Brandon Hervey is a Texas native who began his football journey while still in college, where he balanced his studies in Marketing with early roles in the professional game. His first opportunity came at FC Dallas as a front office intern, working on the business side of the organization. That experience sparked his transition into scouting, which quickly became his main focus.
During his college years, Brandon took on his first scouting role with Sheffield Wednesday, covering North America and select European competitions. He remained in that position through graduation, gaining valuable international experience and building a strong foundation in talent identification.
After college, Brandon joined LA Galaxy as a first team scout, where he expanded his coverage globally, focusing on international scouting while continuing to monitor the domestic leagues. His time at LA Galaxy helped broaden his understanding of global football markets and player development systems.
Brandon later returned to FC Dallas in a new capacity as a domestic scout. In his current role, he oversees scouting efforts across the U.S. for the club’s first team, second team (North Texas SC), and academy, playing a key role in shaping the club’s player recruitment strategy across all levels.
Our Exclusive Interview with Brandon Hervey
Who is Brandon Hervey outside of football, and how have your personal experiences influenced your path in scouting?
Outside of football, I spend a lot of my free time watching and participating in other sports. When I was young, I played a wide range of sports along with football and many of my closest friends are people that I met through these experiences, so hanging out with my friends often involves something sports-related. Sports have been my main passion in life for as long as I can remember, and I imagine that will always be the case.
Outside of sports, my other main interests are music & film. Music was a major interest of mine from an early age as well, and I became very intrigued by the process of producing and recording music, which led me to taking up music production as a hobby and working on my own musical projects over the years. I also became heavily interested in film during my teenage years. When I was first starting out in scouting and started working in football part-time, I worked for a video production company which allowed me to explore and learn more about this industry as well. So I think it’s safe to say that if I wasn’t working in the sports industry, I would be doing something related to music and/or film.
Looking back, what first drew you to the world of football scouting, and did you ever imagine building a career in it so early?
I actually knew that I wanted to be a scout pretty early on in life. Growing up, my dream job was always to be a professional athlete, but I knew that very few people are actually able to turn that dream into reality, and if they do, careers as professional athletes don’t last forever. So it led me to consider, how can I still be involved in sports in a fulfilling capacity apart from playing the game? For me, scouting was the answer. I was enamored by the idea of working to build championship winning teams, and what takes place behind the scenes to make that happen. As part of a technical staff for a professional club, I’m able to use my knowledge and passion for the game to contribute to winning trophies and helping our squad compete at the highest level, which has been something I dreamed about doing for a long time.
What has been the most rewarding or eye-opening part of your journey through clubs like LA Galaxy and FC Dallas?
I would say the most rewarding aspect of working in professional football is being a representative of your fanbase. The greatest feeling of pride I have as a scout is when the supporters are able to show up and see their team dominate on the field. The community aspect of football is one of the things that drew me to the game in the first place, and I love to see our stadium full of supporters that are willing to take the time out of their lives to share their passion with us. In return, I make it my mission to help put together a team that they can be proud of, and that’s what continues to drive me every day.
How do you personally define talent identification, especially in a sport where context, culture and development environments vary so widely?
I really like the phrasing of this question because it exemplifies how nuanced talent identification can be. In many cases, you aren’t just looking for the most “talented” players, but also players that fit a certain system or characteristics that you have already laid out before actually watching a game. I think building a team is a puzzle, and you have to consider not only how players perform individually, but how they fit together as a unit.
When I’m watching games, I usually already have an idea of the types of players that I’m looking for, and this changes all the time. For each team in our organization, we have different needs for positions, experience levels, physical attributes, mentalities, and so much more that have to be carefully considered during each stage of the scouting process. Like you said, context matters in these situations.
Sometimes, I see players that I believe are very talented players, but may not be the right fit for our specific team at a certain time. At some point, maybe your needs change, and you come back to that player again. Timing is extremely important in talent identification and it forces you to be well-rounded as a scout to adapt to the constantly changing needs of your squad.
It’s also important to point out how different cultures and environments shape the development of different players. The structure and focus of player development is varied from region to region, and within that even club to club. Understanding the patterns and differences that come with different environments is crucial as a scout.
There are some qualities that I look for in every player, mentality being the main component. We always want players that have outstanding work ethics and provide a positive attitude in the locker room. However, beyond that, there are so many different qualities and attributes that can make a player stand out. So I think the best way to define talent identification in football is not only searching for the best players you can find, but also evaluating how players will impact the group you already have.
You have worked across both international and domestic markets. What perspective or change are you most proud of bringing into your current role?
Working in both the domestic and international market has been very beneficial in my current role. Like we discussed earlier, different environments have their own distinct styles of football so becoming more acquainted with football on a global scale has greatly improved my vision as a scout.
In my current role, I have been able to work in the most broad scope up to this point in my career, working with the academy all the way up to the first team. Working across different age groups and experience levels means you have to take a unique approach to each team, and having a wider range of experience is a tremendous advantage for this.
I have been able to see how strategies differ from market to market, and use this knowledge to bolster my own scouting strategy. Having a key understanding of the pathways from youth to professional football in different countries and regions is essential to optimizing the best pathway for your own environment, and developing this knowledge over the years has prepared me to work in the extended capacity that I’m able to experience today.
What qualities do you believe young scouts need today to thrive in a fast evolving football ecosystem?
The best piece of advice that I can share for young scouts today is to focus on exposure and learning how to market yourself. When I was beginning my career, I didn’t have any connections at professional clubs and didn’t really know how to get my foot in the door. I reached out to hundreds of clubs across the world offering my services as a scout so that I could learn and build a network, and the biggest mistake I made was not including samples of work that I had done independently.
Today, there are countless young scouts that are looking to work their way into a role at professional clubs, and it’s become extremely difficult to stand out amongst the rest of the crowd. When I was sending messages to scouts at different clubs, I didn’t realize that my messages were probably becoming lost in a sea of hundreds of other messages flooding their inbox saying exactly the same thing.
The biggest change came when I started completing scouting reports in my free time, and then sharing them online for others to see. For a lot of these reports, I’m sure very few people actually saw them, but it allowed me to build a portfolio of work that I could share with other scouts, and over time you started to see some of these players that I mentioned in the reports grow in reputation and become more well-known. This was a good way to prove my ability to identify players and illustrate the value I was able to bring to a scouting department.
Finally, once I had a portfolio of work to show off, I started receiving interest from clubs and was able to land my first scouting roles. It was an important realization that I didn’t become a football scout when I landed my first role, but when I published my first scouting report, even if it was just for my own personal use. In a way, it’s similar to how you would find opportunities as a player. As an unknown player, it’s going to be near impossible to find opportunities with clubs unless you can provide some sort of highlight tape or proof of your ability as a player as clubs have a never-ending supply of players that want to play for their squad. The same goes for scouts, find a way to show off your ability and be creative with it.