80-year-old scout: He recommended signing Rodri to Everton in 2017, but they signed Mina for 30 million

Hupu, October 8th TheAthleticUK exclusively interviewed Worthington, 80, who has worked as a scout in France and Spain for many years, and has served in Bolton, Chelsea, Hull City, Blackburn, Sunderland, West Ham United, Leicester and Everton.

In fact, there are boxes of scout reports in his home. These reports are beautifully presented and are carefully preserved in binders. Each game is recorded on two pages: the home team on the left and the away team on the right. Next to each player's name is his jersey number, height, age and contract expiration date.

Each player has a space next to his name, which records his performance. Some are worth writing a line or two; some are occasionally left blank. Those that are truly impressive will be written with four or five elements. This old scout uses a highlighter to record, and you know that he is ready to give a firm recommendation at any time.

Followed through one of the documents from the mid-2000s, some familiar names appeared on the paper:

Karim Benzema, when he first met Benzema, he was only 16 years old, and worked in Lyon. At that time, he revealed the possibility of a transfer of 1 million euros to Bolton, and later told Chelsea: "If we don't sign this kid as soon as possible, he will go to Real Madrid, Barcelona or AC Milan."

Manuel Neuer, who was still Schalke 04's youth training goalkeeper at the time; and former Tottenham Hotspur and Belgian national team midfielder Moussa Dembele, who was also Alkmaar's youth training player at the time, recommended to Chelsea. Another document contains more recent reports urging West Ham to sign Marco Asensio from Mallorca before Real Madrid intervenes (like Benzema).

The list of players he recommended for Everton in 2017 include Pedro Polo, Bruno Fernandez and Rodri, who played for Girona, Portugal Sports and Villarreal respectively, and now at Tottenham Hotspur, Manchester United and Manchester City.

Rodri is the focus time and time again. A typical example is Worthington's evaluation of the then 21-year-old midfielder in La Liga match against La Coruña in January 2018:

"The header is easy, you can always find opportunities, successfully steal, have good position and consciousness, have strong physiques, excellent ball possession, will not pass when you are stealing, are willing to help everyone, rarely waste passes, have wonderful tactical changes, etc., have first-class running."

The letter "AP" in the blank space on the right clearly states that Everton should try to sign Rodri. Rodri later played for Atletico Madrid, Manchester City and the Spanish national teams, becoming one of the most outstanding players in world football and won the 2024 Golden Globe Award.

"He's so good," Worthington said. "He can play anywhere, not just midfield, but also the backline, and compete in any defensive position. I'm sure I've seen him play forward in a game. He has it all in my opinion. He's a very smart player."

It's natural for people to wonder if Everton is really capable of signing Rodri, as he ended up returning to Atletico later that year for 20 million euros (£17.4 million at today's exchange rate).

Worse, that summer, they spent €30 million to sign Barcelona and Colombia defender Yeri Mina Worthington, after a full-scale inspection of Mina, had clearly advised them not to sign him, warning that Mina's aerial threat in set pieces was not enough to offset his doubts about his other aspects of his ability.

It all happened when Worthington felt the wave of public opinion turn against old-school scouts and traditional methods. He didn't stay in Everton for long because he was out of place with the system at that time. On the one hand, Everton advocated a more mature player identification method, but on the other hand, it seemed to be influenced by the then boss Mo Xuli on the whim.