Football Statsbomb Recruiting

Modern Scouting Workflows: 4 Player Archetypes for Scouting with Data and Video Side-by-Side

29 Oct 2025

9 min Read

Earlier this year, Hudl launched a newly-enhanced Statsbomb analysis platform by bringing together the world-class analytical depth of Statsbomb data with the vast video library of Wyscout. This integration creates a unified solution, designed to be the ultimate tool for scouting and recruitment departments globally, placing data and video side-by-side in one powerful workflow.

Today, we're going to demonstrate the power of this enhanced platform. We'll show how quick and easy it is to identify promising players who meet your team's specific requirements, instantly watch video of key actions, and build comprehensive scouting playlists by harnessing the integrated data and video.

We’ll explore these repeatable, effective scouting workflows through four distinct player archetypes:

The Ball-Playing Central Defender
The Press-Resistant Central Midfielder
The Dynamic Inverted Winger
The Target Man Centre Forward

Let's start with the critical role of ball-playing defenders.

Archetype 1: The Ball-Playing Central Defender

The modern game places a heightened demand on centre-backs to be technical players who can initiate attacks, not just end them. They are crucial for dictating build-up play and breaking the opponent's first line of pressure.

Using the Player Scout tool within the platform, we initiate our search for this profile. Our aim is to quickly filter out thousands of players down to a manageable, high-potential shortlist.

We start by filtering for Central Defenders who have played >75% of available minutes so far this season, ensuring our sample size is robust. We then apply filters to target players who are at least the positional average for the following metrics:

On-Ball Value (OBV) generated from dribbles and ball carries: This advanced metric quantifies the positive change in goal probability that a player contributes while in possession, focusing on actions crucial for build-up.
Tackle/Dribbled Past %: This metric ensures that while we are focused on technical ability, we are not sacrificing defensive competence and can filter our players who may not be competent in ground duels.
Long Balls Completed (per 90) and Completion %: These metrics highlight a player's range and accuracy in spreading play or switching the attack.

This process instantly surfaces a shortlist of three centre-backs who meet our non-negotiable requirements. With data and video linked, we can immediately look at clips to see our players performing the required actions - carrying the ball out of defence, attempting long-range passes, or engaging in ground duels - allowing us to make informed snap judgments on whether they are worth further scouting.

Deep Dive: Mamadou Diabaté

Let's focus on the 21-year-old Mamadou Diabaté, one of the three players identified. Instantly, we can click on the list of Tackle/Dribbled Past % events to generate a video playlist showing his ground duels this season. Quickly, we can analyse his one-on-one defending and ball-winning capabilities, saving the most important videos to a custom playlist.

The platform also provides a range of data visualization functions that add critical analytical information to any scouting report. By reviewing Diabate’s Pitch Visualisation of his long passing, we gain a nuanced understanding:

The positive: The map clearly shows he is capable of spreading the play out wide to the flanks or switching the attack across the pitch.
The nuance: The visualisation may also reveal a lack of success or volume when attempting to play sharp, forward passes to break the opposition’s midfield lines.

Clicking on each pass or selecting multiple passes instantly brings up the video player to watch the passes on video. This combination of filtered data (the what) and data visualisation linked to video (the how) gives us a complete view, enabling us to either greenlight Diabaté for in-person viewing or move on to the next prospect efficiently.

Archetype 2: The Press-Resistant Central Midfielder

Against modern, high-intensity pressing, a team needs players who can confidently receive the ball in tight spaces, retain possession, and, crucially, progress the play up the pitch.

Using the same repeatable process, we now analyse central midfielders who excel in the middle third under opposition pressure. It’s a difficult, valuable skill, and as such requires layering multiple metrics in the Player Scout tool:

Pressured Pass Completion %: A measure of a player’s ability to execute passes accurately when under defensive pressure.
Turnovers: Ensuring the player minimises costly mistakes when attempting to break the press.
Successful Dribbles: to identify players that can dribble past a pressuring opponent
Fouls Won: Retaining possession when challenged by a defender.

The search yields five names. We select the youngest prospect: Romeo Amane of Rapid Wien.

Deep Dive: Romeo Amane

Amane’s player radar indicates a highly valuable profile as a complete two-way central midfielder: one who is effective at breaking up play via pressures, tackles, and interceptions, and one who can use his carrying ability to move the ball into the final third.

To confirm the quality of his press-resistance, we need to move beyond raw numbers and dive into the Pitch Visualisation tool. By bringing up his ball carries for the season, we can see exactly where on the pitch he is executing these actions. We can then select specific, high-value ball carry events (e.g., carries covering more than 10 metres in the central channel) and instantly generate a video playlist.

Watching these clips allows the scout to confirm:

Does he successfully draw defenders before releasing the ball?
Does his body orientation aid in retaining possession?
Is his first touch sharp enough to escape immediate pressure?

Once again, the integrated workflow moves from broad data filtering to precise, event-specific video confirmation in seconds, providing the depth scouts need to make a professional recruitment decision.

Archetype 3: The Dynamic Inverted Winger

The inverted winger, or inside forward, is a vital attacking component in the modern game to generate numerical superiority in central areas. These players - typically playing on the opposite flank to their strong foot - look to cut inside, drive toward goal, and contribute heavily to the final attacking action, either by scoring or creating.

We run through the same scouting process to search for this attacking profile, focusing on right-sided attackers who are predominantly left-footed, filtering for players who have a high involvement in the final action, either by taking the shot themselves or creating one for a teammate.

Looking for players that are above the league average across the four selected metrics, we find one player in the Austrian Bundesliga.

Deep Dive: Moses Usor

This search quickly brings up Moses Usor, a 24-year-old winger playing for LASK. Despite only registering one assist and no goals so far this season, Usor has accumulated 2.5 xG + xG Assisted in open play. This significant discrepancy between his expected output and his actual output immediately flags him as an intriguing target, suggesting he is consistently getting into the right positions and applying the final actions we are looking for, but the finishing touch or luck is missing.

To determine the cause of this underperformance, we shift from aggregate data to event-level visualisation and video.

By utilising the Pitch Visualisation tool to view his Shot Map and Key Pass Map, we can confirm that Usor is taking his shots and making his final passes predominantly from the right-hand half-space - exactly the zone an inverted winger should occupy.

But it’s the integrated video functionality that allows us to instantly analyse these events, generating a playlist of all the key passes and shots that Usor has contributed in open play, and assess whether Usor’s low-scoring output is due to poor technique or finishing, and whether the key passes he has delivered are being wasted by his teammates.

This ability to quickly compare high-level data expectation with ground-level video confirmation ensures that recruitment decisions are based on nuance, not just on box-score results.

Archetype 4: The Target Man Centre Forward

For teams that utilise direct play, rely on crosses, or need a reference point to absorb pressure and hold up the ball, the Target Man remains an invaluable asset. This profile requires a focus on physical dominance and link-up consistency, even ahead of goalscoring in some cases.

In our final search, we aim to identify strikers who are physically imposing, competent in the air, and skilled at bringing teammates into play in the final third. We filter to central attackers who are >180cm tall, complete passes in the final third at the league average rate at minimum, and win more aerial duels than the average centre forward.

Deep Dive: Maurice Malone

This targeted search returns Maurice Malone of title holders Sturm Graz. His initial data profile confirms he is capable of leading the line, challenging central defenders physically, and successfully involving teammates in advanced areas.

But, to move from a quantitative assessment to a qualitative, recruitment-ready report, we must leverage the platform’s integrated video functionality to examine his specific physical prowess. We might specifically want to analyse his aerial duels, particularly in high-leverage set-piece situations. By filtering the Pitch Visualisation tool to show Aerial Duels in both penalty boxes, we can identify a forward who is both a consistent threat on attacking set plays, and reliable in helping to defend set pieces.

Conclusion: Reclaiming Time in the Modern Scouting Workflow

The four player profiles we explored - from the Ball-Playing Centre-Back to the Physical Target Man - were all identified using the Austrian Bundesliga as a practical example. However, the true power of the enhanced platform lies in the ability to apply these fast, specific, and repeatable searches across the vast coverage of leagues and competitions made available by Statsbomb data and Wyscout video.

This article has demonstrated how easy and fast it is to identify players that suit a team’s specific game model and the exact profile they’re looking for—whether based on stylistic traits, positional preferences, or age requirements. By combining best-in-class event data with instantly accessible, integrated video, the platform eliminates hours of manual searching.

In essence, the enhanced platform gives scouting and recruitment staff back their most valuable asset: time. This reclaimed time can be dedicated where it matters most - investing resources into watching high-priority targets in action, either through extensive video playlists or by physically scouting them in person.

As we look ahead, with future updates and enhancements already on the roadmap, we are committed to continuing to power the transfer market, making our customers' lives easier, and putting tools in their hands that elevate the quality and depth of their recruitment work.

Get in touch today to see how Hudl Statsbomb’s industry-leading data and integrated Wyscout video can power your analysis and recruitment.