{"id":18344,"date":"2026-08-30T16:44:39","date_gmt":"2026-08-30T15:44:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8888\/profile-scout\/"},"modified":"2026-08-30T16:44:39","modified_gmt":"2026-08-30T15:44:39","slug":"profile-scout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/profile-scout\/","title":{"rendered":"The scout who watches 340 matches a season, alone"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He has not been to a match with anyone he knows since 2019. He would not have it any other way.<\/p>\n\n<h2 id=\"the-number\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">The number<\/h2>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Three hundred and forty matches a season, most of them in the third and fourth tiers, all of them alone. He drives, he watches, he writes four hundred words, he drives home. The club he works for has bought nine players off his reports and sold six of them at a profit.<\/p>\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"682\" src=\"http:\/\/localhost:8888\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/stadiumNight-1024x682.webp\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-18219\" srcset=\"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/09\/stadiumNight-1024x682.webp 1024w, https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/09\/stadiumNight-300x200.webp 300w, https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/09\/stadiumNight-768x512.webp 768w, https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/09\/stadiumNight-1536x1023.webp 1536w, https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/09\/stadiumNight.webp 1600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">A Tuesday night in the fourth tier. He is somewhere in the main stand.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n<h2 id=\"why-alone\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Why alone<\/h2>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Because company makes him watch the match, he says, and he is not there for the match. He is there for one player, and the other twenty-one are in the way.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>He has not been to a match with anyone he knows since 2019. He would not have it any other way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":18180,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_spx_person_id":0,"_spx_fixture_id":0,"_spx_pick_id":0,"_spx_eg_facts_label":"","_spx_eg_facts":"","_spx_figure_caption":"","_spx_news_feat":"","_spx_video_url":"","_spx_duration":"","_spx_views":"","_spx_presenter":"","_spx_media_state":"","_spx_start_at":"","_spx_media_status":"","_spx_episode":"","_spx_subject":"","_spx_subject_role":"","_spx_story_year":"","_spx_duration_seconds":0,"_spx_view_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"spx_comp":[],"spx_fixture_ref":[],"spx_series":[],"spx_format":[310],"spx_video_kind":[],"spx_show":[],"spx_sport":[],"spx_flag":[],"class_list":["post-18344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-profiles","spx_format-long-read"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18344\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18344"},{"taxonomy":"spx_comp","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/spx_comp?post=18344"},{"taxonomy":"spx_fixture_ref","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/spx_fixture_ref?post=18344"},{"taxonomy":"spx_series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/spx_series?post=18344"},{"taxonomy":"spx_format","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/spx_format?post=18344"},{"taxonomy":"spx_video_kind","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/spx_video_kind?post=18344"},{"taxonomy":"spx_show","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/spx_show?post=18344"},{"taxonomy":"spx_sport","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/spx_sport?post=18344"},{"taxonomy":"spx_flag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/spx_flag?post=18344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}