Mercato Star Finder

The problem

Getting noticed by a football academy usually depends on who happens to be watching a particular match, not on how a player actually performs on the ball. A written trial request or a résumé line can’t show a first touch or a finish the way thirty seconds of footage can. A client wanted a way for players outside the traditional academy pipeline to put their skills in front of the people who scout for clubs.

The gap isn’t a lack of talented players; it’s a lack of a channel between them and the agents who could scout them. A club agent can’t attend every local match in every region, and a player without an academy connection has no obvious way to reach one. Short-form video closes that distance without either side needing to be in the same city.

Who it was for

Players trying to get scouted outside the academy system, and the club agents looking for talent they wouldn’t otherwise see. For a player, the app is a way to put a first touch or a finish in front of someone who can act on it. For an agent, it’s a way to browse verified footage instead of relying on word of mouth or a scouting trip that may not turn anything up.

My role

I customised and extended a short-video app foundation into a football-talent product. That meant adapting the recording and feed experience to a sports-scouting purpose, adding the verification, subscription, and notification layers a two-sided platform needs, and delivering the result as a working Android application for the client. Most of the product decisions were about what to add on top of that foundation rather than what to build from a blank screen: verification, subscription tiers, and the notification loop between a clip and the agent watching it.

What I built

• 01

  Record, trim, and filter

  A player records a short clip, trims it to the moment that matters, and applies filters before sharing it.

• 02

  Upload and cached playback

  Clips upload to storage and play back from a feed, with caching so a clip doesn't have to re-download every time it's watched.

• 03

  Verification badges

  Verified profiles carry a badge, so a club agent can tell a checked account from an unverified one at a glance.

• 04

  Subscription plans

  Accounts can subscribe on a 1-, 3-, 6-, or 12-month plan, depending on how long a player wants visibility.

• 05

  Push notifications

  Push notifications tell a player when their clip gets attention, so they don't have to keep the app open to find out.

• 06

  Facebook and Google sign-in

  Sign-in uses Facebook and Google rather than a separate account system to create.

The core loop is short and deliberate: record a clip, trim it to the useful part, apply a filter if it helps, and upload it to a feed an agent can browse. Verification badges give agents a way to trust a profile before they spend time watching its clips, and the subscription plans give players a reason to keep a profile current rather than uploading once and disappearing. None of this works as one-sided software; the notification layer exists specifically so an agent’s interest reaches a player quickly enough to matter.

How it works

Clips move from capture through editing and upload into a feed that other accounts play back, with accounts, subscriptions, and push notifications feeding into that same feed.

Tech stack

Outcome

Mercato Star Finder was delivered to the client as a working Android application; it was not published to a public store listing.

What I learned

Two-sided platforms need real value for both sides, not just the side that’s easiest to build for.

It’s tempting to focus on the player-facing recording experience, because that’s the flashier half of the product. But a football-talent platform only works if the agent side is just as considered: verification, subscriptions, and notifications aren’t features bolted onto the recording tool; they’re the reason an agent trusts what they’re watching enough to act on it.