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Josh Weinfuss, ESPN Employees Author
When Mark Dulgerian arrived in Munich, Germany, in June 2023, he wanted to discover a park.
The NFL’s lone worldwide scout was on the town to check out a German rugby participant for the NFL’s Worldwide Pathway Program. As he did for all of his exercises, Dulgerian most popular to make use of a flat, grassy space to conduct a collection of drills that may resolve the participant’s subsequent steps.
Dulgerian had an issue, although: He had by no means been to Germany.
He scrolled by means of Google Maps, hoping to discover a grassy space, ideally a soccer discipline. He shortly realized there have been too many to select from however settled on what appeared on his display screen like a swath of grass that he hoped can be appropriate to place a participant by means of a two-hour tryout. Unbeknownst to Dulgerian, the park he picked turned out to be the English Backyard, Germany’s model of Central Park.
For the subsequent two hours, the odor of hops wafted over Dulgerian and the athlete as festive revelers gathered to observe the exercise.
“It is like, I am in a beer backyard and this man could possibly be enjoying for the New England Patriots in eight months,” Dulgerian mentioned with a chuckle. “It is loopy. It is loopy to assume that it is his alternative. As he is going drill to drill with German music within the background, this could possibly be his alternative to make his first stamp of his journey within the NFL.”
That is Dulgerian’s life as he navigates 4 continents searching for worldwide expertise. He additionally identifies expertise in Australia however is not on the bottom to conduct tryouts in particular person.
Whereas most scouts are confined to a area of america and consider athletes who’ve been enjoying soccer since they had been in grade college, Dulgerian’s job is a bit completely different. His territory is Europe, Asia, South and Central America and the Caribbean. Former New York Giants star Osi Umenyiora leads the league’s efforts in Africa, whereas the NFL’s Australia workplace tries out potential gamers on that continent.
For Dulgerian, he is largely evaluating athletes from different sports activities who he believes have the potential to play soccer.
Of the 14 gamers presently on NFL rosters whom Dulgerian scouted prior to now two years as part of the IPP, 13 are on follow squads. Offensive lineman Travis Clayton, who performed rugby union in England, was drafted by the Buffalo Bills within the seventh spherical of the 2024 draft.
Vast receiver Praise Olatoke is among the gamers, and his staff, the Carolina Panthers, is ready to tackle the Giants on Sunday (9:30 a.m. ET, NFL Network) in Munich within the NFL’s remaining worldwide sport of the season.
Dulgerian’s position in a participant’s journey is small however essential: discovering a prospect and making the preliminary analysis. He is often the primary or second level of contact for worldwide gamers earlier than they advance to the IPP, a program established in 2017 to find, prepare and combine athletes from around the globe into American soccer and the NFL. For the primary time this yr, the NFL has expanded follow squads to incorporate a seventeenth spot particularly reserved for worldwide gamers.
If gamers advance to the IPP, Dulgerian fingers them off to these in command of that program, leaving him as a small steppingstone alongside their soccer journeys.
By means of all of it, Dulgerian has grow to be a highway warrior. He would not examine a bag. Probably the most time zones he has had a meal in over a 24-hour span is 5. He tries to do a whole lot of yoga, keep hydrated and take Airborne to preemptively keep off sicknesses that would derail his marathon journeys.
“He is uniquely mastered the artwork of being in every single place on the similar time,” mentioned Kris Durham, the top of soccer on the NFL Academy who has labored carefully with Dulgerian for the previous few years. “He is developed an actual area of interest by way of figuring out expertise on the earth that does not play our sport. It takes a particular eye to essentially perceive what groups are searching for, what we’re searching for and the way … they relate to our sport.”
FROM THE TIME he began in 2022, Dulgerian has been on the highway from August to October, conducting in-person tryouts for gamers he thinks may need an opportunity to be invited to the IPP. If chosen, they may obtain a spot on the worldwide mix, which might result in a spot within the intense, immersive 10-week program at IMG Academy in Florida. This previous yr, 5 specialists — punters and kickers — from the IPP participated within the NFL scouting mix in Indianapolis, the primary time this system despatched any prospects to the mix.
“We’re making an attempt to current a chance that not lots of people find out about,” Dulgerian mentioned. “And we’re making an attempt to attach this chance with athletes who qualify, however athletes who’ve at all times wished this chance and simply by no means knew easy methods to do it.”
Earlier than Dulgerian took the primary flight of his busy season, he estimated he put in about 1,000 hours of analysis from February to July, amassing information and watching numerous hours of movie, often on social media.
He scours databases and rosters of sports activities he is aware of comparable to basketball, and others he is determining the nuances of, comparable to rugby. Dulgerian additionally has checked out Gaelic soccer — which he described as a mixture of rugby, basketball and soccer — and Australian guidelines soccer — a modified model of rugby.
The consequence was an preliminary listing of 10,000 prospects this cycle. Of these, 6,000 had been discovered by means of Dulgerian’s personal analysis.
Dulgerian finds prospects from all athletic fields. When the Olympics had been on TV, he watched for enjoyable and work. It resulted in Dulgerian reaching out to athletes in rugby, handball, basketball and observe and discipline. A number of of these observe and discipline athletes tried out on the NFL’s Worldwide Mix, which came about Oct. 9-12 on the NFL Academy at Loughborough College, north of London. Dulgerian mentioned a lot of the Olympians he has talked with have been receptive to making an attempt soccer however have instructed him the timing must be proper.
The opposite 4,000 on Dulgerian’s listing are discovered by means of his community of round 1,000 brokers, coaches and trainers around the globe, in addition to from suggestions.
As Dulgerian trims his listing, his preliminary standards are age and dimension: 20- to 24-year-olds who’re at the least 6-foot-4. This yr, there have been solely about 900 gamers, about his annual common, who match each classes.
“He is dwelling in a special thoughts house,” mentioned Eric Galko, who employed Dulgerian as one of many first staff at his scouting firm, Optimum Scouting, in 2008. “To have the ability to deal with the way you translate what he is watching to an NFL participant and seeing that it might be three, 4, 5 years down the road or three, 4 months down the road relying on his analysis, too. It is in all probability a extremely advanced thought course of, for certain.”
As soon as he breaks down movie on his pool of athletes, Dulgerian reduces his listing to 160-200 athletes and contacts them.
Most of Dulgerian’s contact with potential prospects comes from his IPP-specific Instagram account. The messages are normal in nature: “Would you be focused on soccer?”
Extra instances than not, he will not get a response. At first, he was baffled.
“It is egotistical to assume that everyone would simply drop what they’re doing as a result of ‘Oh, shoot the NFL’s right here now,'” Dulgerian mentioned. “They finally do must fall in love with the game, however to assume that as quickly as we begin these conversations that they are in love with it already, it is silly. It is not been part of their life prefer it has been right here.”
There are different roadblocks, comparable to language limitations and being beneath contract in one other sport.
Final yr, of the prospects he contacted, Dulgerian labored out 30-40. Of these, 13 had been invited to the worldwide mix.
“Mark’s position inside that, form of being from the very, very high of the funnel on down all through the remainder of the method, is simply instrumental since you received to start out someplace and you bought to forged that broad internet,” mentioned Pat Lengthy, director of worldwide soccer improvement on the NFL. “You bought to canvass the globe really and actually.”
BACK IN AUGUST, Dulgerian referred to as Durham from scorching and humid Jamaica to say he had discovered a possible prospect.
“I used to be like, ‘What are you doing in Jamaica?'” Durham recalled.
“I used to be like, ‘Is he a sprinter?’ He is like, ‘No, he is truly a thrower.’ And I used to be like, ‘Wait, what?’ So I used to be like, Mark is admittedly turning over each rock.”
His journey to Jamaica was “eye-opening,” Dulgerian mentioned. He felt a formidable buzz on the island in regards to the NFL being on the town to scout, which locals checked out as one other path for athletes along with observe and discipline.
Most of his journeys produce a narrative. Jamaica was no completely different. He wrote his scouting report in a sweltering non-air-conditioned airport as a hurricane was approaching. It was a drastic distinction to the time he wrote a report on a rooftop in Paris with the Arc de Triomphe within the background.
There was the time he wanted to measure the peak of a rugby participant he was making an attempt out whereas staying at a small resort hooked up to an Irish pub in a “actually small city” in northern Europe. Dulgerian has realized to not depend on primary measurements given to him by athletes or groups. They are usually skewed, which is why he carries his personal measuring tape.
He appeared across the quiet foyer of his resort and determined he could not do it there, so he measured the athlete within the hallway subsequent to his room by taping a bit of paper from the notepad in his room onto the hallway wall as patrons of the Irish pub handed by. The 5-foot-10 Dulgerian wanted to pull the couch from his room into the hallway so he might stand on it and get the best measurements. And the man was “tall, tall,” Dulgerian remembered.
“It is not excellent,” Dulgerian mentioned with fun. “The freaking NFL, a billion-dollar business, and I am taking this man’s top proper exterior my resort room door.
“That was a little bit awkward. It is a whole lot of simply type of determining methods to do issues.”
For some prospects like Carolina’s Olatoke, Dulgerian serves as their information to the NFL. Olatoke’s path was extra unconventional than most. He was a sprinter in Scotland however performed membership soccer at Ohio State after transferring there from Trinity Western College in Canada to run observe. Then, Dulgerian helped him on his path to the NFL, checking in on him periodically, asking for video updates and inspiring him all through.
Dulgerian’s exercise of Olatoke included “loads” of soccer drills, catching and operating. Dulgerian put him by means of a mock mix, in keeping with Olatoke.
“He is been good,” Olatoke mentioned. “He helps me, like reposts stuff I publish about soccer and this and that. I do know he is doing loads making an attempt to develop the sport.”
The NFL’s development around the globe in each recognition and participation has additionally helped Dulgerian do his job. There are 74 international locations with soccer federations throughout North America, South America, Central America, Africa, Asia and Oceania, in keeping with the Worldwide Federation of American Soccer.
In two years, he’ll have taken 9 scouting journeys which have taken him from his residence base of Los Angeles to Austria, France, Finland, Jamaica, Estonia and the Netherlands, often with a number of stops in every nation. His longest itinerary this yr was Los Angeles to Paris to London to Tallinn, Estonia, to Amsterdam to Dusseldorf, Germany, to Munich and again to Los Angeles.
This yr he’ll spend 24 nights in a resort, fly on 18 airplanes and take seven trains, plus too many cabs and rideshares to rely.
“We need to make investments our assets and our time in guys which have a authentic NFL likelihood and a authentic NFL shot,” Dulgerian mentioned. “So, every year we’re making an attempt to do higher and higher to essentially get the best guys within the choice course of but in addition do our due diligence simply in case possibly there’s one thing we did not see simply on the movie.”
