Francis Cagigao

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Francis Cagigao

Postby Zenith » Wed Nov 06, 2019 1:01 pm



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Re: Francis Cagigao, Arsenal Scout

Postby swipe right » Wed Nov 06, 2019 2:02 pm

Is he our head scout now that Mislintat is gone?
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Re: Francis Cagigao, Arsenal Scout

Postby Zenith » Wed Aug 05, 2020 8:10 am

The Athletic

by James McNicholas
The making of Cagigao, the man who found Fabregas, Martinelli and Bellerin

When Gabriel Martinelli sprinted 67 yards to score at Stamford Bridge earlier this year, former Arsenal captain Cesc Fabregas was watching from his home in Monaco. So taken was Fabregas with the goal that he took to Twitter — not in praise of Martinelli, but the scout who spotted him: “Francis Cagigao strikes again”.

Twenty minutes later, when Hector Bellerin curled in a left-footed shot from the edge of the box, Fabregas repeated his refrain. “And Francis Cagigao strikes again and again. Legend.”

It was a rare moment in the spotlight for a man whose profession depends on discretion. Fabregas understands Cagigao’s instinct for talent better than most — like Bellerin, Martinelli and so many more, it was Cagigao who brought him to Arsenal’s attention.

Cagigao has worked in Arsenal’s recruitment department for more than two decades, starting as a part-time scout for Spain and Portugal and progressing all the way to his current role as head of international scouting. He’s survived significant changes in the dugout and the boardroom. In a time of transition, Cagigao remains a constant.

The cliche says that football is a game of opinions and Cagigao’s willingness to state his is what has made him so useful to Arsenal. “Franny’s most outstanding quality is that his opinion always is on the record,” says Dick Law, who served as Arsenal’s transfer negotiator between 2009 and 2018. “The world of scouting has tonnes of people who will qualify their opinion. They’ll say, ‘This is a great player, but…’. With Franny it’s ‘this player is this rubbish’ or ‘this player is good’. And he stands by his opinion.

“In the world of football, that’s an invaluable quality. He has integrity. It doesn’t always make him right — but in football today, dealing with people with true integrity is rare.”

Cagigao was born in Paddington and grew up in Pimlico in south-west London. Proximity made him a Chelsea fan by default but that all changed when he was picked up as a schoolboy to join the Arsenal academy. His youth-team coach, Pat Rice, schooled him in the culture and traditions of the club, and thus began a love affair that continues to this day.

He was part of the team that won the FA Youth Cup in 1988, starting alongside the likes of Kevin Campbell, Steve Morrow and David Hillier. He never appeared for Arsenal’s first team, turning out instead for Barcelona B, Racing Santander and Southend United before settling at Club Lemos, a Spanish third-division team based in Galicia, the region in which his parents were born and where he is still based.

As injuries began to take their toll, Cagigao sought to explore other avenues within the game. While still playing, he began undertaking his coaching badges, travelling to London Colney to do his work experience with Arsenal’s under-15 side, where he was mentored by the great Don Howe. It was there that his former coach Rice introduced him to the club’s new manager: Arsene Wenger. Wenger and Rice pitched Cagigao their vision for a true international scouting network — at the time, it was to be one of the most sophisticated in world football.

Cagigao began as part-time scout for Spain and Portugal, balancing that with his commitments as player and later manager at Lemos. At 29, he was the youngest head coach in Spain. As Wenger’s Arsenal took off, the demands of the scouting role became greater. Before long, Cagigao was forced to choose: scouting with Arsenal or his coaching career. He chose Arsenal.

Working under then-chief scout Steve Rowley, Cagigao formed part of Wenger’s growing information network. As the years passed, more territory was conquered: Gilles Grimandi was deployed in France and Switzerland, Jurgen Kost across Germany and the Czech Republic. In time, Danny Karbassiyoon was posted to North America, with Sandro Orlandelli focusing on Brazil and Argentina. Where possible, the club used former players: those who understood best what was required to play for Arsenal.

Cagigao’s role expanded to include South America, then southern Europe. When Arsenal reached the Champions League final in 2006, Cagigao was doing opponent scouting across almost a dozen countries. Eventually, he became head of European and South American scouting. Then, when Rowley left in 2017, he stepped up to lead the club’s talent identification department, initially on an interim basis before taking on the role permanently.

Fabregas is his most frequently-cited success story. Cagigao first saw him play as a 15-year-old in the MIC tournament in Lloret de Mar. The talent was immediately obvious but Cagigao did his homework on other aspects of his game: his character, his background, his lifestyle.

The Fabregas signing was part of a concerted drive to acquire young European players at low cost. Arsenal had a stadium to build and a loophole in Spanish football regulations meant players could be acquired before the age at 16 for negligible compensation fees. Barcelona proved a happy hunting ground for Arsenal — at the time, the Catalan club were reluctant to hand out big contracts to academy players and Arsenal seized the advantage. Spanish clubs typically have bigger academies, so talent can sometimes slip through the cracks. What’s more, at that point, Wenger’s Arsenal were the closest stylistic match to Barcelona in England. A player made at La Masia could feel quite at home at London Colney.

As well as Fabregas, Arsenal brought in the likes of Fran Merida and Jon Toral from Barcelona. They tried for more: four months before he agreed a deal with Manchester United, Gerard Pique had been in advanced talks with Arsenal. It’s one of the great regrets of Wenger and Cagigao’s careers that work-permit regulations extinguished a possible move for Lionel Messi.

Cagigao spotted Bellerin playing as a right winger in Barcelona’s under-16 side. Impressed by his athleticism and intelligence, Cagigao was convinced of his potential as a right-back. The pitch to Bellerin’s family was simple: come to Arsenal and develop into an international class full-back or stay here and settle in for a life as a second-division winger.

It was a proposal that came with considerable credibility — after all, several years earlier, Cagigao had identified Lauren as a potential successor to Lee Dixon while he was playing in midfield for Mallorca. Cagigao convinced Wenger and Rice that Lauren would be a right-back but The Athletic understands that, after his first few training sessions, the coaches were far from convinced.

Lauren started his Arsenal career in midfield but in typical fashion, Cagigao stood firm: if he was played at right-back, he would flourish. A few months later, Lauren made the transition — and Cagigao received a grateful phone-call from Wenger: “You were right. He’s a right-back.”

When Cagigao makes up his mind on a player, he sticks to it. Santi Cazorla did not arrive at Arsenal until he was 27. By that point, Cagigao had been tracking him for more than a decade. He filed reports on Cazorla’s outstanding technical ability when he was just a 16-year-old with Real Oviedo, offering the caveat that he needed to develop a little physically before moving to England — if he’s small now at 5ft 6in, he was even smaller then. Cazorla went to Villarreal but Cagigao’s interest remained.

When Arsenal lost Fabregas and Samir Nasri in the summer of 2011, Cagigao and the scouting department recommended buying Cazorla and Juan Mata to replace them. The idea was for Arsenal to acquire like-for-like replacements and still turn a profit. Unfortunately, the club were not able to complete the deals — Mata went to Chelsea and Cazorla joined Malaga.

Twelve months later, when Malaga ran into financial difficulties, Arsenal’s long pursuit of Cazorla finally reached a positive conclusion. A few months later, the club also signed Nacho Monreal from the same club. He, too, was the subject of long-term interest. On Cagigao’s recommendation, Arenal had previously made offers for both Monreal and Cesar Azpilicueta when the pair were with Osasuna in the Spanish second division.

Arsenal’s interest in Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, meanwhile, dates back to when he was just 21 years old. Aubameyang, then on the books at Milan, was in the midst of an underwhelming loan spell with Monaco but his speed and intelligence piqued Arsenal’s interest. When he began to blossom at Saint-Etienne, there was a clear recommendation from the scouting department to sign the player. Arsenal felt they were sufficiently well-stocked for strikers at the time and passed. It arguably cost them several years of Aubameyang in his prime and tens of millions of pounds.

Such is the life of any scout, Cagigao’s job is to make recommendations — responsibility for the rest lies with the decision-makers. For a long time, that was Wenger. Now it’s Arsenal’s executive committee, principally head of football Raul Sanllehi, working in conjunction with technical director Edu Gaspar and head coach Mikel Arteta.

Cagigao is known for being forthright and outspoken. The “integrity” that Law mentions manifests in a willingness to pin his colours to the mast for a player. When his advice is overlooked, there’s inevitably frustration. Part of Cagigao’s skill is his capacity to accept that. It’s what enables him to endure.

The scouting profession has changed dramatically in the 23 years he’s spent with the club, most notably in the advent of analytics. When Cagigao and Rowley started out, the focus was on being present at games and trusting in the experienced eye. Data presented an alternative approach. Wenger was open to using analytics as another tool for recruitment, particularly after Arsenal’s acquisition of Stat DNA, and this led to a degree of tension between scouting and stats.

One such case was Shkodran Mustafi. When Arsenal were on the hunt for a new centre-half in the summer of 2016, the German did not figure on the scouting department’s list of recommendations. The statistics made a compelling case for the player and the scouting reports were overruled.

In the same summer, Arsenal signed Lucas Perez from Deportivo de La Coruna. The club had intended to buy Jamie Vardy, triggering his release clause before the striker decided to remain at Leicester. Perez was on the brink of a move to Everton when an agent working on the deal asked Cagigao whether he’d considered him an option for Arsenal. “Not a chance,” was Cagigao’s response. “He’s a mid-table player.”

With Arsenal against the clock and under pressure to bring in a striker, they decided to sign Perez anyway. Again, statistics were a factor. That’s the nature of any transfer window: sometimes the deals you can do — the deals you have to do — are not the deals you’d ideally want to do.

There have been more harmonious interactions between the two departments. Prior to transfer windows, a shared database will help identify targets. Cagigao is said to have an appreciation for how statistics can corroborate what the eye initially sees and is an advocate for the value of physical stats — although, as these are often recorded and maintained within clubs, they are notoriously difficult to acquire.

There is still something of that old school scout to him — the kind that sees a spark of potential in a player’s gait or the way he receives the ball. What’s more, he has an intuitive understanding of the mentality required to make it at the top level.

“I always joke that with all the metrics and the data, and the physical performance technology, we can pretty well tell everything about a player from the shoulders down,” Law explains. “What continues to elude us in the professional game is how to measure from the shoulders up. That’s where you try to lean on your scouts as much as possible.”

When Arsenal sent Carlos Vela on loan to Spain, Cagigao was dispatched to keep track of his development. Vela was stationed at Celta Vigo, just a couple of hours drive from Cagigao’s base in Galicia. After a few months observing him, his analysis was emphatic: “100 per cent of the talent, 0 per cent of the attitude.” There is that intuition, that feel for football. If stats provide the science, Cagigao helps keep alive the artistry of talent-spotting.

When Sven Mislintat joined as head of recruitment in 2017, the scouting department collectively felt somewhat ostracised. Mislintat had his own methods and his own network, and there were communication issues across the department. Now a new balance is being struck as Arsenal adapt to Sanllehi, Edu and their new technical director model. It remains to be seen how Jaeson Rosenfeld’s departure will impact upon the role of analytics within Arsenal’s approach.

There is an obvious benefit to Cagigao’s longevity in this new system: he has relationships with Edu and Arteta that date back to their playing days — in Arteta’s case to when he was just a teenager. He remains a huge part of Arsenal’s transfer strategy, having played significant roles in the acquisitions of both William Saliba, who is currently on loan at Saint-Etienne, and Gabriel Martinelli, who has made a deeply impressive impact on the first team.

It was Cagigao’s lead scout in Brazil, Everton Gushiken, who first brought Martinelli to his attention. There was enough that was intriguing about this player to overlook the fact he was currently with fourth-division Ituano. He had previously been on the books at Corinthians, scoring 73 goals in 139 games. What’s more, he’d already been invited for two trials at Manchester United. Arsenal explored the prospect of bringing him for a trial at London Colney but were beaten to the punch by Barcelona. Fortunately, the Spanish giants decided against signing him.

Cagigao made the decision to fly to Brazil and watch Martinelli compete in the flesh in the Copinha — the under-20 club competition in which a 15-year-old Neymar once starred for Santos. Martinelli was top scorer in the competition’s group stage. With competition for his signature hotting up, time was of the essence.

Cagigao convinced Sanllehi to negotiate an exclusivity option, granting Arsenal a four-week window after the player’s 18th birthday in which only they would be able to negotiate a permanent transfer. Meanwhile, Arsenal scouts Gushiken and Jonathan Vidalle ensured there was an Arsenal presence at every Ituano game. In-depth statistical analysis does not exist for a club as small as Ituano — this was a triumph of pure scouting. The final stage was a face-to-face meeting between Cagigao, the player and his father. Cagigao saw what Vela had lacked: humility, determination, ambition. His mind was made up.

With most of Europe in lockdown, Cagigao and his team are still at work. Every scout watches three or four games per day, as well as revising their work throughout 2019-20 and filing new reports. There are limitations when it comes to observing a player via video — the camera follows the ball, not the man. The focus, whenever possible, is on watching them in the flesh.

As the head of the team, Cagigao’s role now involves a bit more paperwork but he still takes a hands-on approach to talent identification. In a normal week, he will attend between three and five games. Where possible, he will even watch training sessions, as well as undertaking the obligatory background checks.

There are always new problems to contend with. Brexit is almost certain to scupper Arsenal’s approach of identifying the best European talent before the age of 16. The club are turning their focus on players 18 and above, operating in the grey space between academy sides and first teams. With the world in economic crisis, there is considerable doubt over precisely how and when the next transfer window will operate.

Yet Cagigao continues scouring the globe for potential Arsenal players, spending time at London Colney when his schedule allows. Scouts tend to operate in the shadows but his work has been sufficiently impressive for him to have been approached about sporting director roles in Europe. Time and again, he has made the same choice: Arsenal — the club he fell for upon first stepping into those marble halls.

When the business of football gets going again, Cagigao will make his voice heard to Arsenal’s transfer committee. Sanllehi’s charm might be what gets a deal over the line but it’s Cagigao’s eye that puts it on Arsenal’s agenda — and his persistent voice that ensures it’s executed. He can’t always be always right but he is always sure. In some respects, that’s every bit as valuable.
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Re: Francis Cagigao, Arsenal Scout

Postby Santi » Wed Aug 05, 2020 3:48 pm

isn't this the guy who just got put on the redundancy list? Surely we have shitter scouts than him we could get rid of
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Re: Francis Cagigao, Arsenal Scout

Postby Sims » Wed Aug 05, 2020 4:39 pm



Feels like the redundancies are just a cover up
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Re: Francis Cagigao, Arsenal Scout

Postby Callum » Wed Aug 05, 2020 5:15 pm

f***ing disgraceful
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Re: Francis Cagigao, Arsenal Scout

Postby Callum » Wed Aug 05, 2020 5:16 pm

Santi wrote:isn't this the guy who just got put on the redundancy list? Surely we have shitter scouts than him we could get rid of

it's not to do with his quality, it's to do with us rolling back our scouting network and jumping into bed with kia joorabchian
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Re: Francis Cagigao, Arsenal Scout

Postby Santi » Wed Aug 05, 2020 5:18 pm

Yeah but you'd think surely keep your best few scouts around, not like theyre sacking them all. Kia doesn't have enough players to rely solely on him and even for Raul that would be retarded.
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Re: Francis Cagigao, Arsenal Scout

Postby Callum » Wed Aug 05, 2020 5:21 pm

Santi wrote:Yeah but you'd think surely keep your best few scouts around, not like theyre sacking them all. Kia doesn't have enough players to rely solely on him and even for Raul that would be retarded.

not if that scout has too much influence

why sack the guy who found cesc, hector, martinelli etc who's been here for 20 years if you're concerned about their ability?
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Re: Francis Cagigao, Arsenal Scout

Postby Ach » Wed Aug 05, 2020 5:26 pm

Bring back the missingstat guy
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Re: Francis Cagigao, Arsenal Scout

Postby VCC » Wed Aug 05, 2020 6:43 pm

What you see is his success and they are big names
I want to see a list of his failures to get a true look at the ratio
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Re: Francis Cagigao, Arsenal Scout

Postby StLGooner » Wed Aug 05, 2020 6:57 pm

I would imagine most if not all scouts fail the majority of the time.

Fail as in, the kid doesn't turn out to be that great, or just mediocre.

But then, what is considered a failure to a scout? :think:
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Re: Francis Cagigao, Arsenal Scout

Postby VCC » Wed Aug 05, 2020 7:08 pm

StLGooner wrote:I would imagine most if not all scouts fail the majority of the time.

Fail as in, the kid doesn't turn out to be that great, or just mediocre.

But then, what is considered a failure to a scout? :think:

Failure would be the cost of developing a player outweighing the money said player brings in , or if the player stays at the club after development the cost of development vs the importance of player to club imo
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Re: Francis Cagigao, Arsenal Scout

Postby Jedi » Wed Aug 05, 2020 7:25 pm

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Re: Francis Cagigao, Arsenal Scout

Postby StLGooner » Wed Aug 05, 2020 7:40 pm

VCC wrote:
StLGooner wrote:I would imagine most if not all scouts fail the majority of the time.

Fail as in, the kid doesn't turn out to be that great, or just mediocre.

But then, what is considered a failure to a scout? :think:

Failure would be the cost of developing a player outweighing the money said player brings in , or if the player stays at the club after development the cost of development vs the importance of player to club imo



I didn't think about the money part, so good point.

It is run like a business after all.
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