"Leo, even after Liverpool won three straight matches, picked up nine points, and cut Manchester City's lead by five points, Rivaldo still thinks Arsenal will win the Premier League."
"Liverpool still hasn't managed to win Rivaldo over. Is there anything you'd like to say to him?"
A reporter was interviewing Leo.
The sweat on his body had already dried. Sitting on the bench was certainly much more comfortable than being out on the pitch, but Leo only truly felt full of energy when he was standing on a football field.
"Of course Rivaldo is free to back Arsenal for the title. Arsenal are an excellent club, and they've won the Premier League in an extraordinary way before."
"But I still hope that, through our results in the matches ahead, we can gradually convince Rivaldo to support us instead."
"After all, supporting Liverpool is a very enjoyable experience. I'd like Rivaldo to be happy more often too."
Leo had grown quite fond of chatting with Premier League reporters for a while after matches.
Just as he was preparing to leave, a man in a suit suddenly came over and greeted him.
Leo felt certain he had seen the man before, perhaps at some Premier League event, but he didn't remember him very clearly.
"Hello, Leo. I'm the Premier League's Head of Youth Development. My job is to stay in contact with the academy directors of every Premier League club and learn what each of them is doing every season to develop young players for their club."
"I'm also responsible for tracking how many academy players each Premier League team uses every season, as well as how many current Premier League players came through the academy systems of Premier League clubs. The goal is to strengthen youth development across the league and help more young players grow into top Premier League stars."
Leo knew about that.
The Premier League placed great importance on youth development, which was why every season's squad registration rules required clubs to include a certain number of homegrown players.
It was also one of the reasons some Premier League players received an extra boost to their market value simply because they were English.
"So what do you need from me?"
Even after listening to all that, Leo still had no idea what the man actually wanted.
"On behalf of the Premier League, I'd like to invite you to give a session to the academy directors of every Premier League club."
"I'd like you to tell them which abilities should be given the greatest attention during youth development if a player is going to become a top Premier League footballer."
"Or, to put it another way, what kinds of specific talents shown at a young age suggest that a player might one day become a top Premier League star?"
"For example, a player may be extremely fast from childhood, but speed alone won't necessarily make him a Premier League star. Another player might be an excellent dribbler, but that alone doesn't guarantee he'll become one either."
"What we want to understand is what this particular kind of Premier League star potential actually looks like in a young player."
"We hope you can help the academy directors of every Premier League club continue improving and deepen their understanding of what makes a Premier League player."
Leo understood now.
But he was every bit as surprised as he had been when Transfermarkt invited him to become a market value assessor.
"I'm still an active player, and you want me to teach all the academy directors?"
"How old are these people?"
"Fifty? Sixty?"
"As far as I know, Liverpool's academy director is already fifty-eight. Wouldn't it be a little strange for me to stand there and teach them?"
The Premier League's Head of Youth Development didn't see any problem with it.
"Ability isn't always determined by age. You may not have as much experience developing young players as they do, but you also possess knowledge and abilities they don't have."
"So perhaps I should phrase it differently. Instead of calling it a lesson, we can simply say everyone is getting together for a discussion. Would that make it easier for you to accept?"
That wording worked much better for Leo.
Rather than him teaching a class, they would simply be exchanging ideas.
Everyone had different strengths, experiences, and areas of expertise.
And with all the academy directors gathered in one place, they would surely be able to discuss even better approaches to developing young players.
The next morning, Leo arrived at the meeting venue half an hour before the scheduled 10:00 a.m. start.
His thinking was simple.
He was the youngest person among all the academy directors, and the only one attending as an active player, so arriving early certainly couldn't hurt.
But when he opened the conference room door, every Premier League academy director was already sitting inside.
"Leo, you're here this early?"
Liverpool's academy director was sitting at the front. The moment he saw Leo enter, he immediately pulled him over to sit beside him.
But Arsenal's academy director quickly pulled Leo toward the center of the room instead.
A moment later, all the academy directors had gathered around Leo and were staring at him.
"To be honest, I don't really know what you're planning to do here. I've never been an academy director before, so I'm not entirely sure what I'm supposed to say at a meeting like this."
"If there's anything you want to ask me, go ahead. I'll do my best to answer based on what I currently understand about football."
The moment Leo finished speaking, the academy directors around him immediately started throwing questions at him.
There was absolutely no order to it.
These academy directors were normally competitors rather than colleagues, so putting them all in the same room didn't exactly create a natural atmosphere of cooperation.
"Why don't we let Liverpool's academy director ask the first question?"
Liverpool's academy director then raised something every person in the room wanted to know.
"How can you tell whether a young player will be capable of playing in the Premier League one day, and whether he has the potential to become a Premier League star?"
Leo had seen far too many Premier League stars over the years.
The moment the question was asked, he already knew how he wanted to answer.
"I've met a lot of Premier League stars, and there's one thing almost all of them have in common."
"They genuinely love the Premier League."
"I'm not saying other leagues are worse. Every league has its own characteristics."
"But for many of these players, the reason they wanted to become footballers in the first place was because they grew up here watching Premier League clubs play."
"Being able to watch Premier League matches in person lets academy players understand from a very young age what this league is actually like."
"Then, when they play football for fun every day, they start imagining themselves as Premier League players. They picture themselves facing situations they constantly see in Premier League matches and think about how they would deal with them."
"Those ideas take root in their minds when they're still children."
"Then, when they grow up and actually encounter those same situations in a Premier League match, they'll naturally be better prepared to deal with them, because they already imagined themselves in those moments years ago."
"So I don't think you should go into youth development trying to identify which academy player is going to become a Premier League star."
"You should develop every academy player with the belief that any one of them could become a star."
...
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