Mike Rigg, The FA’s Head of Talent Identification, believes analysing every detail of England’s World Cup opponents, with a focus on even the most minor weaknesses, could prove to be football’s own version of the “marginal gains” concept at this summer’s tournament.
The term marginal gains was coined by British Cycling’s Performance Director Dave Brailsford, who attributes his team’s medal haul to identifying every specific aspect of an athlete's performance and making minor improvements in each area.
The theory is that together all the minor tweaks and changes have a significant on performance.
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And Rigg, the former Manchester City, QPR and Welsh FA technical director, who became The FA’s first ever head of talent identification in January and is leading England’s World Cup scouting mission, believes studying every aspect of the opposition’s performance, big or small, is one way Roy Hodgson’s men can find an edge in a competition where every detail counts.
“In a lot of other sports we talk about marginal gains, our marginal gain is that there might just be one little aspect of a player’s game that is a chink in his armour.
“For example, we’ve looked at how different players and teams defend against Luis Suarez.
"If we come up against him we’ll have a profile of what his strengths and weaknesses are. Does he like to turn a certain way? Are there certain areas he doesn’t like to go into? He’s incredibly intelligent at drawing the foul so how do teams play against that?”
Uruguay's key man, Luis Suarez
Liverpool’s Uruguayan forward has shown very few weaknesses in a scintillating campaign in which he has plunder 30 league goals to send Liverpool to the Premier League summit. But Rigg isn’t put off.
The 45 year-old has spoken of “leaving no stone unturned” when analysing England’s prospective opposition ahead of the competition.
Dossiers and databases will be compiled for Roy Hodgson and his coaching staff and team performance analyst Andy Scoulding.
Interestingly, details of the strategies and tactics used by players who have performed well against some of England’s most dangerous opponents will be included.
“Two of the best players I’ve seen play against Suarez earlier in the season were Manchester City’s Vincent Kompany and Aston Villa’s Ron Vlaar,” added Rigg.
As well as leading England’s scouting operation in South America, Rigg, who has also enjoyed roles as academy manager at Sheffield Wednesday and chief scout at Blackburn Rovers is charged with putting in place a support hub at St.George’s Park which will provide detailed reports on all the games in the tournament.
“When the World Cup is on we’ve got to scout our immediate opposition [in Brazil]. To back that up we’re also going to have an analytical hub based at St George’s Park, where we will be analysing statistical and video information on all the players and teams in order to compile more detailed information.
“When you’re at a live game you miss so much information. You cannot see everything. So to back that up, the hub at St.George’s Park will be complementing everything we will be seeing live.”
Rigg stresses that the outcomes from the tournament scouting operation will have a much wider effect on The FA’s work in coaching and player development.
“The wider aspect of the work is how we can compile a report which we can use throughout the game that we can feed back into coach education, feedback into The FA Youth Coach Educator programme who are working with professional clubs. The report will look at current and hopefully future trends of the game”.
Our full interview with Mike Rigg is available in April’s edition of The Boot Room, The FA Licensed Coaches’ Club magazine.
April’s edition includes an insight into life behind the scenes at Real Madrid as well as an exclusive interview with England’s new Women’s Head Coach, Mark Sampson. There is also a dedicated grassroots coaching section on how to run your own World Cup tournament.
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