The head of the Shakhtar selection service spoke about the intricacies of his profession.

On the Donetsk Shakhtar's official YouTube channel, an interview was published with the director of the Pitmen's selection department Jose Botu, who shared several interesting facts about his work and responsibilities in this position..

Thus, the Portuguese scouting specialist believes that working at Shakhtar is much more interesting than in the Premier League: “The English clubs have too much money at their disposal, so they are not a good place to work for a scout. Unlimited resource leads to a large number of matchmaking errors.

It is more interesting to work in Shakhtar, since there are not so many available funds, so you have to study the players in more depth already at the early stages of their careers. The sooner the transition occurs, the easier it will be for a footballer to adapt to Ukraine or Portugal, and only then think about England or Spain "

" Very difficult conditions, because a player can have 5-6 agents at the same time. It's a little easier for us to deal with this, because there is a concept that was formed by the club and the president. "

“Working at Shakhtar is not so difficult,” the Portuguese assures, “because we know what the club president is striving for.. That is why our task is simplified, unlike Benfica, where the style of play was constantly changing. According to the Pitmen's tradition, we are looking for players from Brazil. By the way, now it has become a little easier for us to work with the Latin American market "

Among the areas of interest of his department, Botu prefers not to focus on the world's top leagues, while increasing attention to the main football markets of the planet of a more massive nature.. "

" The most difficult thing is to persuade a football player from a good club to go not to the top 5 European championships. The Miner has good examples in the form of Fred, Douglas Costa and Fernandinho, who came as an unknown performer to the general public, but then left for a lot of money.. It helps convince doubting candidates. "

" We may not be as interested in individual markets, but they may still have high-quality, high-level performers.. Good examples are Manor Solomon and Mohammed Salah "

" We need a physical presence at stadiums, as well as a large number of flights, which is impossible in the current reality. Large teams now prefer to be in the shadows in the market, because no one knows what will happen next. There are practically no loud transitions, since everyone has limited finances "

" Looking at these characteristics, scouts are already starting to work specifically with the personal qualities of individual players, "

" Here, at Shakhtar, they look more at the player's attacking abilities, even in this role.. At the same time, wingers must also be able to defend.. It is not easy to find such players, but we managed to find Dodo "