was the other side which got to me. You see people who are financially secure, who decide they don’t have to be nice to be anyone. They shed their humanity. There are everyday irritations – I don’t miss the tube, that’s for sure – but eventually I had enough of the egos. I just decided I didn’t need to work there.’
He had played, semi-professionally, and was asked to coach, part time, at a sports school in Portobello in West London. There he met a teacher, who gave him an introduction to Barcelona’s soccer school system. He spent three months there annually for four years, working as a translator and a coach, and refined his football philosophy. He was recruited by Arsenal’s Academy, where he worked with Ose Aibangee, a coach with a similar perspective, and Shaun O’Connor, the scout who discovered Jack Wilshere. The three are now the pillars of Brentford’s youth system.
Rios, a tall, mild, quietly spoken man, has responsibility for talent identification, and is head of recruitment for the Under 6–12 age groups. He has 15 scouts reporting to him and, on this particular Sunday, watched eight games, in Hounslow and Ealing. Against expectations, in an age in which the young are conditioned to believe you are the badge you wear, he was wearing a fawn hoodie, and a silver-grey gilet, rather than a club tracksuit.
‘No uniform,’ he said. ‘The parents like you to have one, but most scouts wear it for their egos. I don’t want to draw attention to myself. No one should know who you are. I prefer to be in the group. I listen for names, and try to fit players to parents. Essentially it is like looking for a needle in a haystack. At this level you need spotters, seeing as many games as they can. It is a cut-throat environment, where people try to undermine you. Why be a scout, then? I prefer it to coaching, because coaching is very binary. Its yes no yes no.
‘The FA coaching courses seem driven by an economic imperative. They are not age specific. The system, at youth level, is too unstructured. A lot of coaches don’t understand critical things like development cycles. The analogy I use is that most people see the car dashboard. They see the dials, indicators of what is going on under the bonnet. Scouts are the sat nav system, to see where we are going, and how to get there.’
We parked at Warren Farm, on what was once a series of shale tennis courts. Up to 20 games are staged here each weekend, on a 63-acre site, and the shortcomings were immediately obvious. An Under 11 game was being played on a full-size pitch: it was an absurd Lilliputian spectacle, closer to a cross-country race than a suitable contest in what coaches regard as the final meaningful year of a young footballer’s technical development. The parents, mainly young mothers with double buggies, and fathers in a fog of cigarette smoke, loved it.
Rios was a familiar figure. He shook hands with several coaches, asked after the occasional boy. He was respectful, engaged and observant. As we wandered along the touchline of an Under 9s match on a mercifully truncated pitch, he pointed out a sullen youth, with his hands stuffed into the pockets of his baggy jeans: ‘He tells me he’s an academy coach. What do you reckon?’ No answer was required. Had one been delivered, it would probably not have registered, because he had found what he was looking for.
An Under 15 game was in its final quarter. It was a frantic match, fuelled by unstructured effort and unintelligible instructions from the sidelines. ‘Look at the ethnicity of the teams,’ murmured Rios. ‘Certain coaches can only handle certain types of boys from certain types of backgrounds. Their teams are a reflection of who they are.’
One of the coaches, in a white half-sleeved tee-shirt, looked like a middleweight boxer gone to seed. His harsh negativity – ‘go on Smiffy, fuckin’ have him’ – matched his taut body language. His team was exclusively white and
He had played, semi-professionally, and was asked to coach, part time, at a sports school in Portobello in West London. There he met a teacher, who gave him an introduction to Barcelona’s soccer school system. He spent three months there annually for four years, working as a translator and a coach, and refined his football philosophy. He was recruited by Arsenal’s Academy, where he worked with Ose Aibangee, a coach with a similar perspective, and Shaun O’Connor, the scout who discovered Jack Wilshere. The three are now the pillars of Brentford’s youth system.
Rios, a tall, mild, quietly spoken man, has responsibility for talent identification, and is head of recruitment for the Under 6–12 age groups. He has 15 scouts reporting to him and, on this particular Sunday, watched eight games, in Hounslow and Ealing. Against expectations, in an age in which the young are conditioned to believe you are the badge you wear, he was wearing a fawn hoodie, and a silver-grey gilet, rather than a club tracksuit.
‘No uniform,’ he said. ‘The parents like you to have one, but most scouts wear it for their egos. I don’t want to draw attention to myself. No one should know who you are. I prefer to be in the group. I listen for names, and try to fit players to parents. Essentially it is like looking for a needle in a haystack. At this level you need spotters, seeing as many games as they can. It is a cut-throat environment, where people try to undermine you. Why be a scout, then? I prefer it to coaching, because coaching is very binary. Its yes no yes no.
‘The FA coaching courses seem driven by an economic imperative. They are not age specific. The system, at youth level, is too unstructured. A lot of coaches don’t understand critical things like development cycles. The analogy I use is that most people see the car dashboard. They see the dials, indicators of what is going on under the bonnet. Scouts are the sat nav system, to see where we are going, and how to get there.’
We parked at Warren Farm, on what was once a series of shale tennis courts. Up to 20 games are staged here each weekend, on a 63-acre site, and the shortcomings were immediately obvious. An Under 11 game was being played on a full-size pitch: it was an absurd Lilliputian spectacle, closer to a cross-country race than a suitable contest in what coaches regard as the final meaningful year of a young footballer’s technical development. The parents, mainly young mothers with double buggies, and fathers in a fog of cigarette smoke, loved it.
Rios was a familiar figure. He shook hands with several coaches, asked after the occasional boy. He was respectful, engaged and observant. As we wandered along the touchline of an Under 9s match on a mercifully truncated pitch, he pointed out a sullen youth, with his hands stuffed into the pockets of his baggy jeans: ‘He tells me he’s an academy coach. What do you reckon?’ No answer was required. Had one been delivered, it would probably not have registered, because he had found what he was looking for.
An Under 15 game was in its final quarter. It was a frantic match, fuelled by unstructured effort and unintelligible instructions from the sidelines. ‘Look at the ethnicity of the teams,’ murmured Rios. ‘Certain coaches can only handle certain types of boys from certain types of backgrounds. Their teams are a reflection of who they are.’
One of the coaches, in a white half-sleeved tee-shirt, looked like a middleweight boxer gone to seed. His harsh negativity – ‘go on Smiffy, fuckin’ have him’ – matched his taut body language. His team was exclusively white and
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