Brussels - Chris Van Puyvelde is currently the technical director of the Chinese Football Association. Between 2015 and 2018 he was technical director of the Belgian FA in which he helped to restructure and professionalize the Belgian football landscape. Under his management the Belgian national team won the bronze medal at the World Cup 2018 in Russia.
How important is the factor digitalization within the FA?
“I see digitalization as primarily as a form of communication between staff members and players. First and foremost communication needs to happen in an efficient and fast way. For example: when a game has been played yesterday, I receive the trainer’s game report and I can consult it. It’s important to me that this kind of information can be shared on a central platform”.
How does the Belgian FA scout its players and how does PSD provide support?
“Since 2 years we have restructured our scouting department. We now have scouts that are linked to certain teams like U15, U16, U17. Each scout need to submit their scouting report into the PSD platform “.
In which way is PSD being used to make sporting decisions?
“All scouting reports are being used to make final conclusions: where lies the transition between 1) the talent and 2) the performance. This is still a very sensitive discussion topic in the football world”.
Which part of the platform do you use the most?
I mainly use ProSoccerData to see what is happening in the organisation and what my people are working on. But I’d like to intensify the use of our platform throughout our organisation. What do I mean by this?
First, we recently appointed someone to be responsible for all sporting analyses within the FA. Secondly we hired someone who will take care of the ProSoccerData platform and the processing of these analyses. For me it is very important that my staff can brief me with a synthesis: what are the qualities of a young player and what’s his future potential? Last but not least, we use the video footage of a certain player to show his strengths and weaknesses. I experience with our youth that they are very sensitive to what you show them and how they can learn from it. And maybe the next challenge is to add some gamification in this communication process.
Belgian FA
Chris Van Puyvelde
I mainly use PSD to see what is happening in the organisation and what my people are working on