Objectives: Research conducted on Talent Identification is typically conducted from the perspectives of coaches or other professionals. Yet, professional football in England, the scout is the primary identifier of talent, so therefore obtaining the opinions of these scouts about what they look for in talent, what challenges they encounter and how they perceive their role and its challenges is essential.
Method: Four Premier League scouts and one Championship scout in varying scouting roles completed a thought process log, which demonstrated what the scouts looked for in the field. The log was used to help generate individualised questions for the interview. The interview was recorded, transcribed and analysed thematically in order to find themes which were discussed.
Results: The thematic analysis revealed two higher order themes, Four-Corner Considerations and Scouting Processes. Four Corner Considerations contained the themes: Physical, Growth and the Relative Age Effect; Psycho/Social; Learning, Decision Making and Risk and finally Technical/Tactical. The theme Scouting Process consisted of: Challenges; Changes in the Game and Context (position, club philosophy and position requirements).
Conclusion: Consistent with the literature, scouts seem to use the recommended multi-disciplinary focus to scouting which links to the FA’s Four-Corner Model. Within the psychological corner risk-taking and decision making seem vital for TID. Furthermore, advances in technology and changes in the game seem to impact scouts heavily, and these either help to overcome or hinder the challenges scouts already face.
Keywords: Talent Identification; Talent Development; Scouting; Technical; Tactical; Psychological; Physical; Social.