Inside Premier League scouting: How AI is shaping transfer decisions in race to find young talent | OneFootball

Eyeball’s head of football strategy Oliver Dehnhardt tells Standard Sport about the work going on to identify the next superstars

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Dehnhardt believes it will transform the way clubs recruit at youth level, so much so four months ago he left his role as Ajax’s head scout to become Eyeball’s head of football strategy.

“There are still clubs that go live to identify talent, but those clubs - in my opinion - will be left behind,” says Dehnhardt.

The pitch to clubs as to why they should use Eyeball is simple. The platform provides access to video clips and footage of thousands of youth players that they would otherwise have been unable to efficiently scout.

Co-founder Benjamin Balkin (left) and head of football Oliver Dehnhardt (right)

Eyeball

That is done by Eyeball partnering with clubs - primarily amateur sides in Africa, France and Spain - and providing them with a camera to film their youth games. There is no fee involved, but in exchange Eyeball will analyse and tag the footage so that club can use it for their own internal video sessions.

The footage from the match is then uploaded to the Eyeball platform, which professional clubs can have access to by paying a subscription.

“Benjamin [Balkin], one of the founders, he compares it a bit with Uber,” says Dehnhardt. “The one driving the Uber, he is not doing it for Uber’s sake or your sake. He is doing it for his own sake, because he gets something out of it. It’s a little bit the same with our partner clubs.”

Eyeball now have 100 partner clubs in France, around 150 in Africa and between 60 and 100 in Spain.

Many of these, especially in France, are at an amateur level, with the belief being it is an untapped market.

“There are a lot of people talking about emerging markets,” says Dehnhardt. “In my personal opinion, I think by talking about emerging markets we are overlooking the low-hanging fruit, which is making sure we scout the mature markets properly.

“A market like Spain or France, you can apply an emerging-market strategy and still find gold. But because everyone is focused on finding the next big talent market, we are kind of missing the obvious.

“There are so many players going at 16 years old. A player like Randal Kolo Mauni when he was 16, he played amateur football at Torcy. You have, of course, the likes of [Riyad] Mahrez and [N’Golo] Kante, that’s the known stories.”

AI is used to help compile data on player stats

Eyeball

The aim of Eyeball is to ensure the next Mahrez or Kante is found even earlier than they eventually were.

When he started as a scout, Dehnhardt worked with the traditional approach of tips and recommendations, travelling all over to see players.

By the end of his time at Ajax, the club lived by the motto of “never going blind” to see a player. They had watched clips on Eyeball and the final trip was to see them in the flesh and confirm what they already knew.

“It’s not an efficient plan to watch all the amateur clubs in France,” says Dehnhardt. “That is an impossible task. But with Eyeball, it is possible.

“You still need someone to have a look at the players at some point, but I would say it is very rare that you identify something live. You validate it live.”

Using Eyeball, scouts can watch 10 games a day - from Burnley’s Under-15s v Motherwell’s Under-15s to an Under-14 match in Cameroon.

The AI helps tag the games, identifying what was a cross, shot, pass, etc itself to eliminate the chance of human error when compiling data.

The company now has over 80 employees and some of their staff have been poached in recent years by clubs that have been so impressed by the scouting reports produced.

It is very rare that you identify something live - you validate it live

Oliver Dehnhardt, Eyeball

Such is the detail on the platform, clubs can search for a specific player to fit their needs. Search categories can be as detailed as a player’s height, year of birth and what foot they use.

Eyeball’s biggest weapon, however, is its back catalogue of footage and Dehnhardt shows that first hand during this interview.

Only last month, Alexander Andersson had made headlines after making his debut for Swedish club Djurgarden at the age of 14.

No one had heard of him, except those at Eyeball - who had 40 games of his from youth football in Sweden.

The same goes for Samy Bedja at Marseille, who despite being 14 has trained with the first team. Eyeball has 10 of his youth games on file.

Ibrahim Kanate is another success story. He signed for Anderlecht in January from Afrique Football Elite in Mali for over £1million after starring at the 2023 Under-17 World Cup. Eyeball have had footage of his games since 2022.

“If you had used Eyeball, you would have known about this kid before the World Cup, before everyone else,” says Dehnhardt.

In the eyes of Dehnhardt, the race for young players is all down to the transfer market shifting.

Eyeball offers a huge back catalogue of footage on young stars

Eyeball

When he began working as a scout, emerging talent was classed as Under-23 players and younger. Now it is Under-19 players and younger.

“It is really because no one is spending money on players above the age of 25,” he says. “It is only the top Premier League clubs that are buying players at this price point.

“It means, if say Borussia Dortmund wants to sell a player to Real Madrid at 28, they need to find him when he’s 25. But now Real Madrid, they need that kid at 24.

“That means Dortmund need to find him at 21 and the club Dortmund takes him from needs to find him at 18, and the club they take him from needs to have him in at 16.”

This is what makes Eyeball so valuable in the search to find players at such a young age, but Dehnhardt believes it is also why English clubs risk being left behind.

Brexit rules mean they cannot sign players outside of the UK until they are 18 and therefore they are missing out on top talent, who would have previously joined them at 16.

It is why many clubs, including the likes of Chelsea and Manchester City, have become part of a multi-club model and Dehnhardt predicts other Premier League sides will follow suit.

“I think that is going to be the thing in the next five years, that they will be more aggressive and more out in the open as why it makes sense for a top 10 club in the Premier League to have an investment in a Spanish, Belgian, Dutch or whatever club,” he says.

“That, for me, is an acknowledgment of the problem and that they want to be ahead of the game.”

And Eyeball will argue, if they use their platform, then clubs certainly will be ahead of the game.