As the eyeball revolutionizes the reconnaissance of young people: co -founder Benjamin Balkin plans to expand to South America next | Football news

In the reconnaissance of young people, a revolution occurs and changes football. “Today, there are 250,000 players on the platform,” says Benjamin Balkin Sky Sports. “Last year there were 130,000. Next year there will be half a million.”

Balkin is a co-founder of Eyeball, a platform you may not have heard of, but the one that most likely became central in the way the club you support is recruiting young players. They are already used by most of them in the first five major leagues in Europe.

The sale is simple. The platform provides videos with thousands of data for each player. But this is not a premier league. These are young men playing in amateur football in France, academies in Africa and, very quickly, throughout South America.

This is how the football superstar will be revealed. And they could be anywhere. Is there a genius of Mali once never revealed? “One hundred percent, it was,” says Oliver Dürr Dehnhardt, Balkin’s colleague. “In fact, it was probably 10.”

He adds: “I do not claim that the eyeball has had a solution to find all 10. They still need to play for the club that we cover. But the way to finding all 10 is now clearer. Everyone knows the potential of Africa, but no one knew how to unlock it. Now you can, it will only spiral spiral.”

Five years ago, the eyeball was just an idea. Like the best of them, it came from the need to solve the problem. Balkin, born in French Danish parents, was a one -off Monaco look that found himself trying to identify a young French talent for clubs abroad.

“It all started out of personal experience. We had a network of clubs interested in finding a 14-to-to-a-year-old man in France. It was our niche. But that was a jungle there. You relied very much on agents. Our problem was the lack of video in football for young people.”

They knew it had sense to base themselves in big cities, Paris and Marseille, but it was just an educated guess that coincided with viewing. Contact would call a perspective in Brittany. Another in Lyon. “Everywhere, except where it was practical to be.”

He explains, “What we did was basically try to be lucky. On Saturday afternoon, he just chose the game.

“How many times have you heard that luck is to be in the right place at the right time?” I just watched the game and was there in front of me. “But in 2025, no football club in their true mind wants to build a strategy based on happiness.”

That was the situation. They glued a pin on the map, trying to find players in France. Even when they did so, their reports were missing something. The clubs wanted to see clips that were not merely written reports. “We decided to start recording games ourselves.”

This was amateur football. “Nothing was on TV, there’s no rights, nothing. We just bought cameras, we were trimmed by players.” But it worked. “The answers rate from the clubs increased. The decision -making time has become shorter.” The eyeball was the answer.

The challenge for Balkin and co -founder Emil Kjeldsen in 2020. It was a scaling. “The problem was that most clubs didn’t have a camera. And if they were, they just used it for internal training purposes and analysis. We tried to remove that obstacle,” he says.

“By giving clubs to the free camera system and analysis that comes with it, in exchange we were able to get teams and information we required on their players to eventually build a real search database.”

Dehnhardt came to a second -corner situation that worked in Ajax for three years as their international scout, responsible for Scandinavia and France, but also explored potential markets in Africa and beyond. “My focus was on the resulting talent.”

Ajax has long been considered one of the best clubs in Europe when it comes to recognizing this talent. “A very well -funded scouting system, very good scouts,” Dehnhardt agrees. “But they worked on the same basis as any other club,” he adds.

“If the agent they believe on Thursday was invited to say that he was a good player in Prague, he would fly there on weekends to watch him, and then say” no. “If there were 10 agents who called, they would choose one and then go to see the other nine weekends.

“With eyeball you watch 20 minutes and decide if you will put them on the list. If it confirms the video live, I would send the name to Amsterdam where he works 10 video scouts. Within two days, I would have 10 independent reports. You can make a decision.

“In Ajax, we made eyeballs central in our strategy. I saw the potential for myself, as it can completely change things.

“Ten days instead of 10 weeks or longer? The time is money in this space. Very few clubs in the world luxury is not a factor. Bayern Munich and Paris Saint-Germain can move at the last second and just pay. Everyone else has to be earlier.

“Look at Mathys Tel, he was barely 19 years old and already at the second big transmission of his life. If Mathys Tel was born two years later, then there would be 45 games before his debut for Rennes. The decision will be made earlier.”

Recognizing the opportunity, Dehnhardt is now working for an eyeball, based in their office in Copenhagen. “It’s really the first major change in youth reconnaissance in the last 30 years, to be honest,” he insists. “That’s why I’m here now. It’s a game exchanger.”

Of course, football itself changes. Globalization, together with increased financial limitations, actively encourage clubs to throw net wider – and younger. “The emergence talent was once defined as a U23, but now it is U19,” explains Dehnhardt.

“More and more clubs do not care where the player comes from as long as he is good enough. It is already a strategy of clubs at the level of the first team, but with an obstacle to international scouting now down, clubs will have to go more and more.”

Balkin agrees. “If everything moves the younger, how did the reconnaissance strategy adapted to that? The data focused on the football football football in the last decade, but players are moving in 19 years. Maybe they will be 17. Clubs should know about them at 14.”

The eyeball is a tool to which I can do it.

Balkin talks through him and it’s an amazingly simple, football manager for Real. “I can choose my data points to make my live choice. Let’s look for the central back, this year, a European passport, a national team player, this high. It really makes it easier for scout life.”

Within the clicks, one can find a teenager from West Africa, and a scout in Northern Europe watches clips from a game that is played on another continent where there were no fans. “You won’t just go to Senegal, isn’t it? Kills geography.”

But they are not just big clubs that benefit. Logistics in Africa was simple because the clubs accepted him there. “These academies, their entire business model is to sell players. They do that with so much attention. With which it is fantastic to work with.”

In England, most clubs in the championship are now on board, adjusting them for both costs and convenience. “You don’t have to buy everything, just subscribe to countries relevant to your reconnaissance department, your strategy,” Balkin says.

Below, Bolton Wanderers are in an interesting position in the food chain. They record their games at the age of 13, proves video and team leaves. It helps to expose the talent for sale, but also allows the players released to pick them up somewhere else.

“You don’t have to believe a agent you’ve never heard of who wrote you on LinkedIn with a good video,” Dehnhardt says. “You can do your own attention. At the same time, on the eyeballs, you have direct contact with the club. No mediator.”

By saying that, large agencies are on the eyeball. “That makes sense,” Balkin says. “They are part of the ecosystem with their own analysts. They make decisions aimed at data on players they want to represent, not just the recommendation of someone else.”

“Definitely the transfers are done clean on the eyeballs,” Dehnhardt claims. Even the moves that, on it, seem to be examples of a traditional scout, are actually encouraged – before and after – extensive research conducted on the platform of the eyeball.

“As a general rule, if the club uses an eyeball and the player is on the eyeball, the eyeball has played a role in duty. It is likely that 70 to 80 percent of the scout reports of young players are actually made on the video based on the eyeball. This is so easy.”

Valya Konate, an ivory player from Racing Club Abidjan, who recently shone in the Toulon tournament and then earned a big move to Monaco, still requires some background checks. “The sequel was on the eyeball, I do not doubt it.”

Simply put, now is an integral part of the reconnaissance process. “We have passed the turning point now,” Balkin says. “If you don’t use an eyeball, you are an exception. I don’t think they use four in the Premier League. Two in Ligue 1.” And it will only grow.

“We have 130 partner academies in Africa and by the end of the calendar year we will reach 200 to 250.” But the big project, the one that Balkin, was demolished, not bragging, admits that the eyeball has already invested nine figures, is to expand to South America.

“No one wants a Brazilian strategy. They want South American strategy. So, we invest a lot of money in the mapping of Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Uruguay and Ecuador. We have three full -time people on the field and we go inside. Asia is next.”

The eyeball is getting bigger. As a result, the world becomes smaller.