A former Premier League scout said something in the Recruitment Room this week that stuck with me.
He was describing what he looks for in a young player.
Not goals. Not assists. Not the highlight stuff.
One thing most people miss.
Picture a young midfielder. He gets the ball, drives forward thirty yards, has a go from distance, and misses. Badly. Twenty yards wide.
Most people watching write him off. Wasteful. Greedy. Wrong choice.
The scout doesn't.
He's watching what the player does the next time he's in that exact spot.
Does he back himself and have another go?
Or does he shrink, and roll the safe pass sideways?
That's the whole thing.
The miss didn't matter. The willingness to take the shot again did.
The safe sideways pass never loses the ball. It also never wins a game.
And the players who make it to the top are almost never the ones who stopped missing.
They're the ones who kept taking the shot.
Image from our live session (I promise my eyes weren't closed the whole time!)
I'm telling you this for two reasons.
The first is that it's a real look inside the job.
This is what scouting young players actually looks like. You're watching under-21 football and reading a player's mentality, not tallying goals and assists. If you want to do this for a living, that eye is the thing you're trying to build.
The second reason is that it's a near-perfect metaphor for you.
Because if you're early in your career and looking to change lanes into football, you are that midfielder.
Breaking in is a run of ambitious shots. A piece of work you publish. A report you send. A question you ask someone senior. A role you apply for before you feel ready.
Some are going to miss. Badly. Twenty yards wide.
And it feels awful. It feels like proof you're not good enough.
It isn't. It's just a miss.
The same scout said something else that backs this up.
Being willing to admit you're wrong is a strength. And even at the very top, a hit rate over sixty per cent is good. Really good.
Read that again. The professionals get nearly four in ten wrong.
Nobody expects you to be right every time. They expect you to keep taking good shots, and to learn from the ones that miss.
Now the honest bit.
The sideways pass is tempting for a reason. It's safe.
Another course. Another certificate. Another month of getting ready. None of it ever misses, because you never actually shot.
But none of it scores either.
You stay exactly where you are, telling yourself you're preparing.
And before you say "but what if the work isn't good enough yet" - that's the sideways pass talking.
You don't fix a miss by never shooting. You fix it by taking the next one a little better.
Publish the piece. Send the report. Ask the question. Then look honestly at what missed, and go again.
Shoot. Miss. Adjust. Shoot again.
The people who get in aren't the ones who never got it wrong.
They're the ones still taking shots when everyone else has gone quiet.
So take one this week.
And when it misses, don't reach for the safe pass.
Take it again.
Liam
p.s. that came from a Recruitment Room session last week with a scout who built a Premier League career entirely from the outside. I'm sharing his story, and how he actually did it, on Wednesday.
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