In Memoriam: The Big Tournament Signing

We’ve reached the quarterfinal stage of the Euros and Copa America, when we’re going to start seeing the dramatic and high quality football we’ll remember from the tournaments. For the specific purposes of this newsletter, however, these events are not quite as relevant as they used to be. This used to be when up-and-coming players at less visible clubs made their case for a big move, but it’s unlikely anyone will convince a team to sign them based on what they do right now.

The world does not work like that anymore. In the event a player’s performance at these tournaments does lead a big club to discover a player, they will not be signing him on the basis of his performance at this tournament. They’ll be doing so because they dug into much more relevant data and video from his club exploits, something that’s now available to every club around the world for a reasonable fee.

Euro 2008 felt like the end of the big international tournament as a primary scouting tool, though new data and video scouting tools still didn’t render them irrelevant for a few more cycles. James Rodriguez might be the last high profile Big Tournament Signing; Real Madrid were surely tracking his performances with Porto and Monaco, but his emergence as the star of the 2014 World Cup sparked some urgency. Six years after that, Covid forced the most stubborn of the old school methods holdouts to finally make changes to their scouting operation.

A hot take from none other than the loudest and brashest of hot takesmiths got me thinking about how dramatically scouting has changed in recent years, and how much it’s changed football outside of the top handful of European powerhouses.

Following the United States’ exit from Copa America, FOX talking head Alexi Lalas posted about players from his generation who he believed would make the current squad, and a lot of people got Mad Online. Typical washed up old guy, claiming players from his era were better! How could some guys who never played in Europe or barely had a cup of coffee over there possibly be better than guys who are well-established at big clubs in the European scene?

Well, get in a time machine back to 1994 and imagine that you’re a scout at a big European club. Your director of football has heard through the grapevine that there are some excellent emerging talents in the United States and tasks you with figuring out who the good players are. This would be a massive, year-long undertaking, requiring a 6-figure budget, which is why no one did this.

Fast forward 30 years and imagine you’re a scout in the same situation. You can return to your director of football with a list of decent players from any country in under 24 hours. Of course there are more decent American players in top European leagues these days, there are more decent players in top European leagues from every country.

Contrary to any sensationalist headlines in the papers, it is unlikely that any player will convince a new club to sign them with one great performance over the next couple of weeks. Though I do enjoy imagining that there’s one last old school chairman, watching Nico Williams do stepovers for the first time against Germany, and going “GADZOOKS I GOTTA SIGN THAT GUY!”

—KM

Rumours and News

• So Uh… Mats Wieffer. 👍️ again to Brighton.

• I am slightly confused about Arsenal’s “pursuit” of Calafiori ripping through the rumour mill as - unless someone is moving - it feels like a position where they are set. Sometimes it’s hard to tell what is rumour groupthink versus what has actual heat, and this one could go either way. Corriere dello Sport says they had a €47M bid rejected, and Italian teams leak like sieves to the newspapers. But sometimes they do that to flush out other bidders. As noted on the podcast yesterday, there were knee concerns from teams last summer, which is why he didn’t move inside of Italy.

• The Mirror is suggesting William Saliba could leave Arsenal to go to Real Madrid. Actually… let’s run a price check for that one on Monday, because I’m pretty sure it would be eye-watering. FWIW I think there is zero chance that happens this summer. Saliba just signed a new deal last summer and is locked in until 2027.

• Manchester United are walking that funny balance right now between kind of wanting to sell 29-year-old Bruno Fernandes, but also not wanting to lose him for absolutely nothing, and therefore considering giving him a new deal as well.
  
  EXCEPT… Transfermarkt say that Bruno has a deal that expires in 2026 with an option for a further year? This feels like agents, agenting.

• SPEAKING OF. Oh my god!

• But sadly…