For a long time, the figure of the scout was almost mythical in football. A close look in the stands of any field, a notebook with precious notes, and the promise of a bright future for a boy who stood out between dozens of others. How many times have we not seen reports about who discovered a particular star? But this scenario so present in the formation of Brazilian stars begins to change. And the person responsible for transformation meets two letters increasingly present in all sectors of society: Ia, artificial intelligence.
If on the one hand, Ia has generated fear and uncertainty in many professions, in football, it emerges as a powerful tool and at the same time as a direct competitor of a historical function of the scout.
An example of this digital revolution is the Cuju program, operated by the German company Rogon. The proposal is simple and bold: democratize access to football sieves through technology. The young man registers, performs video -oriented physical exercises and is evaluated by artificial intelligence, which assigns a performance -based score. The best ranks enter the radar of scouts and partner clubs – all virtually.
“The idea is to democratize the sieves, to make an early phase virtually and then nominate these athletes to some clubs,” explains Roger Wittmann, CEO of Rogon, a businessman with influence on German football and with heavy names in the curriculum, such as Luiz Gustavo and Roberto Firmino.
In Santa Catarina, Cuju promotes “A Journey”, a program that went through cities such as Florianópolis and Joinville and will have its final in Itajaí. At this stage, athletes with the best performance in the app were summoned for face -to -face tests at Barra FC stadium, Germany’s Hoffenheim partner. Julius Caesar, goalkeeper with three World Cups in the curriculum, will be one of the jurors.
Other platforms follow the same path. Footbao, for example, combines artificial intelligence with human analysis. With over 100,000 young people registered, she promotes tournaments between schools and uses videos and facial recognition for technical assessment of athletes.
In Europe, this practice is also consolidated. London -based Aiscout allows amateur players to participate in virtual testing for professional clubs. Users of the platform are the Giants Chelsea and Burnley, from Premier League, as well as the US Major League (MLS).
“We tell the scouts: ‘Go to this place because there are three players really standing out to the Chelsea standard.’ This will be the best use of their time,” Richard Felton-Thomas, Aiscout’s director of operations, said in an interview with CNN Internacional.
New Scouts
Even clubs with traditional scouting departments have adopted AI -based solutions. Sevilla, from Spain, launched the Scout Advisor in 2024, in partnership with IBM. The tool, built from the Watsonx platform, combines quantitative data and qualitative reports to identify more accurate talent – a natural evolution for a club known for revealing names such as Sergio Ramos.
The rise of AI, however, does not mean the end of the scouts – but a reconfiguration of their role. “The incorporation of technology in the assessment of athletes is inevitable. It will not replace the evaluators, especially in sports initiation, but will change how initial lot reviews are made,” explains Thiago Freitas, Roc Nation Sports in Brazil.
According to him, the professionals who know how to use AI in their favor will have the advantage: “Technology creates a new category among scouts – the one who will finally be able to enrich in this function.”
For Rafael Luz, from the technology consulting firm Keeggo, the impact of AI can go beyond the discovery of talent. “It qualifies the evaluation process and improves the experience of the young athlete, which is clear about their performance, paths of evolution and real opportunities for improvement. If well applied, it can benefit everyone involved.”
In practice, artificial intelligence has the potential to become a great ally of scouts – helping to filter talent in the midst of thousands of candidates and offering analyzes based on objective metrics such as speed, impulse, passing accuracy and finishing. But for that, we need to face change not as a threat, but as an opportunity.
While clubs, entrepreneurs and platforms invest in technology, base football is moving towards a new era: less dependent on the “clinical eye” lonely and more open to data and science. And for the dreamer boys from the four corners of the country, the dream of becoming a professional player may never have been so accessible – as long as there is a good performance in front of the cameras, of course.
