Franco Baldini

[parklane1]

Same with coaches too. Most British coaches have never known anything other than being a player.

Most Iberian coaches (for example) have degrees in sports psychology or related subjects.

The norm here isn't to be a student of the game (though there are exceptions like Rodgers and Howe)

That is true in most cases.

 

[Jurgen the German]

Baldini had been a very successful DoF at Roma (twice) and Real Madrid - his track record is as good as anyone in the game.

If you turned up in a new job and inherited a department that had been completely neglected/decimated for 4 years, would you feel it fair to judge you on your first month's results, or do you think it fairer to give you a year or two to repair and rebuild first?

Please do stop exaggerating. 5th, 4th, 5th, 6th are our league finishes in the last four seasons.

 

[NWND]

Please do stop exaggerating. 5th, 4th, 5th, 6th are our league finishes in the last four seasons.

He's not talking about our league results he's talking about Baldini getting stick for signings but mainly judged on the 2013 summer window which he joined half way through and was put in charge of a scouting set-up that had been decimated/neglected.

 

[Jurgen the German]

He's not talking about our league results he's talking about Baldini getting stick for signings but mainly judged on the 2013 summer window which he joined half way through and was put in charge of a scouting set-up that had been decimated/neglected.

Except it wasn't "decimated and neglected". He really does have a flair for the dramatic.

 

[Baleforce]

there was a definitely a policy change, we starting signing old stars rather than future ones

 

[NWND]

Except it wasn't "decimated and neglected". He really does have a flair for the dramatic.

Well it wasn't decimated, that implies there was something there to decimate. We stopped scouting. Pretty much all of our scouts left, such as Broomfield and Carr.

We were relying on agents to present us with available players.

We hardly had any scouting or analysis when Baldini took over

 

[Jurgen the German]

Well it wasn't decimated, that implies there was something there to decimate. We stopped scouting. Pretty much all of our scouts left, such as Broomfield and Carr.

We were relying on agents to present us with available players.

We hardly had any scouting or analysis when Baldini took over

And something tells me GB will be unbelievably patient with Baldini given how he has nailed his colours to the mast, even it that takes 10 years.

 

[braineclipse]

Except it wasn't "decimated and neglected". He really does have a flair for the dramatic.

Difficult to know what went on behind the scenes, but it seems pretty clear that the club thought a bit of a rebuilding was needed at the very least.

 

[Gutter Boy]

Except it wasn't "decimated and neglected". He really does have a flair for the dramatic.

Comolli and others have talked about how our scouting network dissipated after 2008 and we were known as the poor man of Europe on that front. Levy and Redknapp relied on agent contacts alone, instead of having an organic and objective structure/set-up.

It wasn't so much a 'there's no money left' situation, but Baldini metaphorically turned up on his first day and found an archive of dusty scouting files that were 4 years out-of-date.

Remember between 2008-12, Sandro and Walker were really the only youth prospects we signed. And compare that to the periods before and since. That neglect is why we've had such enormous turnover of players in the past 2.5 years.

 

[NorwegianSpursFan]

I'd take an agent contact VDV over a well scouted Paulinho any day of the week...

 

[Gutter Boy]

Paulinho wasn't properly scouted - that was the point. He was already nearly through the door, probably based solely on his agent hawking him out. AVB wanted a DoF to stop such 'availability led' signings (I don't know what his take on Paulinho specifically was).

Dier, Alli, Azzaoui, Yahaya etc. are the real fruits of Baldini's new network.

 

[braineclipse]

I'd take an agent contact VDV over a well scouted Paulinho any day of the week...

Presumably you would also rather take a well scouted Bale, Modric or Berbatov over an agent contacted Robbie Keane returning from Liverpool? See, we can all pick individual outliers if that's what you want...

And remember too that part of what GB is saying is that perhaps Paulinho wasn't particularly well scouted because of the lack of a scouting network in the period leading up to us signing him.

 

[Finney Is Back]

Comolli and others have talked about how our scouting network dissipated after 2008 and we were known as the poor man of Europe on that front. Levy and Redknapp relied on agent contacts alone, instead of having an organic and objective structure/set-up.

It wasn't so much a 'there's no money left' situation, but Baldini metaphorically turned up on his first day and found an archive of dusty scouting files that were 4 years out-of-date.

Remember between 2008-12, Sandro and Walker were really the only youth prospects we signed. And compare that to the periods before and since. That neglect is why we've had such enormous turnover of players in the past 2.5 years.

Personally I would've thought that a decent DoF wouldn't need to be relying on any existing scouting files, but instead would have his own scouting files and networks to use. If Baldini didn't have these things then surely there was zero point in bringing him in?

Also I see that (yet again) you try to pass off fiction as fact. Between 2008 and 2012 we signed the following players who were under 23 years old:

John Bostock (16)
Paul Jose M'Poku (16)
Luka Modric (22)
Giovanni Dos Santos (19)
Kyle Naughton (20)
Kyle Walker (19)
Seb Bassong (22)
Sandro (21)
Khumalo (22)
Ceballos (18)
Coulibaly (16)
Falque (21)
Uvini (20)
Sigurdsson (22)
Fryers (21)
Holtby (22)

 

[braineclipse]

Personally I would've thought that a decent DoF wouldn't need to be relying on any existing scouting files, but instead would have his own scouting files and networks to use. If Baldini didn't have these things then surely there was zero point in bringing him in?

Also I see that (yet again) you try to pass off fiction as fact. Between 2008 and 2012 we signed the following players who were under 23 years old:

John Bostock (16)
Paul Jose M'Poku (16)
Luka Modric (22)
Giovanni Dos Santos (19)
Kyle Naughton (20)
Kyle Walker (19)
Seb Bassong (22)
Sandro (21)
Khumalo (22)
Ceballos (18)
Coulibaly (16)
Falque (21)
Uvini (20)
Sigurdsson (22)
Fryers (21)
Holtby (22)

You didn't get that GB was talking about the period under Redknapp and as such players signed under Comolli/Ramos and AVB were not what was being discussed here? Really?

 

[indianspur]

Personally I would've thought that a decent DoF wouldn't need to be relying on any existing scouting files, but instead would have his own scouting files and networks to use. If Baldini didn't have these things then surely there was zero point in bringing him in?

Also I see that (yet again) you try to pass off fiction as fact. Between 2008 and 2012 we signed the following players who were under 23 years old:

John Bostock (16)
Paul Jose M'Poku (16)
Luka Modric (22)
Giovanni Dos Santos (19)
Kyle Naughton (20)
Kyle Walker (19)
Seb Bassong (22)
Sandro (21)
Khumalo (22)
Ceballos (18)
Coulibaly (16)
Falque (21)
Uvini (20)
Sigurdsson (22)
Fryers (21)
Holtby (22)

and Bentaleb, Jan 2012

 

[NWND]

Personally I would've thought that a decent DoF wouldn't need to be relying on any existing scouting files, but instead would have his own scouting files and networks to use. If Baldini didn't have these things then surely there was zero point in bringing him in?

Also I see that (yet again) you try to pass off fiction as fact. Between 2008 and 2012 we signed the following players who were under 23 years old:

John Bostock (16)
Paul Jose M'Poku (16)
Luka Modric (22)
Giovanni Dos Santos (19)
Kyle Naughton (20)
Kyle Walker (19)
Seb Bassong (22)
Sandro (21)
Khumalo (22)
Ceballos (18)
Coulibaly (16)
Falque (21)
Uvini (20)
Sigurdsson (22)
Fryers (21)
Holtby (22)

The above list kind of proves the point regarding inadequate scouting, for a large part.

Again, I think what GB is alluding to was a lot of our signings were centered on 'availability'. Take post-Modric sale. Dembele was settled upon because his agent told us he wanted to leave Fulham and he had a £15m release clause. It was an easy deal.

Holtby again, was available on a free, so we did the deal for that reason. His agent was probably trying to get him a move to England, as he wanted to try it in his career, being half English.

Sandro was properly scouted, he was recommended by Broomfield when he was in South America.

Sigurdsson again, had a set release clause in his Hoffenheim contract, it allowed an easy deal to be done.

 

[Gutter Boy]

Personally I would've thought that a decent DoF wouldn't need to be relying on any existing scouting files, but instead would have his own scouting files and networks to use. If Baldini didn't have these things then surely there was zero point in bringing him in?

I'd be pretty confident that scouting files are the IP of the club and it would be illegal for an employee leaving to take anything with him (stealing corporate data).

Similarly I suspect a lot of what Mitchell is doing now is writing new black box algorithms, because I'm sure Southampton own the ones he developed when employed by them.

 

[billyiddo]

Im starting to think your posts here on GG are put together by your computer, with you having written the algorithims for what to pick up on and repeat time after time.

 

[Finney Is Back]

I'd be pretty confident that scouting files are the IP of the club and it would be illegal for an employee leaving to take anything with him (stealing corporate data).

Similarly I suspect a lot of what Mitchell is doing now is writing new black box algorithms, because I'm sure Southampton own the ones he developed when employed by them.

While it is indeed illegal to take physical files you are allowed to use anything that is 'in your head'.... In reality it takes very little time to get up to speed in a new job (assuming you have a reasonable sized brain of course).

 

[Gutter Boy]

While it is indeed illegal to take physical files you are allowed to use anything that is 'in your head'.... In reality it takes very little time to get up to speed in a new job (assuming you have a reasonable sized brain of course).

Aren't there something like 80,000 players on Football Manager? You'd expect our database to be at least as extensive as that surely?

If our 2 Brazilian scouts left and weren't replaced in 2008, Baldini's not still going to be able to suck up intelligence from Roma's Brazilian scouts, so we have a blind spot there. Baldini might know the national team and U21s for most countries, but not 16 YOs in Princesa do Solimoes' academy.