Learn · Chapter 2 · 15 minutes
Translate the Same Insight
Knowing how to calculate expected goals and knowing how to explain it to a manager who left school at sixteen are completely different skills. One is taught everywhere. The other decides whether you have a career.
The exercise
Pick one tactical observation and practise explaining it three different ways.
| Audience | Time | Answer these |
|---|---|---|
| The coach | 30 sec | What's the problem? Why is it happening? What can we change? |
| The player | 15 sec | What should they do? How will they know when to do it? What does success look like? |
| Management | 1 min | Why does this matter for results? What might be needed to fix it? How does this affect the bigger picture? |
Keep practising until switching between these feels automatic.
Why it matters
Football analysis happens in chaos. Plans fall apart. Technology breaks. The best analysts adjust how they deliver without losing what makes the analysis valuable, and that includes reading the room: the same message lands differently with different coaches and different football cultures.
If your analysis only works when everything's perfect, it's not going to survive actual football.
Done well when
- Each version fits its time. Say them out loud with a timer running.
- The player version has no numbers and no jargon, just what to do and when.
- The coach version ends with something you could change on the training pitch this week.
- The management version links the problem to results, not to the tactics.
- Someone who hasn't seen the match could repeat each version back to you.
Want the rest of the chapter?
This exercise is from So You Want to Be a Football Analyst? Get Chapter 1 free by email, plus one idea from the book each week.