Kickstart your career as football scout
Video Scouting Essentials
A comprehensive introduction to the essential foundations of video scouting
Course overview
Marco van der Heide, a former professional football player and founder of 360 Scouting, brings nearly a decade of hands-on experience working with top-tier clubs. He shares his expertise in video scouting and match analysis.
Based on experiences at numerous professional clubs, the course provides insights into how to evaluate players, create actionable reports, and support high-quality recruitment decisions.
Kickstart your career with 10 on-demand lectures, offering a complete introduction to football video scouting. You can take the course in your own time, pause-and-continue when ever you want, and rewatch videos as often as you like.
Unlock the secrets of effective video scouting, covering topics such as the coherence between data, video and live, scouting strategies clubs use, expertises scouts develop, smart ways to compile player reports, and tips to get into professional football as a scout.
Course trailer
How you benefit
Launch your
scouting career
Learn from an
industry expert
Master key
tools & concepts
Receive a
certificate
Who is this course for?
Beginning scouts worldwide
This scouting course is specifically designed for those who want to begin a career as a football scout. You will learn the fundamental concepts of scouting and the skills needed to excel in this field. It doesn’t matter where you live or what your background is; all you need is a good understanding of English, a laptop with a reliable internet connection, and a passion for the game.
For those looking to advance their skills further, this course serves as an excellent foundation for our advanced Video Scouting Pro course, which builds upon the fundamental skills learned here.
Taught by an industry expert
With years of experience across various clubs, settings, and levels, Marco has deep knowledge of what it takes to excel as a video scout.
Marco
van der Heide
Tutor of this course
Marco van der Heide is a former professional football player and the founder of 360 Scouting. After his active career, Marco has become a video scouting expert, spending thousands of hours analyzing matches and players.
For almost ten years, he has worked for professional clubs, individually or through 360 Scouting. At AZ Alkmaar, he reported to current Liverpool head coach Arne Slot as their opposition analyst. As a video scout, Marco worked for various clubs, ranging from Champions League teams to second-tier clubs.
What others say about Marco and this course
Time investment
This program features ten online, on-demand lectures, taking about 2 to 3 hours to complete in total. You can choose when and where to take the lessons, allowing you to learn quickly and conveniently.
Course program
The course begins by outlining the objective of scouting, highlighting its importance in assisting the sporting director and facilitating effective recruitment decisions. Scouts are responsible for identifying players who not only possess high quality but are also available and fit well with the club’s tactical and cultural values.
Next, we explore player evaluation methods, presenting three main approaches: data scouting, video scouting, and live scouting. You will learn how to balance objectivity, context, and qualitative insights to form a complete picture of a player’s abilities. When used in combination, these methods enable scouts to evaluate talent holistically.
In the section on scouting strategies, we introduce three essential scouting methodologies. These strategies provide structured frameworks for identifying talent, from regional specialists building local networks to funnel-based approaches and positional experts.
Understanding the club’s organizational chart is crucial for scouts aiming to navigate the complexities of professional football. This module outlines the hierarchical structure, from scouts to the sporting director, and explains how recommendations flow through the system. You will gain insights into the decision-making processes that balance technical, financial, and strategic considerations.
To excel as a scout, you must be able to understand football actions thorougly. This lesson will explain how to analyze individual football actions effectively, from passing and pressing to marking and covering depth. By understanding this crucial element, scouts can evaluate players in the context of their roles and create a strong basis for effective reporting.
Understanding team tactics is essential for evaluating players during scouting. They reflect the coach’s strategic approach and significantly influence individual behaviors on the field. Scouts must understand these tactics, as players’ actions are shaped by collective goals and instructions. This lesson will teach you to analyze team contributions and strategies effectively.
Building on the tactical foundation established in the previous lessons, this course examines player positions and competencies, highlighting the unique skills required for each role on the pitch. Scouts will learn to identify players’ strengths, weaknesses, and positional fit to enhance team performance.
This lesson provides an overview of Wyscout, a top platform for video scouting in professional football. It highlights key features and shows how scouts can enhance player evaluation using extensive video scouting options. Understanding how to effectively use Wyscout is essential for the modern scout.
Effective communication is a vital skill for any scout, and the course addresses this in the module about reporting on players. You will learn to present your findings through player ratings, competency assessments, and written reports, ensuring that your insights are clear, structured, and actionable.
This lesson explores the steps and skills needed to become a scout. Whether or not you get a chance in professional football partly depends on luck, but can be heavily influenced by consistently showing quality in your work.
Frequently Asked Questions
This course will help aspiring football video scouts gain the skills and knowledge needed to kickstart their careers. It covers player evaluation, scouting strategies, and using professional tools like Wyscout.
Yes! This course is specifically designed for beginning scouts worldwide with no prior professional scouting experience.
It also serves as an ideal first step towards our advanced Video Scouting Pro course for those aspiring to become professional video scouts.
The course is led by Marco van der Heide, a former professional football player and experienced video scout with nearly a decade of experience working with top-tier clubs.
The Video Scouting Essentials course costs €39. For international participants, this translates to approximately:
- $42 for US students
- £34 for UK students
Prices may vary slightly based on current exchange rates. All participants receive the same comprehensive course content, regardless of currency.
This one-time payment gives you full access to the entire course curriculum, including a certificate of completion, with no additional fees.
Payment is securely processed through Stripe, with multiple payment options available.
We offer various payment options, including credit card, PayPal, and popular local methods such as iDeal, Bancontact, EPS, and Przelewy24. You can find these options on the registration page. If you don’t see a payment method you prefer, please email us at courses@360scouting.com, and we will do our best to accommodate your request.
After you make your payment via Stripe, we provide a straightforward 7-day money-back guarantee. If you’re unsatisfied with the course for any reason within those 7 days, we’ll refund your payment in full.
The refund process is simple; reach out to us and request your refund. There is no need to explain why. We’ll process your refund as soon as possible through Stripe.
We’re confident in the value of our course, which is why we can offer this risk-free guarantee. It allows you to start learning with complete peace of mind.
As this course is on-demand, you can progress at your own pace. Most participants finish it in a few days or a couple of weeks, often taking breaks between lessons. Ultimately, the speed at which you move through the course is entirely up to you.
The program consists of 10 on-demand video lectures that you can access anytime, allowing you to study at your own pace.
The course consists of about 1.5 hours of video material. Combining these videos with reading the text in every lesson, it will take about 2 to 3 hours to complete the course.
After completing the course, you can request a personalized certificate of completion with your name, which can help you showcase your skills to potential employers.
You only need a good understanding of English, a reliable internet connection, and the ambition to become a better football scout.
This Video Scouting Essentials course is your first step into the world of football scouting, covering fundamental concepts and techniques. The Video Scouting Pro course is a more advanced program designed for scouts ready to elevate their skills to a professional level, building directly on the foundations laid in the Essentials course.
Yes, technical support is available via email.
You need only an internet-connected device. Accessing the course requires no specific software other than a browser.
Yes, the course provides essential skills and knowledge to help you pursue a career as a video scout. However, it does not offer any additional benefits in our application procedure apart from increasing the chance of succeeding because of a higher skill level.
The course equips you with essential skills and insights into professional scouting, providing a solid foundation to pursue opportunities in football clubs or related organizations.
Questions?
We are here to help you
Ready to take your scouting skills to the next level?
The Video Scouting Essentials course will teach you everything you need to kickstart your football scouting career.
