Originally Posted by
jloome
Not to play Devil’s advocate too much, but where have you seen evidence that “everybody does it”?
It’s just a player database with guesses for values. Highly educated guesses, but still guesses. MEdia cite it a lot which gives it credibility but I haven’t seen a single other manager or club president quoted as saying they use transfermarkt.
Most teams, including TFC, have scouting divisions, rosters of players they’re watching. They’re also contacted constantly by agents with players already under contract, who are looking to move or get a better deal, or just a new one.
So the likelihood that most teams would need to use Transfermarkt for anything other than a scout checking out a previous recommendation’s statistics seems less likely to me, intuitively speaking.
THe notion that teams are regularly doing what Bill M did and just searching “most expensive Italian out of contract” is probably pretty specious.
Transfermarkt (and whoscored, and others) have full seasons stats. That’s it’s only real benefit to most scouts; they have professional scouting networks that shoot film of players, chop together highlights of things scouts need to see like how they turn with their first touch, how they move into space, how they read the game, things you don’t see in a normal youtube package.
Those networks cost pro teams quite a lot of money and provide far more info than Transfermarkt would.