How do you get scouted/join a top football club's academy?

The amount of people I've heard say they used to be in an academy.

Knew one guy at my school who was. He was literally 20x better than everybody else, including 6th formers etc. Could dribble through the entire pitch. Picked up at 7~ or so by Man Utd then Bolton [literally from a school playground I believe], but they both gave up on him quickly as it became clear that as a religious Jew he'd not play or train saturdays. By 14 he had no club.

I'm assuming the bar for these kids is something like that; you're not gonna get picked up playing in Sunday league at 15, and if you don't develop exactly how they insist, you're out. They cull every year too, so even if you're in at 8, you could be out at 10 and waiting for a lower tier academy to come calling.

That's rough tbh. Do you know if that was his decision (ie by his nature he was quite religious) or sort of forced on him by his parents?

Likely indoctrination from the parents in all honesty. As a kid he was crazy about football, and gradually became more religious (they sent him to a religious school after too). It's harsh, but from a club pov what can you do? It's unlikely to be worth it unless it's the next Messi or Ledley King.

I had a quick google of his name when I made that post. He never made it pro according to google.

edit: It would actually be an interesting discrimination case for scheduling if a club had a player like that. Wonder if they'd get to play sundays every week.

Fair point wrt to the club, no point putting in the time and money when they're not even going to get any immediate impact at youth level. Can imagine it being quite intense when you get to around the u15-17's level and it's make or break.

Especially considering most don't make it, kind of makes a mockery of the whole system when you see players like Assou-Ekotto who don't even make an effort and piss away the dreams that millions of kids have to be a premier league footballer because he cba.

Some just have that ridiculous talent yea. Players like Ekotto, Ravel Morrison is another massive one, Adel Taarabt, so many.

It's also what makes players though, look at kids like Ronaldo and Welbeck.

It's why rooney pisses me off. People say he's had a great career etc, but I think he could have been so much more. Not sure how much he's to blame for that and how much SAF is though.