Recruitment analysis: Luis Campos

After a managerial career which spanned over a decade in his native Portugal, Luis Campos moved to Real Madrid, where he became a first-team scout. After just a year at the Bernabeu he moved to Monaco in the role of “sports coordinator”, before becoming technical director in 2014. 

It was in 2017, however, where he would take the Sporting Director role at Lille – a role which has now rocketed his name to the top of any list of the most in-demand Sporting Director’s in the game today.

This analysis and scout report will look at the players he has brought into Lille during his spell at the club, and with him rumoured to be moving this summer to a new job, what his prospective club and their fan base could expect in terms of the type of player he would look to recruit.

Breaking down the numbers

Before we look at the type of player Campos has brought in during his time at Lille, it’s important to have a look at the figures. After all, any Sporting Director can be successful if they have a large pot of money to spend. 

Campos has brought in a vast amount of players – some would say Football Manager worthy numbers – during his three seasons at Lille. Including two loan deals in this time for Ezequiel Ponce and Rui Fonte, from Roma and Fulham, respectively, he has brought in a total of 35 players. 

Lille aren’t afraid to spend money and on the 33 players, obviously now excluding the two loan deals, they have spent £152.1 million, or an average of £4.61 million per player.

Nine of these players have joined on free transfers, however, the table below gives us a brief overview of the categories in terms of money spent on players.

We can see that the vast majority of players they have spent money on have come in for under five million pounds, whilst a good amount have come in for between £5-10 million. They have only spent over £10 million pounds four times, and their most expensive transfer was Renato Sanches, for £18 million pounds last summer, from Bayern Munich. 

£152 million is, of course, a considerable amount to have spent, so it’s vital we look at their outgoings as well, and for a quality check on Campos’ decision-making it’s worth looking at any players who have been bought and then sold in his time at the club.

Firstly, 30 players have left the club in his time, with nine leaving on free transfers also, coincidentally. Therefore, there have been 21 players they have received fees for. They have received £221.1 million in transfer fees since Campos moved to Lille, and admittedly they would be just about broke even if Nicolas Pepe’s £72 million transfer to Arsenal hadn’t gone through, however, that would still be impressive in itself. In the 2016/17 season Lille finished 12th. In Campos’ first season it was 17th, but since then they have finished second and fourth in two consecutive seasons, ensuring that they are becoming more of a regular feature in European football once more. 

They have bought and sold players for good profits, with the most noticeable occasions, other than flipping Pepe’s £9 million into eight times as much, being Fode Ballo Toure (signed from PSG on a free, sold to Monaco for £9.9 million), Rafael Leao (signed from Sporting on a free, sold to AC Milan for £20.7 million), and Thiago Mendes (signed from Sao Paulo for £8.1 million, and sold to Lyon for £19.8 million). These are all good pieces of business, but perhaps not enough to call Campos a transfer genius.

It is more impressive when you look at the current transfer value of some of the players he has brought in. There is some fluctuation in terms of the value of their singings appreciating and depreciating, however, generally speaking his transfer decisions have been pretty good on the whole. But there are some more players that stand out than just the aforementioned sales. The following five players have also seen big increases in their market value since joining Lille, and with Jonathan Bamba the oldest of this quintet at 24, it’s fair to say their value is only going to increase as well. If these players were to be sold for the Transfermarkt value tomorrow (which admittedly is often a moderate assessment of their worth), then that would almost be £100 million in profit from just these five.

These players are Zeki Celik (signed for £2.25m, now worth £14.4m), Boubakary Soumare (signed for free, now worth £22.05m), Jonathan Ikone (signed for £4.5m, no worth £32.4m), Jonathan Bamba (signed for free, now worth £14.4m), and Victor Osimhen (signed for £12.3m, now worth £24.3m).

If we measure Lille’s balance sheet compared with the rest of the league we can see that they sit very favourably amongst their peers in net spend in the last three seasons with only perennial sellers Monaco and Lyon having a more favourable net spend.

But really where his genius lies is looking at the aforementioned progress Lille have made on the pitch. When he took over Lille’s squad they had a market value, according to Transfermarkt, of  £75.65m. Now the same site has their squad valued at £214.9m, and he has done this with a net spend of  £-69m. We can see the individual value of every player in their squad in the graph below, with the players he has signed for them marked in red.

Locations

In terms of their overall squad, 64% are non-French, with the only French signings under Campos being Kevin Malcuit, Benjamin Andre, Jeremy Pied, Jonathan Ikone, Jonathan Bamba, Isaac Lihadji, Nicolas de Preville, Loic Remy, and Mamadou Usman Simbakoli, whilst Nicolas Pepe represents the Ivory Coast but was born in France, and Timothy Weah holds dual nationality. Essentially one in every three signings has french nationality. With 40% of the current squad holding at least french dual-nationality, whereas when Campos joined Lille, their squad was 61%, it’s fair to say he is less interested in finding homegrown talents, and will focus on just bringing in the best talent there is.

What’s impressive with Campos’ recruitment strategy is that it is truly global. He has mainly recruited from France, and unsurprisingly the next most recruited from league has been the Portuguese Primeira Liga. However, other than this, the side has signed three players from Brazil, two each from Belgium, Italy and Turkey, and one apiece from Slovakia, Spain, China, England, Germany, Croatia, Angola, Morocco, and the USA.

As for the build of their squad, there doesn’t appear to be too much of a bias. There’s enough players from France, and obviously some from Portugal, but Campos’ clearly just has a preference for a quality player, regardless of nationality.

The type of player

For us to understand what kind of player Campos wants to sign we, of course, need to have a brief tactical analysis of the type of football Lille play.

Defensively they are a high-pressing team that engage in a high number of defensive duels. Therefore, in short, they need players used to defending successfully with great intensity.

In attack, they aren’t a high-tempo side. They will play with large swathes of possession, favouring build-up through the central channels, and engaging in positional play with short passes rather than any kind of counter-attacking or long ball football. Therefore, they look for technical players, those who can engage in prolonged periods of possession without making mistakes, but at the same time those can break the lines centrally when the opportunity arises. Further forward they are looking for attackers who have good offensive duel win percentages, who can hold up the ball and protect it, whilst at the same time have good movement to create space either for themselves or for their teammates in small spaces when the opposition are potentially sat back in a mid or low block.

Over the last two seasons, Lille have generally favoured tactics a 4-4-2 or a 4-2-3-1 formation, so other than with the defence, he looks for players that are flexible. Can the central midfielders play as a two and a three? Can his wingers play as orthodox wingers or wide-forwards? Can the centre-forwards play as a pair as well as by themselves? On top of this Lille have a young squad, with an average age of 24.3, and whilst he is absolutely not against bringing in an experienced player, he will never spend big money on these players. The money only goes on those who could potentially turn a profit.

He doesn’t particularly have a preference for tall players. If we look at the average height per position, we can see a pretty average disperse of heights throughout the team: GK – 1.89m, CB – 1.88m, FB – 1.78m, CM – 1.81m, W/AM – 1.75m, CF – 1.83 m.

Now if Campos is to move this season, there is a chance his approach could change, but it’s likely any prospective club will look at his record and allow him to continue to recruit these kinds of players. I don’t know why you wouldn’t want tactically flexible players, after all. 

If we look at every Lille player to have played over 1000 minutes in the 2019/20 season, we can see that all but two (Mike Maignan and Gabriel) are Campos signings. If we look at key players, we can see that Jose Fonte, Celik, and Osimhen have been indispensable, whilst the likes of Andre, Bamba, Ikone, Renato Sanches, Soumare, and Bradaric have also all been first team regulars.

Unfortunately, if you’re reading this hoping to see all of Campos’ recruitment secrets revealed then you’re going to be left disappointed. If I were to summarise his approach he recruits flexible players, who are young and with a clear upsell potential, but, most importantly, he recruits players with a plethora of abilities to ensure the squad is well balanced.

The following graphs will show this balance not necessarily in the same position, but across the positions as a group, whilst there are some clear, and rather obvious talents, he looks for in certain players.

For example, if we start with full-backs, Campos likes his full-backs to be comfortable going forward, and they will have a significant presence on the flanks in the final third to allow the wingers in front of them to push into the half-spaces or to potentially create a numerical overload with these wingers on their respective flanks.

All of their full-backs this season rank well above the league average for crosses per 90, and whilst they generally rank below the league average for completion, due to the sheer volume of crosses they put in, their statistics are more than respectable.

Otherwise, the full-backs aren’t given a great deal of responsibility in possession. If we look at the amount of progressive runs, forward passes, and average pass length of these players we can see that they are pretty average for these metrics across the league. They’re certainly not weak in these areas, but it’s clear Lille don’t rely on their full-backs and they are expected to arrive late to support the attack from the wide areas, and their main attacking contribution is with their crosses.

Defensively, all of their full-backs, bar Bradaric, average above the league average for defensive duels per 90, and once again they are above or very close to the league average for percentage won.

Campos isn’t reinventing the wheel here. He wants attacking full-backs who will put in a good volume of pretty accurate crosses from the flanks, whilst also being defensively solid.

With their centre-backs, Gabriel is the main ball-progressor from the back line, and Campos has merely looked to recruit a defensively solid centre-back, who is comfortable in possession, but certainly plays second string to Gabriel. Both Tiago Djalo and Jose Fonte are perfectly respectful ball-players but are by no means league leaders, as the graph below testifies.

They are both solid aerially (Djalo had a 54.5% win percentage, Fonte had a 58.5% win percentage this season) and have had google defensive duel win percentages this season (Djalo – 54.3%, Fonte – 60.4%). Importantly Djalo was brought in for under £5m whilst Fonte was a free transfer, and the latter player brings experience to the back line, whilst Djalo is just 20 years-old and has plenty of football ahead of him, and likely a much bigger transfer fee if he is to move on.

In central-midfield they are particularly well balanced. Both Xeka and Andre are excellent ball winners, albeit all four of the midfielders highlighted below have respectful defensive duel win percentages even if Soumare is the only one to average above the league average.

Whilst unsurprisingly, even though Andre is good on the ball, along with Xeka, Soumare and Renato Sanches are the ball progressors from midfield. We can see how these players rate above the league average for both accurate progressive passes, and for passes into the final third, although they don’t play a great deal of through passes.

Finally, in attack, if we look at all of their attacking players, we can see that there is a plethora of creative talents in the midfield areas, all of whom have excellent xA per 90 averages from this previous season, whilst the centre-forwards don’t share this creative burden, they are purely goalscorers.

Osimhen is an outstanding talent, and is very well rounded as an individual. When I mentioned earlier Campos wants a forward capable of working successfully as part of a potent front two, or by himself, Osimhen is the perfect example. 

Due to his aerial ability, which we can clearly see in the graph below, the likes of Remy, and Ikone when played up front, don’t lead the line. It’s very much a relatively old fashioned ideal of having the target man and a player to play off of him, and Campos has recruited players to ensure there is a balance of options in attack.

None of the above graphs are going to give any eye-opening information, but hopefully they go to show that Campos obviously recruits very talented individuals for very little money, whilst he prioritises a balance across the team with clearly defined, basic skills for each position.

Conclusion

With Campos it is not about bringing in world leading talents, or doing something mind-blowingly different with his recruitment that is leaving others in his dust. He is clearly very good at bringing in consistently good players, but it’s bringing these players in for such little money. He is able to recruit players from areas he knows well like France and Portugal, but from much farther reaching leagues as well. He brings in older players on free transfers who are low risk and are consistent, proven performers, whilst at the same time recruiting younger players, between 18-23, generally for fees below £5 million, with the understanding that these players aren’t necessarily going to come straight in and be starters and be game-changers. If he spends closer to, or over £10 million, then that’s when those players are more likely to have higher expectations from the word go. Campos has been ruthless in bringing talented youngsters in at the end of their contract, disillusioned by their bigger clubs who haven’t given them a pathway into the first team and immediately gives them that first team opportunity. They then reap the reward later on when these players move on after a season or two, with plenty of first team experience, for tens of millions of pounds.