PZPN

"To regularly reach places where previously either no one has been or observations have been sporadic" – this was the idea behind the concept of involving a large group of trusted professionals in the process of searching for and verifying players with potential to play football professionally. The principles themselves may not be revolutionary, but bringing carefully selected coaches, who have been tried and tested in other fields over the years, into the scouting team is a big step towards broadening and deepening weekly observations.

More human resources mean more opportunities. As part of their new responsibilities, Mobile Young Eagles Academy coaches will watch and report on at least six matches per month, which will mean nearly 150 additional reports per year in each province (each with two Academy coaches working in each), and this is only for the U12 to U14 categories, which are the direct precursors to the selection stage for youth teams.

"This is a move that develops our scouting on an even larger scale. We will regularly reach not only the biggest clubs and the players who play for them, but also the smallest ones, and this is extremely important because talents can be found anywhere. By engaging in the process of searching for coaches who have proven their competence over the years, we want to minimise the risk of missing out on talent that is on par with the Polish national team," comments Adam Kaźmierczak, vice-president of the Polish Football Association for amateur football.

"It may seem a bit exaggerated, but this movement is bringing the elite and grassroots football closer together. Today, there is more focus on footballers who play in smaller towns and local clubs than there used to be. We do not only observe players who are in the spotlight, i.e. who play in regional teams and the Central Junior League, because our analyses confirm that talents who are in smaller towns are sooner or later able to shine even at the level of the first team," adds Marcin Dorna, sports director of the PZPN, following the president's words.

"We wanted to leverage the human potential within the association, and as it happens, one of the core responsibilities of Mobile Young Eagles Academy coaches from the very beginning of their work at PZPN has been youth scouting during the training sessions they conduct in the field," explains Paweł Wypij, the national scouting coordinator at the association. "In the new year, we involved these coaches in scouting for the U12 to U14 age group, which is closely related to the projects run by the Grassroots Department: the Young Eagles Academy training camps and macroregional tournaments for regional teams.

Players from major academies are well known to the association and will not suddenly disappear from its radar. They are, of course, candidates for pre-selection events or further observation. Therefore, Academy coaches, acting as scouts, will not be dealing with them but will instead focus on less obvious players competing in less obvious matches in less obvious locations. And they are quite skilled at it - after all, the original idea behind their work was to regularly visit every county in Poland and organise free training courses for football coaches and physical education teachers there. During the practical part of each session, they closely observed the children participating, unknowingly (from today’s perspective) gaining valuable scouting experience ahead of the challenges set before them at the beginning of 2025.

In their new area of work, the Academy team members report directly to the relevant macroregional scout. There are four of them within the Polish Football Association's structure: Paweł Wypij, who is also the national scouting coordinator, is responsible for the Kujawsko-Pomorskie, Pomorskie, Wielkopolskie and Zachodniopomorskie provinces, Marek Piotrowicz for the Dolnośląskie, Lubuskie, Opolskie and Śląskie provinces, Grzegorz Żytkiewicz for the Łódzkie, Mazowieckie, Podlaskie and Warmińsko-Mazurskie provinces, and Artur Gadzicki for the Lubelskie, Małopolskie, Podkarpackie and Świętokrzyskie provinces. The latter two are also assistants in the U15 and U16 Polish national teams, which further facilitates the selection process at subsequent stages of football education. Each of the main scouts has built their own network of scouts in their macroregion, who cooperate in individual provinces. This includes, among others, coaches of regional teams and those working in clubs on a daily basis. Now their capacities have been increased even further. Each province has been assigned two scouts-coaches who have seen thousands of players in action in recent years. They regularly participate in Young Eagles Academy training camps where they observe the national elite as a reference point for their subsequent observations and draw conclusions. They also undergo the PZPN Scout course.

"The number of regional scouts has seriously increased this year, and behind this the number of observations in every possible place in Poland will also increase. Currently, every player from U12 upwards is or will be observed at some point," assures Dorna.

Freshly-qualified scouts receive a list of matches to be compulsorily watched and reported on in advance from their dedicated macroregional scout. Academy scouts can, moreover, take their own initiative and watch the events they plan for themselves.

"In addition to the matches selected by Paweł, I also choose the games I would like to watch myself, for example, if I remember an interesting player from a particular club who I saw playing for the Mobile Young Eagles Academy. It is worth returning to such players after a break to see how they have changed during that time. We look at the player's current performance, but we also monitor their progress. Four to five months in the youth level is a long time and a lot can change during this period,' says Jakub Wojtkowiak, coach of the Mobile Young Eagles Academy in the Wielkopolskie province and also coach of the Wielkopolskie U13 team. "– Last weekend, I took part in the observations on Saturday and Sunday: first in the regional league U15-U14, then U13-U12. Both of these matches featured boys who are one and two years younger and, among other things, we are tasked with spotting such gems.

A quick look at the IT-based Scouting and Observation System is enough to confirm coach Wojtkowiak's words. Over the weekend, he watched the matches of the youth teams of Unia Swarzędz, and on Saturday alone, Maciej Kuziomko watched the clashes of Bora Oborniki Śląskie with AP Dzierżoniów in the U12 category and Olympic Junior Wrocław with Karkonosze Jelenia Góra in the U13 category. Their colleagues were at the matches of Błękit Żołynia with JKS SMS Jarosław, Granica Kętrzyn with Polonia Lidzbark Warmiński and Korona Kożuchów with Odra Bytom Odrzański. A combination that would not be the first to come to mind when trying to find a potential Polish national team player. That is exactly what the project is about, involving Mobile Young Eagles Academy coaches in the Polish Football Association's national scouting efforts.

The conclusions of a given observation in the form of a report must appear in the ISOS system no later than 48 hours after the meeting. "Until now, Academy coaches, who have been filling in scouting reports after visiting clubs or conducting training sessions for years, have been entering them in a separate system. Now they have access to the ISOS platform, and their reports are thoroughly analysed by the respective macroregional scout, by me and by director Dorna," explains Paweł Wypij. "If the Academy coach gives a positive assessment, the next step is for the indicated player to be reviewed by the macroregional scout, who decides whether the player is already being observed at a level predisposing them to be selected for the Academy training camp or whether observation should continue in the hope that they will reach that level.

As part of the monthly summary, the scouting department will send each regional association a list of all matches watched by the Academy coaches and the players highlighted in each category. The regional football associations will benefit from this, as they will be able to draw on these lists and invite these players to selection consultations for their squads. It is expected that this will raise the level of play.

Importantly, the scouting branch of the Mobile Young Eagles Academy coaches' work also takes into account girls' football. Of the compulsory six monthly observations of each new scout, four are to be for boys and two for girls playing in boys' teams. "There are still a lot of them, and we have an idea of how to reach them. I know from experience that some are found completely by chance, and this randomness we want to avoid. Hence the involvement of the Academy coaches, then the verification of the macroregional scouts of women's football, and then the analogous path as with boys," explains Wypij.

For the coaches of the Mobile Young Eagles Academy, scouting is an additional area of work alongside the ongoing educational visits to certified nurseries and training for clubs, parents, coaches and PE teachers. Perhaps they will enjoy talent scouting so much that they will want to devote themselves to this task full-time in the future? "By involving them in the scouting process, we have gained an excellent field for further recruitment of professional scouts. I am referring here to regional and macroregional scouts in the Polish Football Association. I like to read the reports that are created and see who evaluates footballers, what they pay special attention to, what they think is a key element of potential. This can be a nice path of development for people who today are mainly involved in education and in the future see themselves as scouts," concludes director Dorna.