Chapter 559 Geniuses
In Tottenham Hotspur's scout system, there is a set of player templates, which are specially provided for scouts to observe players and input player data, and provide a more vivid and quantified player data template to the coaching staff and scouts.
It is somewhat similar to the player attributes of FM Football Manager. The so-called template ultimately reflects some quantified data, but the difference from FM Football Manager is that the latter directly quantifies the technical details of the players, such as 18 stops, which means very high, and 8 means relatively poor, but this can only appear in the game.
One of the important reasons why games are games is that data is dead, but people are alive.
This is why it is necessary to establish a player template. This template is actually not for quantifying player data, but for better evaluating the player's current strength and future development potential.
For example, Ye Qiu now has a player data exported from the scout system. Patrick Roberts, 12 years old, London, has a ball ability of AAA. He is one of the two players with the highest ball score among all the players participating in the Talent Day event. The other is Nick Powell from Crewe, who is also AAA.
This may not impress everyone, but in the world, all scouts are very cautious when evaluating AAA, and generally do not give it easily. If you gather all the players under the age of sixteen in the UK, there will be no more than ten players who get AAA evaluation, so two players can be encountered on a talent day, which is enough to surprise everyone.
But the current AAA does not mean that it will be AAA in the future. In other words, Patrick Roberts is AAA at the age of twelve, but as his body grows and develops, his ability to play with the ball is a dynamic, it will change, it may weaken, it may be maintained or even strengthened, which requires considering quite a lot of factors, so it does not represent the future.
The current AAA evaluation with the ball only applies to him now, that's all!
Or use the simplest image, which everyone can understand and hear to look at them, that is, when you watch them play football, you will find that they can always play very calmly in front of their peers. Nick Powell and Patrick Roberts are very impressive because they play football calmly, easily, and even coolly.
Only those who have really played football know that it is impossible to play coolly and calmly without absolutely solid skills. So from them, you can easily feel their extremely solid technical skills and standardized movements. Even when facing pressure, they keep their minds clear and handle the ball reasonably.
Of course, they can't be perfect, just like Patrick Roberts, who has AAA ability with the ball, but he also has some problems, such as his cooperation with teammates, his overall coordination ability, and his movement without the ball. There are defects and deficiencies. In other words, his personal ability is super strong, but his ability to read the game and drive the whole is relatively weak.
Then, the question is, he is only twelve years old and is still in a high-speed growth stage, so we must make a clear prediction, that is, is there room for improvement in these problems? Does he have enough time to make up for these deficiencies?
For example, suppose a sixteen-year-old boy has poor basic skills in handling the ball. At this time, there is a trade-off. If his off-ball awareness is very good, then congratulations, you can cultivate him in the direction of Inzaghi or Batistuta, that is, let him directly play without the ball, then he still has a very bright future.
If unfortunately, his basic skills in handling the ball are very bad and his off-ball awareness is not good, then this player is basically useless, because it is difficult for a sixteen-year-old boy to improve his basic skills, and there is no room for improvement.
So, relatively speaking, Patrick Roberts is thin, has poor teamwork ability, and poor game reading ability, but these are not problems, because he is only twelve years old, and he still has a very broad development prospect, so in the Tottenham Hotspur player template, all scouts have a very high evaluation of him, and strongly recommend that the team must sign him.
There is another player, Dan Crowley, who is also highly rated. Although he is only AA+ in the evaluation of his ability with the ball, which is a certain gap from Nick Powell, his awareness of off-ball and team cooperation is quite outstanding, and the coaching staff believes that he is only twelve years old and has a lot of room for development.
The so-called player template is actually to consider the player's existing abilities in all aspects, and then combine them with the actual situation of the team. For example, Tottenham Hotspur attaches importance to technology, Manchester United attaches importance to off-ball ability, etc., and comprehensively consider various factors to evaluate and weigh how much room for development the player has, and finally come up with the player's strength and potential, and then decide whether to sign the player.
Then, this raises a question, how accurate is this kind of evaluation and weighing?
In the Ajax youth training system, through this series of evaluations and the assessment of the player template, the final accuracy is above 99.9%. This must be mentioned, that is, in the evaluation of future development space, it is generally given a proper overestimation. The reason is very simple, just to not miss any player with development potential.
Of course, the main reason for the appropriate overestimation is that there are too many uncertainties in the development of each player, such as the player's own personality, his learning and absorption ability, and his injuries during the development process, etc., and even the player's family environment will affect a player's development potential, and these are all beyond the control of the club.
But Ye Qiu still adopts an appropriately overestimated evaluation method in Tottenham Hotspur, and the consequence of doing so is that the team will invest more in youth training, because in order to ensure the future of the players, during the youth training period, the players must receive cultural course training, and the club must provide a variety of cultivation.
As your quantitative scale is loose and appropriately overestimated, the number of players who meet your requirements will be more, and more people means that your investment is greater, but the only benefit of doing so is that you will not miss any potential star.
Of course, training does not mean that you can use it for you, or that you can become a talent.
Another typical example is the talented striker Portillo of Real Madrid.
This striker is definitely a high-quality product of youth training. It is not an exaggeration to say that he is a genius, and he has already become a talent. However, after entering the first team, due to various reasons, he was frequently loaned out by the club, which ultimately led to his failure to make a name for himself. This has to be said to be a great loss for Real Madrid's youth training.
In other words, Tottenham Hotspur's youth training is to ensure the success rate, but the success rate does not mean the success of the players. These are two different things.
Because of the appropriate overestimation of the loose policy, Tottenham Hotspur finally decided to keep 15 players from the 50 young players from all over the UK who participated in the three-day talent day selection.
At the internal meeting of the Theobald training base, Ye Qiu, Bobby Hams, Ricklink, Peter de Visser, Mauro Tassotti, Roland Schepers and all other members of the scout department and coaching staff attended this meeting. At this internal meeting, the focus of the discussion was the final list of players left.
There are four players who are rated very highly and are recommended for signing, namely left-footed attacking player Patrick Roberts, midfielder Nick Powell with very delicate skills, and Dan Crowley and Ryan Ledson who are also midfielders. Among these four players, Nick Powell is the oldest, fourteen years old, and will soon be fifteen, while the others are twelve years old.
This is also a feature of Tottenham Hotspur's assessment of young players. The older they are, the higher the requirements.
"Nick Powell is already capable of playing for the U18 youth team and even for the reserve team. This little guy is really impressive. I never thought that England could cultivate such a delicate player!" Bobby Hames was very impressed with the English midfielder.
The key is that his left and right feet are very good, with excellent ball sense, excellent footwork and passing ability, excellent ability to get rid of defense, and even the ability to score and shoot from behind, making it a pleasure to watch him play, but the problem is that as a midfielder, he is short and insufficient in defense and game input.
In fact, these are all very normal, because in the world of football, players with excellent skills often have poor defense, and even many people have a weak sense of teamwork. Nick Powell has a good sense of teamwork, but his defensive awareness and tactics are a little worse.
"Can the players, their families, and the Crewe Club be dealt with?" Ye Qiu looked at Peter De Visser.
Nick Powell was actually recommended and invited to participate in the Talent Day event by the scout department, so the scout department has his information. After all, if Tottenham Hotspur wants to sign this young player, it must coordinate with the Crewe Club.
Ye Qiu does not want Tottenham Hotspur to end up like Chelsea, where they are sued by the other side and banned from transferring.
"It's not a big problem. I've talked to Crewe's football director Dario Gaddi and Crewe's chairman Ball on the phone. As long as we give them a compensation, they won't restrict it."
Nick Powell joined Crewe's youth training camp at the age of five, and it has been ten years now. It is indeed necessary to give Crewe a compensation, but the amount will not be too large. After all, for a young player, 200,000 or 300,000 euros is the maximum, especially for Crewe in the fourth-tier league, this amount can fully satisfy their appetite.
"Sign him, I will meet him and his family in person later, I will convince him!" Ye Qiu nodded.
The players are willing to come to Tottenham Hotspur's Talent Day, which itself represents an intention, but Ye Qiu still has to personally communicate with every young player who is about to join Tottenham Hotspur's youth training system and their families to show Tottenham Hotspur's attention and affirmation of them.
Perhaps this may seem unnecessary to many people, but in Ye Qiu's opinion, this simple effort can gain recognition from the players and their families, and will be of great help to their future playing and progress in Tottenham Hotspur.
"Patrick Roberts, Dan Crowley, Ryan Ledson, how are they?" Ye Qiu wanted to keep these four recommended players, because if they were divided by age, they would just take over the class of Fabregas and others. If they joined Tottenham Hotspur from now on, when they matured and entered the first team, they would just be the first batch of youth training players trained by Tottenham Hotspur themselves.
"The only troublesome one is Dan Crowley, who is currently playing in Aston Villa's youth training camp." Peter De Visser said a little embarrassedly. The player also tended to join Tottenham Hotspur, and he had no professional contract with Aston Villa, but he was an Aston Villa youth training player after all, and he had registration records in the FA and the Premier League.
"I will personally call Martin O'Neill and Aston Villa CEO Paul Faulkner!" Ye Qiu said. In fact, to put it bluntly, it was just a matter of interest exchange, basically a matter of compensation.
To be honest, whether it is Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal, or Liverpool, they are all poaching the youth training of those mid- and lower-level league teams, but unlike Tottenham Hotspur, they generally target those over 16 years old, because the young people in this period have basically formed their skills and are considered semi-finished products.
Ye Qiu wants to promote localization on the one hand, but on the other hand, he also has to stick to the team's tactical style, so he decided to lower the age, mainly targeting players aged 12 to 14. According to the situation of the talent day selection activities in the past three days, there will definitely be another one in the summer, and the age will be appropriately increased by then, and will be considered from 7 to 14 years old.
As for those over 14 years old, Tottenham Hotspur will not continue to consider it. To put it bluntly, it is still not very trusting of England's youth training, especially their lack of trust in their ability to train technical players.
"In the past two months, we have passed the youth training personnel assessment and finally accepted the registration of 30 young people. Starting from mid-January 2010, we will train them and then arrange them to enter the Theobald training base for internship. In the future, the youth training coach training class will be held twice a year and will gradually be open to countries outside England!"
Youth training coaches are the biggest weakness of English football. In Ye Qiu's view, this is also the biggest weakness of Chinese football.
Without excellent youth training coaches, don't expect to cultivate excellent talents. In the eyes of many people, youth training coaches seem simple and easy, but in fact, it is very, very difficult.
This time, there are nearly a thousand people who signed up for the youth training coach training, because there are many unemployed people or amateur fans who hope to pass Tottenham Hotspur's youth training coach training and eventually find a job at the Theobald training base. After getting the youth training coach certificate, they can even work in any professional club in the future.
But among nearly a thousand people, Tottenham Hotspur finally selected thirty people because the requirements were too high. Moreover, these thirty people did not mean that they could directly enter the work after receiving professional training. They also needed to intern at the Theobald training base, that is, to play assistant, accumulate some experience, and at the same time become familiar with the responsibilities and scope of work of a youth training coach.
According to the plan drawn up by Tottenham Hotspur, they will be able to take charge of their own affairs in three years, which is already a very fast progress.
Many people have always believed that Ajax is most proud of its youth training system, and in the youth training system, the most important core resource is scouts. In fact, it is wrong. Scouts are important, but more important are youth training coaches.
Ajax has a team of youth training coaches with extremely rich experience and can provide young players with all kinds of professional guidance. This is the core resource of Ajax's youth training system, and it is also a set of foundations that Ye Qiu can't dig no matter how hard he tries.
Ye Qiu tried every possible means and paid the price of a player analysis system. In the end, he barely managed to dig out five professional coaches including Ricklink from Ajax. Ricklink will serve as the director of the youth training camp, and the other four Dutch coaches will serve as the head coaches of the youth team. Together with Tottenham's previous youth training coaching team, it is barely complete.
But in the next few years, Tottenham will pay more attention to youth training, so it is undoubtedly crucial to further improve and enhance the level and experience of the youth training coaching team, so Ye Qiu will continue to cooperate with multiple teams in youth training.
At present, Tottenham has signed four teams, Ajax in the Netherlands, Rennes in France, Southampton in England, and Santos in Brazil. In the future, Tottenham will not only cooperate with these teams in player transfers, but also youth team exchanges and competitions, exchanges and exchanges of youth training coaches, etc., which are all the focus of cooperation.
Only through this kind of communication can we learn from each other's strengths and weaknesses, and further improve and perfect Tottenham's youth training system.
Because the most core resource of the so-called youth training system is not the money you have to set up a youth training system, but the people who maintain this system. The superiority and ability of the youth training system are determined by the quality of the people who maintain this system. Therefore, Ye Qiu will continue to invest in youth training in the next few years and continue to arrange some external exchanges and learning and training to improve the quality of personnel, because only in this way can Tottenham Hotspur's youth training camp grow rapidly and achieve results.
It is also because of this that Ye Qiu recruited Bobby Hams. The greatest contribution of the Dutch old man will not be to train players, but to train coaches who train players through teaching. This is the core element of youth training and a core strategy for Ye Qiu to establish a foothold in the future.
The internal meeting was held in the afternoon of Christmas Day, and it was already evening when it ended.
Because of the Talent Day event and the Christmas Carnival, Tottenham Hotspur did not have a holiday on this day. Everyone will receive a generous Christmas subsidy. In addition, because of the carnival, and after entering 2010, they can also get holiday compensation in January, so everyone has no objection and is very enthusiastic about work.
After the internal meeting, Ye Qiu took everyone south from the Theobald training base to prepare to attend the carnival party in the Tottenham area in the evening.
After he arrived at the White Hart Lane Stadium, Messi's father Jorge, who also accompanied his family to attend the carnival, came to Ye Qiu. Judging from his face, it seems that there is a big problem.