Interview with Necaxa's Head of Scouting, Victor Palacios

Victor Palacios has been another friend of LeftBackFootball as he is the Head of Scouting for Liga MX side, Necaxa who have been in the news for their change in ownership. Palacios talks us through his experiences in Slovenia, on Mauro Camronesi’s coaching staff as well as his processes, guidelines and tools with player evaluation. Personally, he also talks about managing his responsibilities while also managing his OCD and elaborating on his experiences in his role.

Could you state what are the responsibilities you have as Head of Scouting? What does a week look like for you?

Responsibilities fall into 4 areas: scouting area, own analysis area, rival analysis area and investigation area.

 Fortunately, I have a large working group to cover each of them in a timely manner.

 Generally, on Saturdays I supervise the information that we will deliver to the Coach regarding the rival of the following week, so that on Monday they have all the information immediately (we have to work a week in advance); On Tuesdays I review my own analysis, Wednesday and Thursday we analyze the data of the positions that we will look for in the next market with an econometric model that we built (with it we assign matches to our scouts), and on Friday I dedicate the whole day to reading papers about new software and research, as well as to work on the research project that we develop each semester.

You have filled various roles in your career. Could you take us through being an Assistant Manager for Mauro Camronesi?

It was a wonderful experience, loaded with a lot of responsibility.

 My main function was the analysis of the rival and analysis of the team itself (post-match analysis and training analysis).

 I gave Mauro the reports of the rival one day after the last game played, and basically it was a written and video report that contained the behavior patterns of the rival, the areas of opportunity to win the game and the risks that we would face based on on the opponent's style of play.

Working for Mauro has been one of the best experiences I've had, which I appreciate every day. It was too much learning in about a year.

What drove you to move from Mexico to Slovenia?

The interest that Mauro showed me to work with him. When a person tells you that he wants you to work close to him and gives you the confidence to develop your work, you have very few things to think about when he is inviting you, and more so if he comes from a history of the industry in which I work, so basically it was Mauro's interest and the desire that we both had to accept a challenge outside our countries of origin and in a completely new and unknown culture for us.

 How did you find that experience?

 Fascinating, because I discovered that the only way to convince is through knowledge, and knowledge is only acquired by investigating, doubting everything, training yourself and being passionate about what you do. So it doesn't matter if you go to a different culture, you can imbue what you have learned in your career if you are well trained.

 It is also true that I was very psyched to enjoy the whole process, and then I found the experience fascinating in every way. That helped a lot for me to quickly understand that cultural barriers to expressing your ideas do not matter.

 How was it to have an active role in forming training sessions?

I didn't actively participate in the training sessions because in Europe you can't carry out any training if you don't have the UEFA Course, so I was on the edge of the field of play, usually together with Mauro, who assumed more of a "director" role than as coach (that role was played by Andrés Yllana), and there together we discussed the impressions of the training, however, once the training was over, I proceeded to watch the video from start to finish for that same afternoon to deliver my conclusions to Mauro.

Across Europe, many Front office personnel have a coaching background. Could you explain how this helps in your role at Necaxa?

It helps a lot because I perfectly understand the role of the coach, the situations he goes through, the stress of everyday life and the immediacy of the results. So I always try to "put myself in the coach's shoes" when carrying out an analysis, in addition to the fact that I consider it essential to be close to him to know what he needs and what he asks of the players, so that analysis much more efficient.

You enjoy high-pressing and vertical football. How important is to have a built-in methodology at a club, especially in recruitment?

Very important. But it is not what I like, but what is best for the club. But it is totally true that the recruitment methodology must be very clear, but for it to be so, the sports project must first be clear, that is, be clear about what type of team we are (are we a selling club? we are a club that should always be in the first places?), what is the goal, who is the ideal person to achieve that goal and, finally, how will we achieve such things. It is useless to have a clear recruitment methodology if every 6 months we change the course of the sports project

 What are the processes of finalizing a transfer from player identification to information gathering to negotiations for you and Necaxa?

It is a fairly complete process.

The first step is through a statistical filter. We have a mathematical model for each position on the field, where we weight the variables of interest for the composition of the player profile that the club is looking for. Thus, we reduce the universe of players in our leagues of interest (which also have different weighting). Obviously, the data of the collected players must have passed the filter of the budget restriction that we have, as well as the age filter.

The second step, once the universe of players has been narrowed down, is to assign the matches to our scouts. We see at least 4 games per player. After seeing them, we narrowed down the list, hoping to end up with 8-10 players per position.

The third step is to see that said players that appear in the pre-selection do not interfere with our internal policies (more than X players of the same nationality, for example).

The fourth step is to pass the names on to the general management, who starts the negotiations and, finally, the fifth step is to visit the 3-4 players who are in a position to come to the club to get to know the environment in which they take place.

 What was it like to take over the scouting department at a club during COVID-19?

When I got to Necaxa, all the tournaments had returned to normal. Frankly, it didn't change at all, what is true is that the budget restriction was shifted to the left.

How did you adjust your scouting with the limitations set by the pandemic?

They were really economic adjustments (we had less budget), although due to the travel restriction it was impossible to travel to meet the player in person, an issue that we had to fill in with interviews via Zoom, although it will never be the same as meeting the player in person, because that way you also know his environment and who he surrounds himself with.

You signed Vicente Poggi from Defensor Sporting. Could you take us through that move and the role we (LeftBackFootball) played in that move?

Poggi was a player that we had very well observed and it turned out to be an unbeatable market opportunity, since Defensor had dropped (we hired a player who had a complete and constant national team process)

With him we followed the process that I have described before, but due to the restrictions of the Covid we could not travel to see him. So we appealed to talk with him via Zoom, but also to search for information about him on the web. Your article was fundamental because it gave us information that perhaps we were not going to have access to.

  How important is it to gather information from a variety of sources before making a move?

It's very important. We attach great importance to the references that colleagues within the soccer field give us about the players. When you make investments of so much money, it is essential to know everything about the player you are going to hire. That is why it is important to work 6 months in advance, so that you can get to know most of the personality of the players that are on your list to sign.

Signing players from clubs that have been relegated like Poggi represent a bargain, especially in the South American market. Is this one of your strategies for value creation and why?

Not necessarily, because we review all the teams that are in our leagues of interest (except the teams with a lot of economic power), so you automatically analyze the teams that are going to be relegated.

What is a reality is that you are undoubtedly in a favorable market position when you negotiate with teams that have relegated

In a short space of time you have had to rebuild the squad and operate under a new manager? What has that been like?

We are looking for the ideal coach for the Club and for our long-term project. We will not stop until we find the ideal Coach and the ideal players, that is clear to us. Obviously, we are getting closer to finding it, because each stage with the previous coaches has left a lot of learning, as well as positive things and others to improve. So each time we shorten our universe on the type of coach that this team and this process needs.

Making changes so constantly is not ideal, but we are in the process of finding our ideal team based on some guidelines that we have set for a year. We have to follow them to the letter to realize where we are right and where we are not. A poorly made decision executed at 100% is better than a well-made decision executed halfway, because otherwise it is very difficult to realize where you are wrong or right. Every day we are closer to finding the ideal squad and the ideal coach.

Now with Jaime Lozano I am very confident that he is the perfect person we needed based on past experiences.

 In terms of squad building, you have signed players of varying profiles from youngsters to 40-year-olds. Could you take us through the process of building a squad capable of competing in Liga MX?

In the construction of the first team we have 3 pillars: the first is made up of 6 exemplary players, both on the pitch and in training and in their personal lives. Our internal policy states that such players must not be older than 31 years at the time of signing, with the exception of the goalkeeper (he is our 38 year old player). The second pillar is made up of 5 decisive players, and the age range for them is between 21 and 30 years old at the time of signing; and the last pillar is made up of 7 homegrown players. The rest of the squad must be made up of players with a significant future sale value and obtained at a market price lower than the value we give it.

So, our formation of the squad seeks to have a balance, always seeking to have a competitive average age, leading players who drag the youngsters and players who have an important market value so that the cycle can be repeated, but always seeking to compete and achieve a successful sports management (positive economic and sports results).

In Liga MX, you have big sides who can spend money on big players while some of the other teams have done well with scouting and finding bargains. How do you go about finding value in the market?

Being very constant in your processes. They say that making plans is useless, but to win you have to make plans. We have to be completely rigid in our scouting policies, but flexible in our expectations. It's the only way I conceive of scouting. Time, patience, and process compliance.

To compete, you will also have to find value in older players, especially players over 25. Most people can properly value a player under 25 but how do you manage risk with a player older 25?

First, before the age, we have to know which of our three the player we are looking for should fall into. You don't have much risk if you know you're going for an "exemplary player", because for that the player, regardless of the good references we must have about him, must have at least 100 games in the first division. There you reduce the risk considerably. If the player we are looking for is in the second pillar (decisive players), the risk is different, because the decisive player does not necessarily have good habits, so the risk is reduced by going to meet the player. And lastly, if the player is brought in as a future value bet, we had to have gone for a player where his price is less than the present value the industry is giving him. There we are already winning because the risk of losing is less than the risk of winning, because having found a player of that type meant that he passed through all our filters. In short, the measurement of risk is different for each case.

 In your first market, you signed a lot of players from Uruguay and the Uruguayan Primera Division. Why is that market so important to you?

It was more the coincidence between the opportunity and the Uruguayan league (which is undoubtedly of our interest). Uruguay will always be on our radar for the amount of good level players that it has provided historically, as well as fairly reasonable prices (although less and less).

Are there any markets that you enjoy recruiting from?

They all have their charm, although we are preparing to enter Brazilian soccer. It is a market that we love and that we have not been lucky enough to be able to open due to various circumstances

A player like Agustin Oliveros who you signed as a left-back, is now playing as wide left-centre-back in a back-three. Could you take us through that move and positional change?

Although it is true that we brought Agustín as a left back, the reality is that an investment for a player who only plays that position for you would have been very difficult to make. In other words, what attracted us notably about him is how well he plays three positions: left back, central defender in line 4 and left central defender in line 5. For various reasons he has had to play more as a central defender, but we don't have problem with that. We knew perfectly well that he could be used in both positions.

  I read about you having OCD. How do you manage your workflow?

With sertraline, hahaha, and talking from time to time with Dr. Edilberto Peña, who together with my parents and my brother saved my life. The truth is that being consistent with my medications, as well as a little meditation and exercise, keeps me in balance. When I didn't know how to control it, or even know what it meant, OCD played tricks on me. Today that I know what I have, and I accept it, I have learned to get along very well with him. In fact, I think it's essential for it to function as head scouting hahaha.

You started your new role while Necaxa were under new ownership. How has that affected your work?

It has only affected positively. The merger with such capable people who love processes has been a great support for the entire board of directors. I believe that the arrival of the investment partners was a very important boost for the construction of the successful sports management that we are all looking for.

The team finished last before you took over and you were on the cusp of the playoffs after your first window. How have you estimated your start in your new role?

It has been the work of the entire sports committee (General Director, Sports Director and Sports Manager). They had a very precise diagnosis of what the team was missing even 6 dates before the tournament ended, so I simply joined the reengineering that the team needed and that they had already detected. We implemented a series of internal and manual processes for a better operation and, with a lot of work, I think that little by little we are leaving that dark place.

 What lessons did you take from your last window that you have brought into this window?

Establish and teach the Coach our policy on how we sign before hiring him, so as not to have problems with him in the transfer window

What have you learned in your new role?

More than learning, I have verified that making plans is useless, but to win battles you have to make plans

In Liga MX, you can also find bargains with players who are not being properly used by other clubs. How do you scout and value fringe players within the league?

People who do rival analysis do a very thorough analysis of rivals, so they invariably find players undervalued by the market. We are always on the lookout for them. Generally, those players are found on teams with big payrolls where their lack of minutes isn't necessarily due to a lack of talent.

What I am telling you about, plus the internal references and the statistical data that show that they are players undervalued by the market (they produce a lot and are worth little compared to what they produce) are our tools to find them.

Is scouting the U20 League going to become more pivotal as you move forward?

Yes, but for negotiations with other players. Let me explain: many clubs work to produce their own players, since it is the easiest way to have their own assets that are identified with the club, but buying them is difficult because of the price, and because for a club like us it would mean that we are doing a bad job in the area where we have to work best (because we subsist from player sales, not like other teams that can subsist from commercial rights, television rights and sponsorships). So, we scouted the other teams so that in the event of a negotiation with non-homegrown players we can include a third party in the negotiation, which in that case would be the Under 20 player of the team with which we are negotiating.

Necaxa have a brilliant youth academy and even had a 16-year-old playing at wing-back. How do you rate players coming through before making decisions on recruitment?

We see them in the "day to day". In the youth academies the Club has done a great job. For two years, the sports director Santiago San Román, and the sports manager Alberto Clark carried out a complete restructuring, and in two years they became the team with the most national team players in the minor categories. So, before making a decision to invest in a reinforcement, we first look at our youth academies, in which the day to day tells us if our players are ready (or not) for the first division.

 How do you manage to utilize both qualitative and quantitative information in scouting?

Quantitative information (Data) helps us to create a filter and reduce the universe of players to be observed, as well as to determine the competitiveness of a league. Then, it is essential to go on to analyze the player in matches, that is, we go on to analyze the player in qualitative terms. In our scouting process there cannot be one without the other.

What advice could you give to young scouts looking for opportunities?

That they build or are guided by a scouting method that includes qualitative, quantitative, comparative variables, references and cases of success or failure and, after having built it and being sure of it, do not get out of the way. They should not worry if a transfer does not turn out as expected, because if their method was built with a good dose of rationality, in the long run it will give greater benefits than failures. If you have been careful in creating your method, trust it and be patient.