/ 11 June 2010

Well spotted

Well Spotted

The coaches and scouts who first discovered Rooney, Torres, Messi and Kaka share their stories of discovery

Bob Pendleton
Everton scout who spotted Wayne Rooney when he was an eight-year-old with Copplehouse
You always hope to discover someone who’ll make the first team but what Wayne has achieved is incredible. He has matured so much. When I look at him now he reminds me of Roy Keane, a winner and a leader, and while as an Evertonian it would have been nice to see us win something with him in the team, his move to Manchester United has been fantastic for him. He deserves it and it’s nice to think I have helped ­somewhere along the line.

I still remember the first time I saw young Wayne. It was at the Long Lane playing fields and Wayne was eight. I’ve been involved with the Walton and Kirkdale Junior League since 1977. I’m now the fixture and registration secretary and that day I had to have a word withCopplehouse Juniors because they owed raffle fees of £4.50.

As I was asking their manager, Big Nev, about the money I noticed this little striker trying to do something different every time he got the ball. When he got the ball, the ball belonged to him, and when he passed the ball, he always wanted it back. He was eight and the other players were all 10 but he was scoring goals for fun. Wayne had turned the season around for Copplehouse and Big Nev was devastated when I asked about him. He didn’t want to lose his best player, not even to Everton.

Fortunately Wayne’s mum and dad were watching the game so I strolled over and invited them to bring their son to Bellefield, Everton’s training ground, later that week. It’s a big help to a scout if the parents support the team he’s working for and thankfully Wayne senior and Jeanette are massive Evertonians.
Before they arrived on the Thursday night I went to see Ray Hall, the youth academy director, and asked him to sign this eight-year-old on the spot.

It was an unusual request as Ray hadn’t seen him play but he showed a lot of trust in me and made a huge fuss of young Wayne and his dad when they arrived. They went up to Ray’s office and I can still remember big Wayne telling his lad to sit up straight in the chair and to make a good impression. Then Ray came in and deliberately left his door open. I knew he was up to something. The next thing Joe Royle, who was manager at the time and one of big Wayne’s boyhood heroes, walked past and Ray invited him in. Joe was great, really friendly. Then we signed Wayne Rooney.

You could tell he was something special immediately. Coaches who had been around for years were all talking about him, referees would ring me up after games to talk about what they had just seen and even older players at Everton were lifted when he trained with them. I’ve no doubt he is going to captain Manchester United and England. I just hope he stays clear of injury this summer and takes England all the way.

Abraham Garcia
Atletico Madrid youth team coach who first worked with Fernando Torres when he was 15.

When Fernando Torres scored the winning goal at Euro 2008, not only was I delighted as a football fan and a Spaniard but also I felt enormously proud to have worked with him from the age of 15 until he made his first-team debut at Atletico Madrid in 2001. I have so much admiration for Fernando and was delighted that he had achieved such a remarkable feat: he had scored the winning goal for Spain’s under-16s, under-19s and now for the senior side in the European Championship. Every time Spain had won 1-0 and every time he had got the goal. He deserved it.

I remember the first time I saw him very clearly. He surprised me: he was barely 15 years old and yet he was already very physically imposing. He was a great athlete, tall and strong and quick. His physical condition was incredible. In modern football you need to have speed and power and he had it right from the start. I have been fortunate enough to work with a lot of kids who have made it as first-division professionals but you could see that Fernando was special. He was elegant in his running, like a sprinter.

Talent is innate and you could see that Fernando had it but there is always a chance that players won’t make it. Fernando grasped that right from the start. In fact, he had that attitude anyway. He was never happy 100% with himself and kept on pushing. He listened and he learned and he kept on practising. He still does.
He was quiet and reasonably shy but very determined. He competed with kids who were older than him but it was never a problem, either on the field or off it. He was strong enough and mentally tough enough to compete and he didn’t let himself get led astray either.

Fernando doesn’t have exquisite individual technique but football is not just about that. You need to be able to apply your talent and use it properly.

Guillermo Hoyos
Lionel Messi’s youth coach at Barcelona when he stepped off the plane from Argentina.
I first met Messi on a trip to Japan. I had just joined Barcelona as youth manager and we met at the airport going to a youth tournament. Our first match was against Feyenoord and we were losing 1-0. In the second half Messi turned the match around; he just took control of the game and carried the whole team on his shoulders. We won 3-1 without him scoring but totally turning the game around on his own.

We bonded from the start. I was the only foreigner working at the club at the time and I think the fact that we were both from the same country helped. I remember one of the first things I asked him was which team he supported. He said “Newell’s” and we started talking about the clubs back home. That was the start of a friendship that quietly goes on to this day.

Football-wise he was the most similar to Maradona I had ever seen and I said as much. I chose the comparison because I wanted to make sure his name transcended – at the time no one knew Lionel. And I had played with Diego in the 1979 youth squad for Argentina, so I knew exceptional youth internationals: I remember clearly doing an interview for an Argentinian paper in 2003 and saying: “He is going to be the best player in the world.”

The very first training session I knew he was extraordinary. I’ve coached players like Pedro, Pique, Suarez and Busquet but Leo was out of the mould. Very soon it became obvious to me he was ready to move up the club ranks. I felt Lionel was wasting his time training with us. Not that he wouldn’t improve or didn’t have things to learn but I felt he was ready to train with the first team. The view in Europe was that he was too young and shouldn’t be playing against “men” but, where we come from, kids make their debut for the first team at a very young age if they’re ready. I did at 16 and Lionel was clearly tough and able to take the tackles and hacks even from bigger players; in fact, he could dribble past them.

I made him captain. He was a reserved boy, never one to speak much, but he’s not shy at all like people think and he has a very strong sense of teamwork and very ingrained notions of friendship and solidarity. He is able to generate trust and confidence in a team without needing to say much – I think of him as a silent leader.

Beyond how Argentina do this World Cup, Leo will be the top player, I’m sure. He hasn’t had much exposure to football in Argentina and a whole team needs to be built – it’s not just Leo alone. But football in Argentina is an industry and today the president of that industry is Lionel Messi.

Carlos de Lorenzi
Sao Paulo’s youth coach when he spotted Kaka, then a 12-year-old prodigy
Sometimes I wonder how many times I would wake up sweating had I passed up the chance to take Kaka on board after seeing him playing in a big, non-competitive kids’ tournament on the outskirts of Sao Paulo. Make no mistake: He was only 12 but still had a lot of skill and, above all, initiative. The only thing that did not make me jump straight away was the fact that the boy was quite skinny. But we brought him in, thankfully.

In our profession spotting talent is fundamental but, even when you reckon there is a rough diamond in front of you, it still gives you goose bumps when the kids make it at the top level. It could be easy for me to say that one could see all the way that Kaka would end up being one of the world’s top players and even win the Fifa award, but in fact he surpassed everybody’s expectations because players like him do not show up every week.

It’s remarkable that Kaka has achieved so much in the game without becoming a prima donna. Right after the World Cup we met and laughed together about the old times.

The only case I can remember of a kid who would basically smell of World Cup material was Ronaldinho, whom I saw while working in southern Brazil. Gosh, he used to tear the other kids apart — the difference in talent was brutal. There is no way I buy these theories associating talent to mere work rate. Genetics do play a part, although these natural gifts can be squandered.

That’s why it’s so important to worry about more than immediate results. Kaka had other coaches scratching their heads thanks to his frail physique and some even suggested he should try following his father’s career as an engineer but Sao Paulo kept believing.

Nowadays I am working for Luverdense, a third division side in central Brazil. I have already found some interesting kids there but since I am the manager now I have to keep it secret. —