Getting paid to watch football games. Sounds like a dream, right?
That is, in essence, what scouts do on a daily basis: travelling the country (or the world), watching two teams kick a ball about and then report which players were the best.
On a near weekly basis, Sport Witness covers reports that scouts from big Premier League teams were in attendance at such and such games, which gives an idea of who the clubs are following.
One of these men for Liverpool, back in the Rafa Benitez era, was Laurent Viaud, who was in charge of scouting ‘young players in France, with an eye on Ligue 1’.
The 47-year-old, now in charge of the U17s at Angers in France, spoke to Football365 in France about the five and a half years he spent at the Premier League club, getting the job in the first place thanks to a privileged relationship with the Spanish manager from his time at Extremadura, which Benitez managed between 1997-99.
He said: “I also covered Belgium and the Netherlands. It’s easy to recruit for Liverpool because you really look for quality players. You’re more focused on national teams, big clubs. I stayed there until Rafa got sacked.
“The whole recruitment cell he’d built was replaced. I spent six months at Villarreal after, then came the offer from Angers, which I accepted.”
The former scout also explained that, after a while, his presence would be noted by others in the stands, which would lead them to believe Liverpool were also after a player they were looking at.
His biggest competitor? Arsenal.
He explained: “When you’re on the French market, there’s obviously competition from Arsenal. Wenger is French, London is a town with many French schools. It’s much easier for them to attract players. As soon as I was after a player, I needed to be even more discreet and even faster. If not, Arsenal would get on that player. It was complicated.”
Does this mean Laurent Viaud had something to do with bringing David N’Gog to Liverpool? Most likely.
