José Chieira is considered the 'father' of Football Manager's Portuguese database, a game he worked on as Head Researcher for more than 20 years, helping build one of the most reliable databases in the world.
Outside the virtual world, though, and helped by the information-management and networking experience gained through CM, he made the jump to 'real' football. Sporting, Académica, Panathinaikos and FC Porto are some of the clubs he's worked for, and at the 'Dragons', where he spent eight years, he was responsible for discovering several well-known names such as Jackson, Otamendi, Brahimi, Alex Sandro and Alex Telles.
He recently gave an interview to Maisfutebol, where he talked about his career.
Maisfutebol: How did you discover football?
José Chieira: Besides messing around playing football a bit as a kid, the start of anything football-related for me began with Championship Manager [CM]. That was more than 20 years ago now. I'm terrible with dates, but it must have been around then. Basically, I played the game, I was a virtual manager like any other, and I was registered in the database of virtual managers from various countries. They asked me if I was available to start taking part in scouting scouting and building a database for the Portuguese teams. I did a test which involved analysing Marítimo's squad, and within 15 days it was an easy decision.
MF: But did you actually play football?
José Chieira: Yes, I did play. I practised a lot of sports while studying at the same time. My parents put some limits on the sports and the time available for them. I had to make choices. I was born in Coimbra and moved to Lisbon at 16, because I got into university early. From there it was easy to make a decision. I had a lot of friends who played, and I always had a very close relationship with football. We used to go to Santa Cruz, in Sereia, where Académica's training ground was, and instead of going to catechism, I'd stay there from 9am until whenever mass ended (laughs).
MF: Do you think having played football mattered for how you performed your role at Championship Manager??
José Chieira: Of course. I think I was, in a good way, a victim of a very early scouting process. From very early on, I managed to carry all my feel for the game over into analysing individual technical ability. Joining CM, at 20 or 21, forced me into a more analytical approach to the game. Having played, and having that knowledge and feel for it, let me quickly realise I was in a new context, and a very particular space, to stay connected to football.
MF: What did your role at CM actually involve?
José Chieira: Basically I had to know everything there was to know about football. What was needed? Information — not just on players, broken down very rigorously across several areas, but also on the contractual side. I also had to gather information on coaching staffs. Even back then, there was already detail in analysing the manager and every professional at the club, including the board.
MF: How did you reach those people?
José Chieira: I was lucky. Looking back… back then, not everyone had internet access. Fortunately I had internet at home and, in its early days, managed to build a proactive approach. I'd look for people not just through traditional channels, but through the internet too. I had to watch tons of matches at various levels, because we were in the phase of absorbing every bit of information we could. It wasn't knowledge yet, we wanted to build up a lot of raw information, both from watching with our own eyes and from what the rest of the team we were building was seeing. People wanted to be connected to the game, and we used that to create a kind of pyramid structure, as a way to feed the database.
MF: How did you filter the information?
José Chieira: It wasn't easy, it really wasn't. Then you get the 'Tó Madeiras'. It's a funny story, which comes from inefficiencies that can even exist within the scouting process itself. It can happen even within a club context. It's impossible to control everything. We tried, just like clubs do, to create ways of cross-checking information, that is, filtering everything so that by the time it reached the top, it was credible. The very way the database is worked on is very complex. It doesn't allow simultaneous collaboration, two people can't edit the same player at the same time. That makes the process very complex. As for Tó Madeira… a guy applied to be a contributor, he was from Gouveia and could give information about the local club. He gave the information and it got imported into the database, slipping past the initial checks by the time the first version of the game came out. A day later we thought, 'This is crazy, this guy from Gouveia is incredible.' Tó Madeira was him, together with his friends (laughs). He became a phenomenon because he has a catchy name. It's a very complex task, because you can't control every part of the process.
MF: Didn't you feel your work was being used by clubs or other people?
José Chieira: I think that was collateral damage, a growing pain with positive consequences. It was recognition that something worthwhile was being done. I won't say it was quality work, because it was a basic scouting process, we were just creating information and references. It wasn't a knowledge-based process, for one simple reason. It's one thing to work on this kind of database outside a club context. Inside a club context, every piece of analysis has a cost, and at a club like FC Porto, one casual conversation can have consequences worth 30 or 40 million. CM created a way of organising and managing information that simply didn't exist in Portugal. It's only natural that other market players — clubs, managers or agents — took advantage of that. A lot of people approached me, and I realised the level we were working at wasn't good or bad, it simply didn't exist in Portugal at all.
MF: Was scouting an underdeveloped area in Portugal?
José Chieira: Yes, and time ended up proving me right. Back then, without realising it, the work we did was scouting-department work. As the game exploded in popularity, the people contributing in each country became part of an incredible phenomenon. Not just on the technical side, but also in organisation, information management and networking to feed that database. So, suddenly, practically out of nowhere, very young people had built a scouting department that originally started in England and had people all over the world. I genuinely was part of the first global quantitative database, and not just of players.
MF: You then started working with Sporting…
José Chieira: They had a setup that really struggled to manage information. By coincidence, that's where our collaboration began. It worked like a partnership. I started going out with the club's more veteran scouts, through mutual friendships, and they started realising the information-management and networking approach was different. That's how far CM managed to carry over into football: it created a scouting model that didn't exist in Portugal.
MF: What memories do you have of that period?
José Chieira: I was extremely lucky to share knowledge — or rather, to absorb it. These were amazing situations for my age and for the level I was at. We'd leave Lisbon at 6am to go watch an Under-12s match in Chaves, or here in Matosinhos to watch Leixões. I built a habit of being out in the field, and I started to understand the feedback from that same work. It's nothing like working outside a club, which made me think scouting it was worth doing within a club context. I already had the tools CM had given me to be able to bring something to a club's structure.
MF: At that point, did you combine working at Sporting with working at CM?
José Chieira For twenty years, in one way or another, I was always connected to CM. Alongside an Italian, I was the longest-serving foreign contributor. I started before the person who is now the company's CEO. It was a lot of years.
MF: How many years were you at Sporting with Aurélio Pereira?
José Chieira: I spent one season working in youth football, and in the meantime the chance came up to move to senior football at Vitória de Setúbal. I joined a level of the scouting department, where I did both collective and individual analysis. My work in this area truly started there. I coordinated the scouting department, set up by Jorge Jesus, was responsible for the southern region, and also did opposition analysis. That's how I began my professional career connected to clubs.
MF: From Vitória de Setúbal you moved to Académica.
José Chieira: I'm from Coimbra, but it was a coincidence. I had several offers, but Académica invited me to build a scouting department. They offered me a three-year contract, and I combined business with pleasure. I was the scouting coordinator, we didn't have many resources, but part of growing is learning how to make the most of what you have. It was a huge challenge. Even for the club itself, financially, there were leverage opportunities that had never existed before. That was also possible thanks to a different approach to the market.
MF: What kind of approach was that?
José Chieira: We had to be pragmatic to turn Académica into a top-flight club. Académica's approach was very domestically focused, it had to be. To gamble on quality players from abroad, you needed to know them and have the money to pay for them. There were exceptions, like the Marcel case, which helped leverage both the financial and sporting sides. From January to December he saved Académica from two relegations, so it was a good deal for everyone.
MF: You then moved to Panathinaikos. How did that opportunity come about?
José Chieira: I worked directly with the head of operations, Jasminko Velić, who played for Estrela da Amadora and later was Fernando Santos's assistant. I met a lot of people along the way, and I got invited to coordinate all of Panathinaikos's international scouting. Honestly, it was an extraordinary challenge. It let me leave a club — I won't say regional, because Académica is huge, massive… It's not the biggest, but it's the best club in the world. Let's leave it there… (laughs). Anyway, it let me move from a very limited geographic area to the whole world. That said, the first trip abroad I made was to Argentina, for Académica, but that wasn't something that happened often. Panathinaikos let me go global.
MF: At Panathinaikos, which market did your work mainly focus on?
José Chieira: There are cultural and historical factors tied to the club. Panathinaikos had a specific quirk. The club's owner was married to a Scandinavian lady… so every year we'd try to explore various Scandinavian markets to do a deal, to try to build good connections. It mattered to the owner to have that link. Then there were also success stories with Argentine players at the club… so we were keen on having Argentine players. On the other hand, we had a connection to Spain. It was understood that a Spanish manager or player added value, even just from a brand perspective. We had to juggle all of that. This kind of chess game let me see a lot, travel a lot. Central Europe interested us too. Panathinaikos's financial situation was leveraged, unlike Olympiacos's. We were always working with less, doing real scouting. We looked for good deals, which meant taking on some risk. The first player I brought to Panathinaikos was Dame N'Doye. He was 21. From my analysis of players with that profile, Dame was well above average. There was risk because of his age, but he was already playing in Europe. Meanwhile, we had to see if it was worth pursuing that path. Panathinaikos had a limit on non-EU players. Every decision carried weight. At the time, the football decision was made, but the player was under contract with Académica. There were some disagreements between the club and the player, which were later settled in court. Since we already had a pre-agreement, he joined our team. He was always a starter for as long as he had a contract with the club. He made the club money for five or six years. Between loans, buy-backs and sales, Panathinaikos was constantly making good money. It was an excellent deal.
MF: You then moved to FC Porto.
José Chieira: I spent eight years at FC Porto. By then I already had four years of making decisions on the global market. I worked directly with the head of operations, with very close involvement in decision-making. It wasn't just market and technical analysis anymore. What I did already factored in the negotiating side, linking a player's profile to his price. Arriving at FC Porto came about almost naturally. FC Porto was an upgrade.
MF: What role did you have?
José Chieira: I joined as international scout. FC Porto had a strong setup, but there was perhaps a gap on the international side. I joined to fill that gap.
MF: Did FC Porto have a defined player profile?
José Chieira: Yes, there was. For instance, FC Porto traditionally didn't stray from the 4-3-3, although Professor Jesualdo's approach was different from Villas-Boas's and Vítor Pereira's. Each manager's way of working brings its own specific input, which can lead to different profiles. Fundamentally, and put simply, you have to look at the player's overall dimension, which means a pragmatic breakdown. Is he a player who can play for FC Porto or not? That's the final question. Then we have to work backwards, asking things like 'when will he be able to play for FC Porto?' or 'how will he play for FC Porto?' Does he fit the fine detail of what we want at that moment for the club's model? We looked at FC Porto as a club that always needs squad solutions to win every match. But in the end, we have to answer whether he can play for the club or not. Everything before that is about details, but it's a whole process.
MF: What were the limitations of being a scout during that period?
José Chieira: They exist at every club. Resource optimisation is always a factor, except maybe at Real Madrid or Manchester United. In any context, a scout's job has one end goal, which is technical validation of the player. There can also be an assessment of his market projection, and that reading should be in the scout's mind while breaking down the player. For example, there's no point looking at Martial if Martial isn't coming to FC Porto. You can't do this work without boundaries. That financial side isn't part of scouting itself, it comes before scouting.
'Vítor Pereira literally spent four or five months holding Alex Sandro's hand.'
MF: What kind of relationship does the scouting department have with the manager?
José Chieira: It depends on the organisation and on the profiles of the people involved in the process. Managers are increasingly aware they should be partners with the scouting department. Obviously, any manager wants to win, any manager — carrying this over to youth football — wants the best possible players. And that's only possible with the scouting department. I see that relationship as a partnership, especially since the scouting department's work has to partly match the profiles set out by the coaching staff. The balance sits right in the middle. There has to be openness from everyone involved to understand that it's the club that benefits from that communication, and it should be frequent. Managers look for channels to reach quality players, and if there's a channel inside the club, it should be kept fed with information.
MF: Which market did you work in most during your time at FC Porto?
José Chieira: FC Porto works like the others. There's a history of success with links to South America, but the goal was to look at the whole picture as much as possible. There are good players anywhere in the world. On the other hand, there are tools to get to know players, and a club like FC Porto has a greater capacity to get to know them well. We have to be pragmatic and understand that, financially, FC Porto, Sporting and Benfica can't have the ambition to pay 30 million for a player. So that shapes the whole geo-strategy. At these clubs, it's increasingly hard to guarantee what we call the balance between maturity and quality. Why? The bigger clubs have giant scouting machines present all over the world from a very young age. By strategy, and because they can, those clubs limit the scouting and recruitment options for clubs like FC Porto. I've told friends at bigger clubs that, in principle, it's more cost-effective for them to shrink their own structure and let teams like FC Porto, Benfica, Ajax, PSV and others do the first filtering. Then they just harvest the results, that is, they let those clubs make the mistakes and then pick up the ones they think have the potential to reach their level. That's how the market works. A club like FC Porto pays to see, those bigger clubs pay to wait.
MF: During this period, did you ever validate a player who ended up not being signed?
José Chieira: Yes, but that's normal. The market is very complex. Often we know there's a window to make a deal, but it's not always possible.
MF: Which one?
José Chieira: No point saying, they're at other clubs now (laughs). People often ask a scout about their frustration, which is knowing there's an extraordinary deal right there, an extraordinary moment to bring in an extraordinary player, but it just doesn't happen. The first thing I always say is that you have to know how to deal with that.
MF: Which players did you validate who were then signed by FC Porto?
José Chieira: Ooh, it's a long list. Jackson Martínez, Alex Sandro, Otamendi, Brahimi, Herrera, Alex Telles, Felipe, Otávio, for example.
MF: Any funny story behind some of that scouting work?
José Chieira: There are things you can talk about now. We spent three years trying to bring in Jackson Martínez, not just scouting him. The owner of the club he was at, in Mexico, had no need to sell until the opportunity came up. The Jackson who left Mexico was very different from the Jackson who arrived there. He had some technical limitations, including in crossing. Despite all that, we identified that the player had the profile we needed for the number nine role. Over that time, his development matched our expectations. Another funny situation involves Alex Sandro. We were forced to speed up the process of signing him, even though we knew at the time he wasn't ready to be a starter for FC Porto, since we still had Palito (Álvaro Pereira). What happened was that Vítor Pereira literally spent four or five months holding Alex Sandro's hand, getting him ready to start the following season. It's interesting how scouting can spot the right moments and help the club do business at the right time.
MF: On the job, who was the best player you've ever seen?
José Chieira: There's a funny story. Lamela was on FC Porto's radar when he was playing for River. He was 18 or 19. In fact, he skipped the reserve team stage and moved up to the first team very young. There's a match at the Bombonera, Boca-River, where Lamela has an outstanding game… he really gets kicked around in the first half, but with impeccable behaviour throughout. In the second half, he gets provoked, gets sent off, and River lose the match. But what stays with you is that, amid the madness that is South America, the madness that is the Bombonera, the madness that is a Boca-River derby, you find kids who have to become men very early and deal with every kind of pressure, expected and unexpected, and still respond the way he did. Beyond that, the character and talent that kid showed there goes way beyond football. Of course, when Lamela moved to Europe, he fell a bit short, for reasons related to his social upbringing. His family already had some financial means, and he didn't arrive with the resilience he needed. As an experience of that quality, in that context, it was an incredible one. And mind you, I've seen Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, but there are circumstances and moments that are simply unrepeatable.
MF: Why did you decide to leave FC Porto?
José Chieira: I spent 23 years scouting. For various reasons, I decided I needed to rest a bit. People might not realise it, but anyone connected to this kind of work doesn't really get holidays. Even when the players are on holiday, people on the market side keep working. Obviously there's wear and tear that comes with that. Regardless of FC Porto being an extraordinary experience, with amazing professionals and a fantastic structure, I felt it was the moment to step aside.
MF: What does it take to be a scout?
José Chieira: People ask me that a lot. There's no magic formula. You need a lot of drive, a lot of availability to work — and work seriously — a lot of capacity to absorb knowledge, and a lot of willingness to be available for organisational tasks within the club's structure. You can start at a small club, available even to be the fifth assistant for the club's Under-11s. All of that is fundamental experience for building the profile of a scoutscout, that is, at its core you have to be willing to absorb every kind of experience and be proactive. Nowadays people talk about intuition. It's a vague concept. Intuition is the result of a process. Today it's not really intuition anymore, maybe 15 years ago it was. From then on, intuition changed. That process has to be sustainable. Not everyone in scouting the field manages to sustain that process in any context for a long time. I usually say people will spend two or three years trying to build a scout's profile scout and might then realise they can follow a different path. Either they go into coaching, because there's a more direct chance to make a living in a related area, or they move into the market side, moving into intermediary work. You have to make sacrifices. In my experience, young people want access to the best things with little work. And sometimes what's missing is someone telling them, 'guys, this isn't going to happen in two days'. It's not by talking to with the José Chieiras of this world that things are going to happen. Professionals like me, or like José Boto, grew through a process. There's no golden rule, but for anyone wanting to start, they need to understand there's a process involved. In general, people are in a hurry.
MF: Do you have a coaching badge?
José Chieira: No. I did try, but I didn't have the time. In the end they gave me an equivalency, I don't even know where the certificates are anymore. It all got lost. Later they started calling me to be an instructor on the courses, but I didn't have time for that either. My instinct wasn't to go into coaching. I felt my own development happened through working and cross-referencing information and experiences with managers, players and directors.
MF: But don't you think it's essential nowadays?
José Chieira: It's essential. The market has led to specialisation, and that means qualifications are needed. I was the result of a series of circumstances, and I was lucky. Some opportunities came up that I knew how to seize. It was a bit like having an eye in a land of the more or less blind, and following through on that with hard work and a path that let me choose what seemed good to me. Nowadays, I'm approached by loads of people who want to get into scout. I always warn about the difficulties, because a scout scout's career isn't formally structured or protected institutionally. Last year there was a push to create a body that could formalise the role of scoutscout, with rights and duties. It's not an easy career, especially in Portugal. The way the market pays and recognises this kind of work doesn't leave much room for big ambitions. Being a professional isn't just a word, you have to build a way to survive on it.
MF: Does a scout do both individual and collective analysis, or focus on just one area?
José Chieira: The scouting scout covers both sides. Traditionally, people associate scout scouting with player analysis, which isn't true. Collective analysis involves scouting very different work. Not just in the task itself, but also in how you approach the game. Breaking down a team is completely different from breaking down a player. These are processes that can sometimes work against each other a bit. Some colleagues who spent a long time doing collective analysis, even with a coaching background, need some time to switch over to individual analysis.
MF: Which do you prefer?
José Chieira: I prefer individual analysis. Nowadays collective analysis, done at a top level, is very demanding in terms of time. It means a lot of work, and different work. You work closer to the group and deal directly with the manager. That's interesting in itself. As for individual analysis, discovery… everything involved in seeing the world is an extraordinary challenge.
MF: What's the difference between doing field analysis for CM and for a club?
José Chieira: It's simple to explain. At a club, the boundaries are more or less set, meaning we know we have a means — observation and analysis — to an end. We know there's a profile to work towards, a market to break down, and we have to figure out whether what we're watching fits the profile we're after and matches what the manager wants. In CM/FM, there's a romantic side to the analysis, even though there's still responsibility towards the database's credibility. But on the other hand, there's no real consequence, we can get it wrong. At a club, every piece of analysis has consequences.
MF: What are the first attributes you assess in a player?
José Chieira: Nowadays people talk a lot about the talent factor.
MF: There's also talk of game understanding…
José Chieira: That's another very fashionable factor too, that is, football intelligence. Football intelligence is the result of a series of things that lead to a good decision. We're talking about decision-making. A good decision can stem from talent: it can be innate talent — an increasingly overused concept —, it can be acquired talent, or even contextual talent, which comes from a development process. And here we get into the specifics of talent. Imagine a player who could be an extraordinary striker with a great eye for goal, but throughout his development he has to pick up a series of behaviours if he wants to be an elite player. Being good enough for FC Porto isn't enough, we have to aim for the elite player. Physical dimension itself can let a player make a good decision in any situation in the game. The classic number 10, the talented player, has no room left in football. Even Bernardo Silva or David Silva aren't 'number 10s' under Guardiola. The concept of talent is increasingly overused, because nowadays people look for range, frequency and effectiveness at every moment of the game. We have to look for very complete profiles, but ones that always bring an above-average level of quality and output.
MF: Do you prefer in-person analysis or video analysis?
José Chieira: They're completely different. I've got a great story about this, just to give an example. On my first trip for Panathinaikos, I went to see a German Under-21 player who was playing for Twente. I didn't know him. Supposedly, a player with an Under-21 track record in Germany guarantees some pedigree. In theory, he was a centre-back, but could also play full-back. I had to get there early, since access was restricted and everyone had to be identified. Warm-up started, and the players began doing a 'rondo' [keep-away drill]. I broke down the team, worked out which player it was, and immediately said the guy had no chance of playing for Panathinaikos. He hadn't even started playing yet. Honestly, all it took was looking at his biomechanics and his relationship with the ball to see it was impossible for him to add anything to the club. I called my boss and, with all due respect, told him I'd basically gone sightseeing. There are details you see in video analysis that you often can't catch live. There are distracting factors in live analysis that may or may not be more important. When we do an exhaustive analysis to make a decision, video adds certain things. Of course, being there live is far more important.
MF: But do some players end up getting identified through video analysis?
José Chieira: All the time. But that's not real knowledge yet, that process only gets closed off with live analysis. There are small signs that obviously let us validate the player as either a yes, a no, or a 'when' or 'how'. Even at development stages, it's interesting. Live analysis lets us see, for example, how a player approaches physical contact and his behaviour when the ball is on the far side. Usually that doesn't show up on video. Often, from recurring behaviours, in ten minutes we can tell whether he's ready or not. Or we realise he'll be ready in two years, or that we need to work on certain things with him. Those live observations let us do that breakdown.
MF: How many matches do you need to watch?
José Chieira: There's no fixed rule. The more the better, although at some point it starts to become counterproductive. In a scout scouting process we need to be decisive and try to keep the grey area as small as possible.scouting Scouting doesn't make the players. There are too many circumstantial factors that don't guarantee what we're seeing will always happen. Our hope is for our filter to get as close as possible to a real degree of certainty. That degree doesn't depend on the scoutingamount of scouting done. Quantity of analysis isn't always tied to quality. What matters is having a group of scout scouts within a properly prepared and mature process, run by the club's own structure, in communication with the manager, which lets you make the most of those resources and quickly spot a set of behaviours that matter or don't. At the same time, we have to understand, from what we see, what can be improved and what can't. Or figure out whether he's at an intermediate level, where what he needs to improve isn't something we have time to give him. If a centre-back struggles with positioning support or reading complementary spaces, covering, playing out from the back with three at the back — behaviours our style of play requires — we can't take that risk. There are things we won't have time to develop. There are others he already has and will improve. For example, a fast centre-back who can't read an open pass, because he went through a poorly run development process. That said, if we spot top-level qualities in that centre-back, we believe he'll pick up the rest. In that case, we trust the development process.
MF: …
José Chieira: This is where we get into an area that's still fairly recent in Portugal and not yet properly filled: talent development work. We recruit, we identify, and then we can't treat it as a closed loop. A player who arrives needs a process. At clubs like FC Porto or Benfica, a fully finished player rarely arrives. These clubs need to develop players, both on the pitch and financially. We can't look at a player as a finished product who's simply moved to the other side. Nobody is better placed than whoever did the scouting to communicate with the manager. This player arrived with this profile, was identified with these strengths, and was identified with these gaps. That space is called talent development, it sits outside recruitment and outside coaching, right in between. It's essential to work on this specialisation. At an elite level, the football industry has to be worked on in fine detail. This area in Portugal still has a long way to go.
MF: Has it ever happened that you validated two different players, and the one with lower expectations ended up developing more than the other?
José Chieira: It can happen. We have to be careful when analysing players. The upbringing of the person involved has an impact on the development process. This is below age seven. People talk a lot about talent, but talent is increasingly circumstantial. I read a lot about talent, and the development process is essential for a performance-level player. There's the development player, the development/performance player, and the performance player. For a player to become a performance player, at an excellent level, a lot of things have to go right. One of them has to do with the qualitative context of the club, where the manager's role is very important. scouting Scouting is mostly about projection, even more so in the context we're in. We have to make an even more ambitious projection, since financial conditions don't allow for an accessible, elite-level performance player. We have to break players down before they reach performance level. Along that path, the manager's contribution is essential, and can be enough for a player to transform over two or three seasons. There will always be some margin for error, since we don't control a player's development. Especially when we need to sign players below performance level. Except in reactive situations.
MF: How do you reduce that margin of error?
José Chieira: We have to align with the individual process of the scout. Over the course of his career, a scout builds a more solid approach, where his pragmatism answers the old question, 'can he play or not?' Or else, there has to be a structural context in place that allows for the best possible results. If there's contact with the coaching staff, we lower the margin of error.
MF: Quantitative analysis is used a lot nowadays.
José Chieira: The culture of numbers is increasingly gaining ground in football. It's an American culture. The European market, football in particular, started to build quantitative market analysis. Companies, mostly in England, started analysing match data. They started breaking football matches down. This quantitative approach keeps getting broader. Every player is being analysed in fine detail, for example, companies like Opta hire NASA scientists to build formulas from the numbers they're breaking down, feeding into what's called a predictive model. Traditional scouting can and should absorb that contribution, but shouldn't treat it as the most important factor. Nowadays there are so many players that we can't fall into a kind of paranoia. I know, from experience, that as I go to sleep tonight there's a Neymar being born somewhere in the Amazon. I don't know him, and that could create paranoia. The numbers-based approach let us start, at the base of the information pyramid on players, breaking them down using numbers. Numbers can be questioned. If one centre-back has a pass success rate of X and another has Y, that can be down to a whole series of factors unrelated to the player's actual quality. It could be related to the manager's approach or the quality of his teammates. That number, at first, gives the scouting department a filter that still needs to be validated.
MF: And after that?
José Chieira: It can help with the final decision. Imagine we have 10 players for the same position, all with similar profiles, similar maturity levels, giving us more or less the same thing. But if, at the final recruitment decision stage, there's a data contribution that can also help decide, it's just one more tool. The best part for me is what comes next, and it's being worked on for the future. Let me give you an example of breaking down a team using numbers. If we have a team that over the last five years needed an average of X points to reach Europe, we get a number. Then we look at the average goals that team conceded per year over five years. How many goals conceded per match? Which players were used most in that back four or five? And we keep breaking it down until we reach the numbers for each player who was part of the most-used back line. It's a simple but concrete breakdown. So, if we want to reach the Europa League and get X points, we need a goalkeeper profile with this number, a centre-back with that number, etc. Through collective analysis, we break it down to reach the individual level. For me it's not foolproof, but I understand that in the chaos that is today's market, there have to be formulas that help with this analysis. Interestingly, English clubs — we're talking intangible budgets here — have staff who do nothing but analyse the numbers. Some cover the coaching-staff side, with three or four people per match, others only do individual analysis. With one analyst in the data department, you can theoretically save a fair amount of a professional scout's resources.
MF: That collective breakdown to reach the individual is exactly the opposite approach.
José Chieira: It raises questions about the analyst's judgement. I think that's the factor that still keeps this kind of work from being fully trusted. There will always be some scepticism in the analysis process, but we can't ignore the numbers. Numbers increasingly have to be part of the overall post-modern process for the traditional scout. That was the big evolution. We've moved away from pure intuition, the traditional 60-year-old scout watching every match and talking to the parents, into an increasingly scientific process. That doesn't take anything away from the traditional process. There just has to be a balance, where you don't give the numbers too much weight, but also don't ignore them.
MF: The analyst should have that judgement, or else have someone who interprets the numbers.
José Chieira: Exactly. The analyst has to show what he does; why he does it is a separate job. The predictive model is the ultimate expression of numbers, but in practice it doesn't guarantee a result. It can, however, help validate a player, saving resources. We have to understand that the people involved in the process need to know what they're doing. Is he seeing what I want him to see? Is he seeing it right? We have to be careful to explain things properly. From experience, that base of the pyramid is very fragile in a mature process. As you move up the pyramid, closer to the final decision, there has to be a small circle of people who know how to see the bigger picture. I can give an example from my time at Panathinaikos, since Boto mentioned this too. He said he spent two and a half years trying to bring in Aimar. I usually say the city I never went to the most was Zaragoza.
MF: Why did you never go to Zaragoza?
José Chieira: Because Aimar was always injured, he barely played. I was certain that, with that profile and charisma, he was the player who'd change the club's whole paradigm. And we needed that. Which is what ended up happening at Benfica. Within any structure, you need pragmatic people, and it's essential to be sure they're the result of a real process.. In the case of a player like Aimar, financially the club won't gain leverage directly, but he'll change every other player. He'll have an immediate impact/output, and if things go more or less well, he'll trigger an incredible boost to the club's whole paradigm. He'll improve the structure and the players around him, turning from a cost into an investment with a top return. Behind his direct output comes the team's output, the whole paradigm behind it, the whole surge in fan enthusiasm, and consequently the financial side. There's a higher chance of winning the league and being in the Champions League, which brings different visibility. It's hard for people at the club to understand that the small group of people involved in this think-tank have to be prepared to make different readings and be able to see the bigger picture. A manager doesn't have time to see the bigger picture and ends up making the mistake of clinging to circumstantial references: either players he's coached, players he's faced, or scattered bits of information. A scout, in a mature process, quickly cuts through those situations.
MF: What influence does scouting have on the negotiating process?
José Chieira: When an agent or intermediary suggests a name to the club, that name may or may not get analysed by the scouting department. But the club is reacting, which limits its decision-making. Proactively, the club should go out into the market to learn more, to have more options to choose from. Proactive scouting, if done competently and in communication with the manager, lets you optimise resources during the negotiation process. What's behind the success or failure of a deal? The information each side has. Imagine the club is looking for a box-to-box midfielder: if the scouting department can give ten names, and during the negotiation can point out arguments for and/or against the player, that can even let the club bring the price down. It goes beyond technical knowledge, it can act as a massive lever in the negotiation process. My approach isn't purely technical, it ties into a technical context, a process/experience context, and an economic context. We can't look at scouting as just an end in itself. That comes from my background — I studied economics and specialised in Sports Management.
MF: Does a scout only technically validate the player, or does he assess other areas too?
José Chieira: The willpower component is increasingly important, since it shows on the pitch. The game increasingly demands united, supportive teams. It's one thing for the coaching staff to build a cohesive squad and create bonds between players that later show up on the pitch. We also try to break this down, and interestingly, it brings in contributions upstream of the scouting field itself. It gets into the area of psychology. In my own process, I also pay a lot of attention to that kind of behaviour. How does the player deal with his own mistakes, with a teammate's mistake, with the referee's or the opponent's mistake? Does he try to deceive, does he go for the space or the ball? There are actions that are easy to break down. We have to know a player can have a bad day and still show this behaviour. It can weigh on the final decision. FC Porto and Benfica, for example, already use psychology.
MF: Why is there so little investment in scouting in Portugal?
José Chieira: It's a structural and cultural issue tied to awareness. Most clubs run on small budgets. If you look at a scout as an expense rather than an investment, certain things will simply never happen. Decision-making cycles at clubs are short. There's no patience or time to build a competent scouting setup. I think you can draw a parallel with the manager and player market: if you do good work, you get recognised. At the same time, it lets you build momentum and gives you room to move up. You see the same with sporting directors. There's a trend of former scouts, who know how to see the bigger picture and have built experience in management and relationships, closing the loop. It's a real asset. Clubs facing financial difficulties can't afford that approach. They look at a scout as an expense that might not bring an immediate return.
MF: So now let me ask, how important is a scouting department?
José Chieira: It's essential because it ensures the club's sustainability. It lets you respond to the club's short, medium and long-term needs. It's a stabilising structure and has to be immune to interference from the manager or the president.
MF: How do you see the role of a sporting director at a club?
José Chieira: There's a lack of a proper sporting director figure, like Monchi at Roma, for example. The system in Portugal tends to be presidential. The president takes on most of the non-technical duties, but club management ones. Often, when there is a sporting director, he's more closely associated with the board. He should be able to constantly read the squad's needs, what's out there in the market, and, depending on his level of communication with the president and the manager, get decisions over the line. That shows in contract renewals, in the figures that can be agreed, not just for contracts but also in what can be brought in from the market. If the sporting director doesn't have the standing he should, the club ends up weaker. This ties into a need created by the financially stronger markets. Clubs were forced to create a specific space so that the final result is as competent as possible, both on the pitch and financially. It's related to the figure of the head of recruitment.
MF: What is a head of recruitment?
José Chieira: That figure doesn't exist in Portugal. It was created to have someone able to see the bigger picture, that is, someone able to read the moment. In other words, someone with the ability to see the club's resources and what the market has to offer, to read, at various moments, what the club needs right now, what it will need in the future, and what exists and will exist in the market that matches the desired profile. Nowadays, that mostly comes down to this role. It's not a head of scouting, but rather someone with a command of the market who's able to project that into the management side.
MF: What's the difference between a head of recruitment and a sporting director?
José Chieira: Sporting director is a role that involves managing the squad and the club's resources. The head of recruitment, as the name suggests, coordinates recruitment. That means knowing the existing squad, but not managing it. The sporting director manages the contracts of players and coaching staff.
MF: Do you have any idea how many matches you've watched?
José Chieira: I don't have that ambition, I lost count a long time ago. I can tell you I've visited 47 countries for work.
MF: What's the funniest story from your career?
José Chieira: I've got a lot of them. It's been many years, many trips. So many. One big asset, and it's part of what shapes the analysis process, is lived experience. That way, I know what I'm looking at with a 16-year-old Brazilian player versus what I'm looking at with a 22-year-old Scandinavian player. Travelling through those countries and getting to know the player's background, his family, his city, his country, helps us break things down. For example, people often ask why South American players are traditionally more prepared. The level of development is lower, the level of education is lower, and the player is forced to find a way to help his family. He's built to be more resilient, which is essential. All these factors vary from country to country. But there's one experience I can share.
MF: Which one?
José Chieira: I was watching a Copa São Paulo match, in the countryside, between São Paulo FC and the local club. The stadium was packed and the match was easy for São Paulo. It was a first-round game. Suddenly, firecrackers start going off, there are attempts to invade the pitch, and even the scouts mixed in with the crowd, including one working for Chelsea, got hit with pepper spray. That Chelsea representative was rushed to hospital, completely out of action, and we couldn't do our job. They let us leave, and the next day we carried on with life and went to watch matches elsewhere. Like travelling from Quito to La Sierra and then, around 2am, having to come back. Imagine the 50 scouts from the world's top 50 clubs, with a completely crazy driver, driving through Ecuador's 'little altitude' in the middle of a storm.
MF: What professional projects do you have in mind for the future?
José Chieira: A few days ago I heard Sérgio Conceição himself talking about this. It's natural for the market to recognise and take in this kind of profile. I believe it's part of my normal growth process. We have to learn every day, feel useful, and look at the projects that come our way. It'll happen in the short term.
