A four year project to innovate football throughout Albania is being accelerated through the use of education to upskill analysts throughout the country.

The Four Year Plan

For the Albanian Football Federation (FSHF) to innovate football in their country, the first step is to build an analysis, scouting and innovation department, to support national teams and clubs throughout the nation.

FSHF head of analysis, scouting and innovation Alarico Rossi explains how first and foremost, education ties in to this new direction for football analysis in the country.

“We provide two Wyscout accounts per club and then we start with an educational program for analysts,” said Rossi. “Until last year, there weren’t analysts in Albania and as part of this project, one of our main focuses is to have an analyst with every Albanian club. We collaborate with local universities for the educational program and use Wyscout as our main analysis platform. After this process, we want to fill every National Team with an analyst. At the moment we have 8 analysts certified, but we have already about 100 requests for our analysts’ course next Autumn.”

The Education Process

The beginning of the education began when Wyscout provided direct lessons and grounding into the functionality of the scouting and analyst software for their federation.

“Giovanni Iemolo of Wyscout introduced the product to us, directly explaining how we can use the new software,” said Rossi. “When the COVID-19 problem exploded, our president Armand Duka wanted to take advantage of the lockdown situation by giving a knowledge program to Albanian football staff restricted to working from home.

“Until last year, there weren’t analysts in Albania and as part of this project, one of our main focuses is to have an analyst with every Albanian club."

As an analysis department, we are advised to use WyScout in every way and we sent an email to every Albanian club explaining how they can improve their staff work during lockdown with Wyscout. Not only to make analysis about teams and opponents, but also to study big clubs for set pieces, play structures, data and more.”

Rossi goes on to explain what is included in the analysis teachings of these educational courses.

“Hudl and Wyscout provide an easy and complete way for creating educational programs,” said Rossi. “The complete customization of SporstCode, for example, allows us to explain to the analysts how we could work in different situations and how we can adapt our dashboard to our needs. In other parts, when someone asks for an instance in a game situation, we can find it immediately in Wyscout. From the next courses in autumn, we will push hard with further data analysis with Wyscout.”

Construction of the new Albanian Football training centre. A new analysis programme will be a key offering in this new facility.

Improving Recruitment and Player Development

With Albanian players playing across the world in 48 countries in the world and 78 different leagues, Rossi explains there needs to be a way for the national federation to track and follow all of these players for development and selection.

“Without Wyscout it wouldn’t be possible to follow all of our players across the world,” explained Rossi. “I built a database with all performances of our players and every day we have a schedule with all players that have a game. It’s the biggest part of my role, and in every corner of the world we can find a new good player for us. When we follow a player and we define that he could be good for us, one of our staff goes directly to see the player. Without Wyscout we couldn’t make this process happen.”

“Without Wyscout it wouldn’t be possible to follow all of our players across the world."

Developing the Role of the Scout

Developing the scouting department is a key part of innovating analysis as the technical staff have control of all the players in the national team setup. “We have scouts across Europe, and we have a big scouting net also in Albania,” said Rossi. “Wyscout is a very important tool for us, as we look to develop the scouting system in Albania. In our education courses we talk about player scouting and how local clubs can use their Wyscout accounts to create big opportunities in the transfer market.”

FSHF head of analysis, scouting and innovation Alarico Rossi (L) and Ilir Shulku, the General Secretary of FSHF.

How Important Is It to Have the Latest Analysis Software?

“In life you can win, or you can lose, but you must every time accept changes,” said Rossi. “The world changes and football evolves. “So to keep up with the latest technology is not only an advantage, but must also be our focus every day. In this environment, Hudl, Sportscode and Wyscout provide great examples of these technologies and trusting in these is an opportunity for keeping up with the analysis world.”

Learn more about the new Wyscout Scouting Area.