Thread by @armbandmedia

Luis Campos: The Enigma of Modern Football

A THREAD

“Building a team is much more than selecting good players”

Behind all the passion, there is a totally different side to football that is the business of building a team, and very few have mastered this better than the man we will talk about who is none other than Luis Campos.

The famous man, who led @AS_Monaco_EN and @LOSC_EN to the @Ligue1_ENG, is now a free agent and under the radar of many top European clubs. In this article, we will try to take a peek at his philosophy and his journey of becoming one of the greatest sporting directors of all time.

Life started for Luis Campos in a village named Fao in Northern Portugal. From his very childhood, he participated in playing football. By the time he was in his mid-twenties, he was studying physical education at the University of Porto.

This is where the idea of managing a football club came to his mind. Campos had an active career as a manager before joining the trade of a Sporting Director.

He joined SC Espinho at the age of 24 or 25, as the fitness coach, within a few years he moved to Uniao de Leiria as the assistant manager, and at the young age of 27, he ascended the hot seat of manager.

The biggest success that Campos got during his managerial career was beating Jose Mourinho’s Porto with his Gil Vicente side. This win was also significant as it broke Porto's run of 27 unbeaten matches. Despite all of this, Campos was not much of a success as a manager.

He was given the nickname of “Campa” which in Portuguese means grave; this was after he led Vitoria de Setubal and Varzim to relegation in successive years.

The most normal thing for him to do at that moment was to leave the circuit, but Campos didn’t walk that path. He along with his close friend Americo Magalhaes set up a company named “Training to Play” where they sold training DVDs and tactical software’s to the football clubs.

In the meantime to make ends meet, Campos was also teaching and investing his money in a restaurant near Esposende. During this time he came closer to the mercurial Jose Mourinho, who played a very important part in Campos’s career.

Campos in the meantime invented a tactical board named after Mourinho that is “Mourinho’s Tactical Board”. In the future we see him move to @realmadriden as a backroom staff member under Jose Mourinho.

During his tenure at Real Madrid, he was acting as both a scout for recruiting young and talented players to the side and was also working as an opposition scout who would prepare tactical briefings about the opposition team which will play a major factor in Mourinho’s strategy.

His years at Madrid as described by the insiders are revolutionary. Campos’s research was highly influential in Madrid’s transfer policy during his time at the club. As Mourinho left Madrid, Campos also moved to Monaco as an advisor to the club’s President in 2013.

That year Monaco spend a huge amount of money to bring players like Falcao, James Rodriguez. One interesting fact about Campos is he was also a member of Argentina’s backroom staff for the 2014 World Cup as an opposition scout.

Coming back to Monaco, as the season came to an end, Dmytri Rybolovlev, the owner decided to take a more sustainable approach rather than going all out in the transfer market. This was the moment; the world was introduced with the brilliance of Luis Campos.

Luis Campos is one of the most balanced technical directors in world football. He found the right balance between data-backed scouting and classical scouting. His software studies the data of the player is one of the most advanced software according to the staff he worked with.

But on the other hand, Campos himself likes to visit the matches, as according to him there is no better way of scouting than watching the player in flesh.

The process that Campos follows before recruiting a player is very unique. In the following points, we will try to sum up the process.

1. Campos identifies the weakness in the squad and talks to the manager about it to get the manager’s view on that issue and how he looks to solve that problem. If the manager asks for a player in a particular position to fill up the weakness, Campos starts the scouting process.

2. Campos follows a template in terms of shortlisting options, Campos likes to study the player’s background and behavior once the on-field and data scouting is completed. The main idea is to find the right player with the right attitude.

3. His next step is to find 3 players for the particular position and then present the report to the manager to finally pick the name that the club would go for.

Campos likes to recruit young players in the club who are on the rise right now in terms of career, the aim is to make the most of the player’s ability when he is young then selling him at a price much higher than what he was brought in with.

Following this template, the club can simultaneously challenge the title as well as remain financially sound and secure. In one of his interviews, Campos said “A club can’t move at two speeds, one club must design their recruitment policy following their financial might.”

This has been one of the corner points of his career as a director, as he brought in players like Fabinho, Bernardo Silva, Kylian Mbappe at cut-price deals and made the most of their abilities to lead the club to the French League title and later sold them at higher prices.

Be it Monaco or at Lille, Campos has followed this strategy to lead the clubs to both financial and trophy-wise success. This makes Campos one of the most in-demand men in the football world.

Campos has taught us a good deal about how to manage the modern technological advance alongside the classical methods of scouting. This is what makes him so unique when compared to other sporting directors.

End of the thread.

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