THE REAL DEAL
He made his money in fantasy football — now Marques is Legia scout aiming to poleaxe Gerrard
HE is Legia Warsaw’s secret weapon. An outsider using inside knowledge to build a team capable, he hopes, of wrecking the Europa League ambitions of Rangers. For starters.
And he owes it all to Steven Gerrard. A player whose knack for accumulating fantasy football points put Rui Marques halfway to his dream of becoming a professional in the business of identifying real-life talent.
Marques, international scout for Legia and the man who recommended star winger Luquinhas when the Brazilian was still playing in the Portuguese lower leagues, is unique among those employed to sit in judgment on some of the world’s most promising players. Nowhere else in UEFA competition will you find a recruitment professional whose CV reveals — perhaps even boasts about — a background in building teams to play on paper. The most artificial surface of them all.
Marques, an economist by trade, found a way into the game by winning two massive cash prizes — one in England, one in Germany — in the fantasy football tournaments that reward ‘managers’ for the performances of players put together in a dream team.
Parlaying that into a first scouting job in his native Portugal, he has since worked for Sporting Kansas City and is now with Legia.
He is not just some guy with a good track record in Football Manager. He’s the real deal.
And Marques, who has written a book about his transition from number cruncher to genuine football man, told Sportsmail: ‘I think it’s very funny — and maybe ironic — that I’m now hoping for my team to beat Rangers.
‘Because Steven Gerrard was absolutely the key player for me when I won my first big fantasy football competition in England.
‘I remember my midfield was Frank Lampard, Cesc Fabregas and Gerrard. And the guy who was in second place had Lampard and Fabregas — but not Gerrard.
‘Well, with a couple of weeks to go in the competition, Gerrard scored two goals at Burnley, which opened up a gap between me and the team in second.
‘I think of this often, so it’s odd that now I want him to lose. I’m now a rival to Steven Gerrard — but I know I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for him.’
It’s been a busy summer for all at Legia, with the sale of Sebastian Szymanski to Dynamo Moscow for 5million euros opening up opportunities for promotion from the academy — and some exciting new signings.
Luquinhas is arguably best of the bunch, with Marques — who looks after the markets mainly in Portugal, Spain and France — declaring: ‘I hope and think he can be the key player against Rangers. ‘He’s a typical winger, very technical, from the Brazilian school. And he has a good mentality. He’s a player we hope will become a big star. ‘I’ve known about him since I saw him playing in the Portuguese third division. I recommended him to Kansas City, told everyone there that this guy is something special, but nothing happened.
‘He’d been signed by Benfica, went out on loan, played for Benfica B in the lower division, too.
‘When we were looking for this type of player, I recommended him to the technical staff at Legia — and they saw what I saw.
‘You know, scouting is not all about the technical side of football. Yes, you can analyse someone’s technique.
‘But you have to figure out what’s going on in a player’s brain, get a feel for his personality.
‘Luquinhas had good focus, I could see that. And I thought he could go to a higher level.’
Marques never played football to any great level. He scoffs at any comparison with a rather more famous compatriot, pointing out that Jose Mourinho actually grew up in the game.
But don’t think for a minute that he’s just one of the new analytics-driven ‘XG geeks’ trying to reinvent the wheel.
‘To be honest, I would only use certain data,’ he insisted, when asked about statistics.
‘For instance, if I’m looking at a winger, I like to know how many dribbles they have per game. So sometimes data research is useful.
‘But a player can have great data and be no good. I think every scout would agree on that.
‘As scouts, we cannot be robots. And I think robots will never replace humans in this industry.
‘Sometimes the most difficult thing is still trying to evaluate the mind of a player.
‘The decisions he makes — the decisions he will make when he moves to your club.
‘Everyone can see if a player has the technical and physical attributes. It’s harder to know if they will cope in games, making the right pass under pressure.
‘Sometimes I think former professional players don’t focus enough on this.
‘Sometimes, people from outside football can bring a fresh perspective to the game.
‘This is now my sixth season as a scout and I thought, well, maybe now I have enough stories to tell that I can write a book.
‘I’m not going to say I am some special talent. But sometimes I can see things from a different angle to, say, a former player or a former coach.
‘To do this job, you must simply be able to evaluate a player. I think I’ve shown I can do that.
‘When you add my background in economics, well, in football you always have to be aware of budgets.’
Legia’s budget, like most Europa League clubs, rests heavily on what happens in the play-offs.
From the perspective of Marques, the next two games are huge, as he explained: ‘I’ve done well in my career so far, helping teams win things back in Portugal and America.
‘But to play a part in helping a team qualify for the Europa League, that would be very important for me.’
The fact that he’ll have to break the heart of Gerrard (left) to achieve that goal? That’s just football. Real football. So much better than even the wildest fantasy.
The Unknown Champion — From Fantasy Football to the Touchline by Rui Marques is out now via Pitch Publishing.