club is lower your risk, lower the risk that you're

taking, lower your gamble, making less of a gamble, and

everything from video statistics and the amount of games that you

can watch of a player to be sure, can then lower that risk.

So the risk management that was impossible to do in the past is

now possible today. Yeah.

So I mean, the industry is changing.

We're changing the industry. And Simply put, no footage, no

future. That's what it is right now.

That's the simple truth. And then when we talk about

data, we usually think about game statistics and your

performance statistics. But there's also another trend,

behavioral data. And I was talking about this

before. Who are you?

What's your story? How do you behave?

What's your attitude? What do you look like?

What type of player? What type of person are you not

just what type of player are you like?

What's your profile as a person that you feed our organization?

So it's moving over there. Like is your family supportive?

Like how is it like at your house, house, home?

Like do you need some different types of support where it's a

psychology wonder? Like that's very relevant.

And that's it's, it's not a, it's, it's not something new

anymore. It's already here.

And there are other things happening in the industry video.

We all have, we all have a camera now, right?

Of course, there are specialized cameras and, and, and at some

point those smart cameras for football and for other sports,

they're getting commoditized. So we're seeing it more and more

and more. The technology, this happens

with everything, right? Technology starts to be more

accessible and more accessible. And then with the AI thing, the

technology is getting better for automated analysis and

eventually it's gonna be more affordable and more affordable.

So that, that that's something we see happening right now.

Yes, the top of the pyramids are, is the one that is getting

access to all of these video and data and this and that.

But eventually it's going down and, and we understand that it's

a journey that we that, that we need to go through.

But, but that's part of the vision is to give everyone the

opportunity to get discovered, like to, to, to make everyone

visible with video, with stats, with behavioral data, to make

sure that we everyone is entertained and, and, and, and

that everyone connects. So yes, football is getting

younger, but not just in the scouting perspective.

Kids, you know, start to develop this sense of belonging way

earlier now because they're digital.

So the moment they turn 11 or 12, they already want to be in

social media. If they're not and, and if I ask

you like if you want to belong to the football community, where

do you go? Where do you go?

Regardless of where you're located, where do you go?

You're going to go to AIBO. That's what's going to happen.

So it's not just video data, it's this sense of belonging as

well, because you need support to get better and to enjoy the

sport way more. If you thought that was not,

that was not possible or just making it possible.

That's class. That leads me perfectly into

kind of what I wanted to ask next.

We've touched on how it affects different, you know, clubs,

players, parents. I'm wondering from like your

guys point of view, in the long term, who do you think this is

going to make the most difference for?

Is it clubs? Is it players?

Like what do you hope for I guess?

What I hope for and what I also believe the answer is, is

players 1000% thousand percent. That was, you know, when we

solve this problem, we also solve it for the professional

clubs. But we for sure try to solve it

for the players because there's good players everywhere.

And if you are, if you were dependent as a player of who's

coming to watch you on your day, the chances are in existence,

right? So in the future and in the long

run and in many years, when we look back at what we are doing

now, players, absolutely there's going to be players who will be

able to look back and someone is going to tell them the story of,

you know, without this, you would have never existed in in

this industry. And that's that's that's what we

really hope. Yeah, I mean precisely that.

Everything we've done, everything we're doing is

thinking about the player, has been thinking about the player

putting the players in the center.

So the only thing I will add is, yes, the ones that are going to

get the most benefit out of all of this are the players and

their families because because it's it's it's it is what it is,

right? If you're a 12 year old, if

you're an 11 year old, you need some support.

You know, the, the, the, the players also exist because there

are others surrounding them and helping them get into the sport.

And it differs from where you are like for example, in, in

regions such as Latin America, even if in, in, in the US, like

the only way you can get to a football pitch is if someone

drives you like, or if you have some kind of financial support,

like like the US is a pay to play system.

There's no way you can practice a sport if you're not spending

money. It's different then we can speak

about that. But, but if you want to go to a

game on a specific weekend, you need to drive for 90 minutes or

even 2 hours just just to play. And, and in other regions, it

might just be public transportation.

I remember when I was a kid, there was this final we were we

were playing and then our center back didn't show up because his

parents didn't have money to pay for public transportation.

So so the dad took him to work on that Sunday and we lost.

So how do we support this to get better?

How do, what do we do for the community to make this better?

Yes, provide visibility, opportunity, all that.

That is our mantra. But how do we get people to

enjoy this? How do we bring brands into the

play, right? How do we make it more and more

accessible? Because that's it.

Also the beauty of the sport and that's also why it's so popular.

You just need, you know, 4 plastic bottles or maybe two big

rocks, right? And something to kick and you're

playing in the street, that's what it is.

So that has to be translated into technology access, into

video access, data access, community access, communication

tools access, that that that's what football is about and

that's what Eyeball is about. For sure.

Hypothetically, then, what does your kind of dream transfer look

like via eyeball, and where's the player from Where have they

gone? You know what?

What's their ceiling? I think it's already happened.

I can tell you about it. But for, for me when, when we

started it and still now like the the dream transfer and it

keeps happening. It's the player who is going to

a club and we know and he knows and the club knows and everyone

knows that that transfer would have never happened without

Eyeball existing somewhere because the player would have

not been filmed or the game would have not been filmed.

So the player would have not been filmed and the club

watching the game, we have never been able to watch it because

that video did not exist. Does that make sense?

So that's, that's the dream transfer.

And I, and this is not a, a huge transfer, but it's a, it's a,

it's a very good story. There's a club in the MLS called

Charlotte FC who have existed for not many years.

I think they were found in 2020, not 2022, a very recent club.

They're using eyeball to find players in West Africa.

They in a few years ago, they were there was an agent who

would tip the player to them and said, you know, there's this

player in Ivory Coast in an Academy called San Pedro that

you should watch. In the past, they would have

gone OK, made. But like, what are we going to

do about this? Like, we're not going to travel

from the US to West Africa to watch a player we don't know

about. So do you have footage?

And you would have gone? Well, of course not.

It's Ivory Coast, you know, there's no footage.

And that would have been it. What happened is they said OK,

no problem, they opened Libor, boom they went on.

They watched the player Assan Wither, always his name left for

the center back and they watched 5 full games of him.

I know they recruited the player and he went from his village in

Ivory Coast straight to the US on a professional contract.

And when I visited them in September 2024, they told me

that with the with the money of the like, he had like a small

sign on bonus. He managed to buy a house for

his family to take them off the streets because they were living

in nightmare conditions. That's it.

That's, it's not a huge transfer, but it's, it's a

transfer that has changed a life.

And those transfers keep happening.

There are players from those, you know, small neighborhoods in

France and Spain that are going to clubs abroad that had no eyes

on that country. And especially I think the

impact eyeball is having in West Africa is insane.

There's players transferring every month.

We hear about stories and we are really embedded.

It's difficult to speak about 1 transfer because we really

embedded in like there's not one transfer out of those countries

as it does not happen by eyeball nowadays because it's in the

workflows. It's that's the new normal.

But when, if you ask me, the dream transfer is a player who

would not have had that opportunity before.

For me that, that, that answering that question is very

easy and it's a bit selfish. I want to see my daughter

getting discovered through, you know, I will.

It's, it's if, if she says she wants to become a professional

footballer, I don't know whether that's true or not.

I know she loves the game. She's 12.

So yes, when I joined the company, I was like, I'm doing

this for the sport because I love it, but I'm also a bit

selfish. I'm also doing it for my kids

and the kids of my friends that I really want them to have an

opportunity if they're really, and that could be discovered by

the women's, you know, team for Charlotte FC or maybe just a

college within the country, Like it doesn't matter.

It's just just having that opportunity and, and, and having

that chance to be recognized and and to do something more.

That's that's what I want. I want to see.

It's amazing. Both you guys kind of mentioned

the US in the last question. I feel like the US has had a lot

more investment in soccer in terms of resources and you know,

more people are watching it every year.

What are some differences? Or even just how does the

structure in the US work? Let's talk about the differences

first, and one is pretty obvious.

They they they call football a sport that is not played with

the with the feet, which is crazy.

So they call soccer. I tried I tried to switch

between one word and the other one.

But one thing that I promise is that with I will soccer will

never be the same. Now, it's crazy to see that in a

country such as the United States, players don't just play

to get scouted. They pay to get scouted because

they work under this pay to play system.

If you don't pay, you don't play.

It's simple as that. It's a business and and has its

pros and cons. You know, Americans make

everything or turn everything into business and that's very

respectable. But but at some point it also

hurts the sport in these regards.

And it's probably the only place in the world, and I might be

wrong with this, where players are like a startup and parents

are the investors. So they're all pouring money

into their kids sport with the hope of getting some kind of

return out of their investment. And that's usually a

scholarship. So in the same way, players need

to understand how the football business industry works to have

a better chance to get scouted and maybe play for a

professional club regardless of the level, kids in America also

need to understand how this whole system works because it's

different and there are lots of differences in it.

But there's one thing that doesn't change.

Talent is everywhere and visibility means opportunity.

You don't have video, you have no chances.

You have more data. You can tell the story.

If you don't understand data, you need to get some digestible

data so that it's actionable for you.

You need your coach's support, you need your parents support.

You need everyone's support. So it's it's, it's coming, it's

changing. We're also giving right right

now, if you're a player, you want to get scouted, you have to

do a lot of heavy lifting. You have to, you know, you see a

lot of cameras already in the field.

I remember the first time I was ever at this huge complex in LA,

maybe, I don't know, 30 something pitches fields in the

same place. It was, I got tired just from

walking to field A to field 32 trying to talk to parents and,

and other stuff. And, and, and there were

different fields, maybe 10 year olds, 12 year olds were praying

and there were three cameras in the field.

And I was like, wow. So they're, they're because

they're investing on trying to get their kids discover or

scouted it, it, it involves, they're also way, way, way, way

more mature in terms of technology adoption.

But they stick, they still lack this very important layer that

is, it's not just the video, it's not just isolated data.

It's, it's not just about being visible, it's about who is

watching. And that's where discounting

part also plays a big, big role here.

I think just to close then I guess, is there any more success

stories that might inspire anybody watching and also

aspiring players that are tuned in, how can they get involved?

They are. I mean, like I said, it's, you

know, eyeball is directly or indirectly involved in most

transfers of youth football players in the world right now.

But there's a few, there's a few names that that come to mind.

There's one was probably my favorite kind of eyeball player

since we started. It's a, it's a player called

Jessim Yasin. He's a French Moroccan, born in

France 2005, left footed player. I remember he plays in Dark Kirk

right now, which is in the second best division in France.

They were in the quarterfinals. I think of the French Cup this

year, had a good season. And I remember 4 years ago,

myself and Emil, we went to a small club called EE is also

where people might recognize E because Nabi Keita played there

when he came to France for the first time.

And we were making a partnership with this club East, which is in

the Marseille region, in the suburbs of Marseille to, you

know, get them on as eyeball partners.

So we give them the camera so that their games could be filmed

because it's a really good youth club.

And we were watching training and there was this kid who was

so small, so skinny, he had like this dyed blonde hair, left

footed and he was insane. He was so quick, technically so

gifted. And I, I grabbed the coach and I

was like, who's this kid? And he said, oh, it's the famous

Jasim. I was like, what do you mean?

He's like, oh, he's very famous in the area.

You know, everyone knows him. He's been on trial at maybe like

every single club in France, but everyone keeps rejecting him

because of his size. He's tiny, like really, really

small and skinny like legs like this.

And when I, when I, when I saw him, I was like, this is Rio

Mars. Like, it's the same player.

And he kept, you know, he was telling me he's been on all

these trials. It's no, no, no, all the time.

So now he plays here. This was an amateur club, no

contracts. He said, hopefully, thanks to

your platform, he'll be he'll be discovered.

And I kept like just watching his games once in once in a

while, just to follow what he was doing.

And he just kept not being signed.

And then he transferred to another club called Marine and

Geniak, also in the Marseille region at under 19, still

playing amateur under 19 level and playing in the best league

on the 19, but still amateur. And he killed it like he hasn't.

He had an average rating on eyeball above 8.5, which is

unheard of. And at some point there was a

scout who was working in Claremont.

Claremont were using eyeball, went to Dunkirk and signed him

straight away. And he signed, I remember in

December 2023 on an amateur contract and a month later, like

in January, he made his debut with the first team.

And I was like, how is this possible?

And there was a part of me who said I knew it like this, you

know, he just needed an opportunity.

And since that moment, he of course got a new contract and

he's been playing first team regularly ever since.

Under 20 Moroccan national team value on transform act of more

than one and a half, €1,000,000. And I've been speaking to a lot

of much bigger clubs in Europe who are following, following him

very closely. So that's a fantastic story.

And those are typically the stories that I love.

I love the stories of players that were playing at a in a

small club at a poor level and that within the season or less.

Go and play first team. There's a boy called Norm Kamara

who just started playing first team with PSG, now PSG Champions

League finalists, 2007. He was playing in a really small

club called US Tosi just a year ago.

Amateur. US Torsi has also been the

feeder club of Magnus, Akiyush, Paul Pogba, Luka Gorna, Dwatz,

Oranda Colomoani. It's an insane club.

It's every year there's like 10 to 12 players that sign to

bigger clubs and he was there and now he plays first team with

PSG and he's maybe going to be on the bench for the final

against Inter Insane. There's another player that I

really like is he's called Silver Ezzy.

So he's got the same last name as Eva Richie Ezzy, not the same

family. And he's he was in an eyeball

partner club in England called Accrington Stanley that you I'm

sure you know, and he signed to Blackburn.

He signed for Blackburn. Blackburn took him and he's not

even signed his scholar. He's 2008 because he's half

Italian. He's got an Italian passport.

He's got like big, big clubs in Italy that are on him already.

He's been there six months. That's that's a that's a rising

border for sure. And another one that I have in

mind is a player called Maliki Al Kuye.

You've probably heard of him. 2005 left footed midfielder from

Ivory Coast. So he's got a crazy story as

well. He came from an eyeball partner

Academy in Ivory Coast, the bigger one in Ivory Coast called

ASEC Mimosa. You know, Yaya Toure, Carlo

Toure, Gervino, all of those boys come from that Academy.

Asec Mimosa. Look it up.

It's fantastic. He was signed by a Swedish club

called IFK Eutenbock in like January 20, 2024.

He signed. So he played there.

He played. He made 11 appearances I think.

And then he was recruited by Brighton for €7 million.

Brighton have loaned him out last season, so the season had

just finished to stone grass in Austria and he played like

Chambers League, like, I don't know, 10 appearances in the

Chambers League this season. And now he's probably going to

go back to Brighton or back on loan, I don't know, but that's

insane. Like within six months being

like playing a small Academy in Ivory Coast to a €7 million

transfer and playing Champions League insane.

And those stories really excite me because I'm like, well, how

many more are there that are playing amateur football and a

really small Academy that could have the level of playing

European football. That's that's really, that's

really attractive to to me. And it takes so much, I think,

the step between those players playing where they are now and

playing on the bigger scene, like they have to put in the

work, yes, But the clubs that are watching those players need

the courage to sign them and just play them.

And some people in professional football clubs don't have that

courage because they're risking their jobs, right?

If you take a player and you play him and he's not good, why

did you take this young player? You should have taken an older

player more. You know why you put such a

young player on the big scene? But if you do as a sporting

director, as a scout or whatever, then you can be

rewarded with that story as well.

And that can follow you for life or a coach, right?

Follow you for life. So I'm really passionate about

those transfers, but there's thousands really.

So whenever we do these interviews, we usually ask our

guest to present a question for our audience.

I'm just wondering Fernando to close whether you have have

anything for us? Yeah, I don't have a question.

I have something better. I have an invitation.

So, so far you've heard, you know, a lot of things and, and

these stories are not just amazing, they're inspiring.

And we've been focusing on the top 1% because that was the

logic thing to do as a business. But that's changing.

We're opening this up for everyone.

We're, we know talent is everywhere and we want to give

everyone the visibility they deserve.

We're going to give everyone the chance to enjoy video data,

understand the data and action on top of that data.

So if you're a coach, we're going to be your best friends

because you're not going to have to spend any additional time to

what you're already spending, but you're going to be able to

teach way better and to develop your players way better and to

communicate with them in a very efficient way.

And parents will have visibility.

So if you're a parent, you're just, you don't have to guess

anymore. You'll know what's going on and,

and coaches won't have to do anything extra to make that

happen. And if you are a player, you're

going to get the spotlight. Now you, you have that

opportunity, you'll understand what's going on.

You're going to know what to do. You're going to have better

support by your coach, by your parents, by the institution

you're playing for. You're going to you're going to

have more opportunity. So what's the invitation?

Go get on iPhone, sign up for the waiting list.

Because even if we want to open this to the whole world, we have

to do it in a controlled way. So we're going to roll it out in

a very controlled way. Everyone's going to have the

chance to get a piece of the service for free and a lot of

things for free always. So we're changing the industry.

What's coming, where you going to have this, where you going to

be the destination for everyone that is related to the industry,

One step at the time. So go to IBO, go get on IBO,

institution to do that. You're going to be able to take

action yourself, Get together as a team, get together as a group,

create the team, and then go enjoy the rest.

So it's up to you now. Look for the opportunity as a

player. Get on, iball.

You know, thank you so much for joining us guys coming all this

way. I think what you're doing is

game changing, disruptive in the most positive way, and I can't

wait to see the next STAR Conference.

How Clubs REALLY Find the Next Lamine Yamal - Eyeball

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