Silly question, but does a Talent Manager manage the talent, or the people who have it? I read Sven Kums’s interview in HLN, a Flemish daily, on the 7.32am train, and opened a new tab in my notebook.
What I understood. Sven Kums is 38, he stopped playing football a year and a half ago, and he won the Golden Shoe in 2015. Since early May, he has been Talent Manager at Gent. His job: the transition of Gent’s young players to the top level. Every week, he meets Kjeld Fort, the operational director, and Michel Louwagie, the sporting adviser.
And every weekend, he watches matches from the under-8s up to the first team. Every age group. I counted on my fingers and stopped because I didn’t know how many there were. Real guidance of the young players starts at under-13. So from U8 to U12, he watches. He doesn’t manage yet. He spots, I suppose? I wrote “to check”.
Then he says something that offended me a little on the talent’s behalf: “Talent isn’t enough to get there.” The Talent Manager says talent isn’t enough. I found that very honest. It’s as if a library director said books aren’t enough, you also have to read them.
He also says that some youngsters tell him they want to do fitness work, but that it should come from the club. His answer, to HLN: “Come on, now. If I wanted to get stronger, I’d find someone to help me myself.” He says it is sometimes a fight to make someone understand that he has to give everything.
One last discovery: with 30 matches, he is the Belgian player with the most appearances in the Conference League. Only three players in Europe have more, all of them with Fiorentina: Dodô, Luca Ranieri and Rolando Mandragora, who has 49.
A manager for talent. In my day, talent sorted itself out.
Anyway, I still have a lot to learn. But I think I’m going to the gym. On my own.
It’s true, we checked: HLN.
