Lee Scott began writing about football online for himself, but it has turned into a full-time role for him at Velez. The APFA spoke to Lee about his journey and what he has learned.
Getting started
“I found research and writing helped me to learn more about what I was interested in,” explained Lee, reflecting on when he first began posting work around tactics publicly.
“Any game I could find that I thought was interesting around the world, I would watch and write my thoughts down. And all of a sudden, I started to build a bit of a following.”
We often hear people suggesting that in terms of building a career in analysis, it is best to pick a niche. But Lee chose to write broadly, paying attention to whatever caught his eye.
“I absolutely understand the idea of finding a niche – it’s something that I would recommend to people to a certain extent!”
“But the way that I approached it was that I wanted to have a breadth and depth of knowledge. I didn’t want to just be focused on one thing.”
You never know who is reading
Even though Lee was writing broadly, he was writing regularly because he was picking up on topics that interested him. He feels that set him up well for when he started working with clubs.
“What writing about football taught me is that if you’re really passionate about something, you will be happy to put in the hours, the effort, to do it properly.”
“It taught me research, obviously. It taught me time management. All these important things I take into my role now.”
“But it’s more about having the structure and the willingness to sit down and do something. I set myself a timetable and I stuck to it.”
“You never ever know who’s reading or who’s listening or who’s watching. People at clubs are researching things online, they’re on Twitter but not with their real names or anything about their club affiliation attached.”
“I think that sometimes people look at it, and they want to cut out the first step or the middle step. And you can’t always shortcut.”
Lee was initially approached through Twitter by Martin Christie about doing some scouting for Hibernian. That was the start of a working relationship which extended across a number of clubs.
“In football, sometimes when you work for a club, you’re not always attached to the club. Sometimes you attach to the person.”
“So the way the club views you is that you are part of that person’s team, if you like, and that’s very much how I felt.”
Discovering new options
Whilst Lee was working on a part-time basis with clubs, he was also running Total Football Analysis. As well as being a website and magazine, Lee was leading the consultancy side of the business.
“I was working with clubs and agents from all across Europe, the world. Every day was completely different.”
“It opened my eyes a little bit to how much scope there was out there in terms of working in different ways within football.”
“That was about the time that I decided to break away from tactics writing and really throw myself into writing about data within football.”
Lee felt that being able to know your way around data had become increasingly important within the world of scouting. He began doing visualisations on Tableau before teaching himself Python.
“Working within analysis, you needed at that point to start having an understanding of data because that’s where the game was going.”
“I knew that to be a good scout, and to be good at my job in terms of working within recruitment, I needed to be able to scout a player and I also needed to use data to recruit effectively.”
Throughout Lee’s time within analysis he has worked across a range of clubs in slightly different roles.
“You have to be adaptable.”
“More than anything else, you have to understand that the job is different, no matter where you go.”
“The best clubs that I’ve worked with had a very clear focus on what they’re looking for in the people who were working for them.”
“For example, when I was at St Mirrens, they changed manager and the focus on scouting suddenly shifted. The new manager was more interested in agent-led recruitment as opposed to scout-led recruitment.”
“So it would just be a case of pick a game and go watch it. There was no focus in exactly what we were looking for.”
“But clubs like Aberdeen and Velez are very much more focused in what they are doing.”
“So it’s about being able to adapt to different ways of working, different structures within those clubs.”
Trust in what you know
Lee also says that young analysts should not be afraid of putting their cards on the table.
“I think that you have to be able to have an opinion. That’s one of the most important things I’ve learned in my time.”
“It’s very easy as a young scout or analyst to hedge your bets a little bit when you’re asked a direct question by somebody within a club. But if you’re not willing to stake your reputation and have an opinion, you’re not going to get remembered and get anywhere really.”
“You can’t be frightened of being wrong. It’s important that you trust your ability to be able to do the job.”
“You have to understand that the value you derive from your job is more than just numbers and a bit of paper. You’ve got to be able to affect change and make things happen by the reports that you’re putting in.”
“Being able to look at a player and decide whether that can fit your system or it can’t – split second decisions that will make the difference for your club. And you have to trust yourself to be able to do this.”
