At age 10 in his hometown of Motherwell, Scotland, Neil McGuinness often would venture to a local market to purchase VHS tapes of soccer games.

Already having consumed uncounted games in the English Premier League and Scottish Premiership, McGuinness watched tapes of games from leagues in Italy, Spain, Bulgaria and other countries. He found notes and statistics of players and began compiling his own databases.

“From a young age I've been kind of obsessed by (the game),” he said.

Nearly 15 years after he began consulting clubs as a scout in Scotland on the side while working a job in information technology, McGuinness has acted as the head scout for Scottish club Celtic, has been the top recruiter for the Qatar Football Association and a scouting consultant for leagues on just about every continent. Finally, he made the move to a front office in Major League Soccer by joining the Crew in April as its director of scouting.

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Having been hired in the middle of a transfer window, McGuinness had to catch up quickly with the club’s new leadership. Now, as the secondary transfer window opens Tuesday, McGuinness is an integral member of the information chain with team president Tim Bezbatchenko, technical director Pat Onstad and coach Caleb Porter.

McGuinness is responsible for using his and the front office's relationships with clubs, scouts and agents around the globe to identify players who fit their vision, but also operating within financial restraints of a small-market club.

“Our focus is getting exciting players, getting players that the fans can get behind and play entertaining football, and that's the style of football Caleb wants to play,” McGuinness said. “But we want to make sure it's good business, as well. We want to bring in players that are going to generate value for the club — guys that are not only going to give effort and energy on the pitch, but, long term, buy into the project that is being built here.”

McGuinness actually started with the Crew in September as a scout based in Europe for former coach Gregg Berhalter. It might sound cliche, he said, but what appealed to McGuinness about Columbus and the Crew was how connected he thought the organization was even outside the on-field product.

"There's a real sense of community in this club,” McGuinness said. “That appeals to me massively because I think if you have everyone on board, you're going to be successful."

His passion for scouting started well before his first full-time job with Celtic, where he discovered defender Virgil Van Dijk, who would later be the 2018-19 English Premier League player of the year with Liverpool. Scouting is more of a lifestyle than a job, Bezbatchenko said. With European experience and having already worked for the club, McGuinness was a natural fit.

“Neil, with his experiences at different clubs and organizations, showed an ability to put in place a process,” Bezbatchenko said, "to put in place a team, to manage a team and to assign the games that are required for the scouts around the globe.”

McGuinness said he had been around clubs that had no structure, no organization to put together a plan and then get players. Joining the Crew in the middle of the primary transfer window wasn’t entirely different, though there was a clear direction where the club was going.

The Crew has signed 20-year-old Costa Rican winger Luis Diaz and 30-year-old goalkeeper Eloy Room to open what may be a busy summer transfer period. They were players McGuinness and the Crew had been looking at for months.

His ability to act quickly began in his first job with Celtic when he was the only scout on staff and the only person responsible for analyzing opponents and scouting inside and outside the league.

"Looking back, it's probably the best thing that could have happened because if you get thrown in the deep end, you'll either sink or swim,” McGuinness said. “You have to swim.”

Before he started a career in the game, McGuinness said he thought MLS had the mechanisms in place to survive, even if Americans often don’t think of soccer as one of the country's major sports. With a club president, technical director and coach that have each won the MLS Cup, McGuinness places high expectations on himself to play a major role in ushering the league’s first charter member into a new era.

“It's exciting times for Columbus,” McGuinness said. “From a supporter point of view, they just need to know that we are working 24/7 on trying to get the best players that we possibly can in a black-and-gold jersey."

jmyers@dispatch.com

@Jacob_Myers_25