"He who doesn't run has no chance of making it big"

From 2000 to 2018, Gérard Bonneau scouted Nabil Fékir, Alassane Pléa, Anthony Martial, Yacine Benzia and Houssem Aouar for Olympique Lyonnais. For two decades, Vincent Cabin induced the heyday of AJ Auxerre by recruiting players such as Yaya Sanogo, Paul-Georges Ntep, Younès Kaboul, Evan Ndicka and Sébastien Haller, thirteenth in the 2022 Ballon d’Or. To complete this choice cast, Franck Sale, director of recruitment at both the junior age and main youth academies of Le Havre AC (including an interlude of a few years at OGC Nice) for nearly twenty years, has an equally impressive list of conquests with Brice Samba, Riyad Mahrez, Benjamin Mendy and Paul Pogba among the prestigious players he has managed to attract to Normandy. Vcoaching brought these talent scouts together in one room to learn all about their workings and their secrets. Here's an excerpt from this exceptional exchange.

Is there a critical flaw you look for when you observe a young player for the first time?

Vincent Cabin: The player who doesn't run. That player has no chance of making it big. When you see what the top level demands in terms of effort, high-intensity runs, and you come across a match where a young player, although interesting, doesn't show a minimum of generosity in his runs, you move on to something else. Ultimately, you'll be better off betting on a less talented player who runs more than the others. You know that if he works hard—and running on the pitch is already a good indicator of mentality and a willingness to work hard—he'll be able to make up for lost time and perhaps make a career. There's also the player who runs on his heels, who has flat feet. Daniel Rolland always told me that such a profile has much less chance of making it big. Of course, I'll be told that there are exceptions like Robert Pires, for example. But the latter succeeded because he was in his region. He didn't cost the club anything and in the end it was a good surprise. I'm not sure, however, that a scout would have gone hundreds of kilometres away to find him... Because training a player is expensive: you have to clothe him, feed him, house him, pay for the electricity, etc. So Pires succeeded, very well, but I was able to see that what Daniel had told me was true in the vast majority of cases.

Gérard Bonneau: Not running is a deal breaker, that's clear, and this is even more true in today's football. I must say that some of the young players I recruited fifteen or twenty years ago, who showed great quality but played poorly, I probably wouldn't take them today. Or at least the question would arise. The best example is Anthony Martial. The first time I saw him, he was 14 and playing for Les Ulis. Everyone knew him, but no one took him because he didn't run on the pitch, didn't make the effort. He was a sleeper! But I took him. Why? Because as soon as the ball reached him in good conditions, he would take off suddenly and then he was a dragster... He really had two faces and it was quite disconcerting, I must say. But I still recruited him because, in my opinion, he had extraordinary natural qualities. But is he having the career he should or could have had today? How much time did he play at Manchester United for nearly ten years? This is certainly a question mark.

Franck Sale: I would add that the perception of not running appears in the background of the notions of desire, motivation, a taste for effort, hard work... Coaches emphasize this a lot, and rightly so. It's a central point for high-level athletes. We were talking earlier about the need to detect potential at 12, 13, or 14 years old. But the player still needs to be able to tap into it! If he doesn't want to work, doesn't want to make an effort, he'll never reach the potential for which he was recruited, and it will therefore be a failure for him and for us.

We sometimes hear that in a youth match, the one who touches the ball the most is generally the most interesting player. Do you confirm this?

Gérard Bonneau: I think it depends on the position. In a dominant team, an attacking midfielder will inevitably touch the ball more than his central defensive partner. But this also explains why we tend to recruit midfielders so much. Subconsciously, our attention is drawn to the one who touches the ball a lot, even though I don't think that's an indicator in itself.

"We realize that there's no truth, but rather a whole host of parameters to take into account. And that a single parameter isn't enough to be representative"

Franck Sale: Indeed, it can't be a reliable indicator. Of course, a player who touches the ball a lot is fundamentally more interesting than the one who hides. But at some point, you also have to see what happens when they have the ball at their feet. If I touch the ball 100 times but lose it 98... And then you also have to evaluate the opponent. Because touching the ball a lot against a very weak or very strong team doesn't send the same signal. In fact, we realize that there's no truth, but rather a whole host of parameters to take into account. And that a single parameter isn't enough to be representative. Being smart in the game is a good thing, of course, but it's not enough, like running fast, being technically gifted or touching the ball a lot. These are the criteria put together that determine whether a player will be recruited or not.

Vincent Cabin: I would say that the fact that a player is in high demand on the field can be indicative of their ability to move well, read the game, show initiative, and have good self-confidence. That's already quite something, you might say, but it's not enough. Above all, you have to master the ball and know how to use it wisely. Because the player's first opponent is the ball!

"Not everything is black or white; there are also things that can't be explained. And that's perhaps what makes the difference between a good scout and a very good scout"

How much importance should be given to intuition in the scouting profession?

Franck Sale: It exists, yes, as in many other professions. Not everything is black or white; there are also things we can't explain. And that's perhaps what makes the difference between a good scout and a very good scout. We've seen so many matches, so many players, that sometimes a young player will pique our interest without us really knowing why at first. It happens subconsciously. We have such a wide range of young talents in mind who have succeeded or failed that our eye, even if it's not infallible, far from it, has learned over the years to sort through them almost spontaneously. And I say this with great humility. This also explains why parents sometimes don't understand why a particular player was chosen from their child's team and not their own. But quite simply because they don't have our feelings, our experience, nor do they know the nature of our criteria which are necessarily different from theirs. Especially since the emotional aspect pushes them most of the time to alter their judgment by seeing their child as better than he really is, which is completely legitimate.

Vincent Cabin: I completely agree. There are things that we cannot explain and that also come from our experience, from our career path too. There is a path to follow before reaching this level of feeling in our profession. For example, as far as I am concerned, I am convinced that my years as an amateur coach with young people helped me a lot. Having coached for ten years in the French National Cadet League at the time, I saw players succeed, others struggle, and I built myself up like that. It was like a laboratory in which I unknowingly stored a quantity of information. Someone who has never played or coached cannot have the same feeling as a recruiter, it's impossible.

Gérard Bonneau: Watching high-level matches is also very important to sharpen our eye and build that famous benchmark. Because the feeling must also be nurtured. The clearer idea we have of the qualities a professional footballer must possess, the better we will be able to recognize a young player who is close to them. The first question to ask is therefore: what is a defender, midfielder, or striker at the elite level? Behind this, it is important to translate this, whilst obviously taking into account the player's age. That's the whole difficulty. But if we succeed, I want to say that a guy may completely miss his game the day we are present around the pitch, sometimes a simple movement will be enough for us to say to ourselves: "Hey, he just did something special, which reminds me of so-and-so." I'll give you an example. Not having played professionally, I spent a lot of time analysing what was happening at the top level in my early days in order to build up elements of comparison, these famous benchmarks. That's how I discovered Yassine Benzia. He was 16 years old and playing for Quevilly and representing the U17 national team. As far as I knew, no major club was interested in him. In fact, that day, I had come to see another player in the opposing team! But after fifteen minutes, I could only see Yassine. He literally caught my eye. Why? Because in the match, he had made two types of movements that reminded me of Diego Milito. So I took him! Same for Lamine Gassama, whom no one wanted. I thought his speed could allow him to establish himself on the wing, like many of the professional players I had in mind at the time. So I chose to recruit him and he made a career for himself, even becoming a Senegalese international. He came out of nowhere!