There are numerous spying incidents in football, the Canadian drone disaster at the Paris Olympics is just the latest incident | Football news

Some of them may be wondering if flying drones is all worth it. After all, how much more valuable information could they have gathered about a team they already have a treasure trove of details about? These days, there is an inexhaustible amount of data available to every team, as long as you have a stable internet connection and know how to type in the right address to get the details you want. From formations and footage to statistics and playing patterns, there is nothing mysterious about a team.

The Canadian team celebrates their team’s 2-1 victory at the end of the Group A women’s soccer match between Canada and France at Geoffroy-Guichard Stadium during the 2024 Summer Olympics. (AP)

A few observations the day before a group match between the teams ranked 8th (Canada) and 28th (New Zealand) would not make a decisive difference. Perhaps they could note an odd set-piece, an unusual formation, the general mood, or read up on injuries. All of these insights would not have dramatically changed their own methods or approaches.

In the end, it seems like an act of naivety or perhaps cowardice. Then it is a mistake made by teams far bigger than Canada and coaches far more revered than Priestman. The most famous Spygate episode involved the most famous coach of our time, the Argentine ideologue of attacking football Marcelo Bielsa. During his time at Leeds United in 2019, police seized a disguised staff member with pliers, binoculars and cameras in tow outside Derby County’s training ground. The two clubs then engaged in a bitter race for promotion.

He immediately called his colleague Frank Lampard, but instead of apologizing, he defended his staff’s behavior. The next day, he went to the media room and held one of the longest press conferences in league history. It lasted 66 minutes and included a Powerpoint presentation on his match preparations. “I don’t need to watch training to know where and how they play. Why do I go? Because it’s not forbidden, I didn’t know it would provoke such a reaction and although it’s not useful to go and watch an opponent, it helps me keep my anxiety down,” he explained, adding that this is common practice in Argentina. Bielsa also never took part in clandestine training sessions. “Everyone could see what I was doing. I never made a fuss about it,” he continued in his defense.

For him and many others who grew up in the pre-digital age, not getting into the game despite the technological leap of faith was simply a habit of the past. Lampard’s mentor Jose Mourinho often instructed his assistant and eventual successor at Chelsea, Andres Villas-Boas, to observe opponents before each game to observe their “mental and physical state”. Lampard, however, made a big deal about Bielsa’s “unsporting” methods. In his next game, he brought a stack of notes and told journalists that “they too are preparing”, which was a dig at Bielsa.

A year before the EPL spygate, a newspaper had revealed that Werder Bremen had used a drone to spy on Hoffenheim. However, TSG’s then-coach Julian Nagelsmann, whose father was an undercover agent in real life, took the incident more calmly. “I’m not really angry at the analyst who is doing his job. In a way, I’m glad that a strong opponent is really worried about him spying on us,” he said. While Bremen management admitted that one of their scouts had operated the drone from a car parked 500 meters from the training ground, they said they had “unmasked” several spies in trees, autograph hunters and among the press.

Before extensive data analysis, it was common practice for teams to snoop on their opponents. Managers, players and staff were wary of possible covert operations. Former England manager Graham Taylor was so fussy about eavesdropping that he refused training ground security even during practice. So it was understandable that he changed the team’s training ground at the last minute before a World Cup qualifier against Norway in 1993.

The venue was nondescript, but he happened to share the fence with the sports editor of a leading newspaper. On the morning of the match, he wrote a detailed article on England’s tactics and, as fate would have it, Norway beat England 2-0, England failed to qualify and Taylor was dismissed in time. In a similar fit of paranoia, Chile became convinced that Colombia was secretly watching them through a drone. The police shot down the drone, only to discover that it belonged to their telecommunications department, and eventually paid them $5,000 in compensation.

History does not absolve Canada of its mishap, but in this advanced age of technology, sending a drone over the enemy’s training grounds was naive, if not downright foolish, and clearly not worth the risk, money, and time.