The Rabbit Hole
Why are they exceptional one moment, yet go missing the next? Confidence? Maybe—but why does it come and go? Ability? They've got it in spades. But this inconsistency, it's maddening.
Every football coach has this player. Every fan, every parent knows this madness. This madness was the start of my rabbit hole as I fell into coaching and embarked on my UEFA badges.
The status quo, the accepted narrative of how to coach, the books, the experts, the way it should be done—none of it resonated, none of it explained what I was seeing. So I started digging. I'm still digging. But I've landed on something.
I believe the answer to this is cognitive ability.
The Theory
Football measures and focuses on what it can see. I believe the true marker of success is hidden beneath it, within the cognitive ability of the player.
I define cognitive ability as: how quickly a player processes decisions, how much context they can hold, and how easily they access that context as pressure increases.
Technique and physicality matter, of course they do. But they're coachable. A player's touch can improve. Their speed can be developed. Their positioning can be refined.
Cognitive ability appears to be different. The research suggests it's identifiable early and remains largely stable. You can help players access what they have and reach their ceiling - you just can't move the ceiling itself.
If this is true, we're selecting players and identifying potential based on entirely the wrong things.
What I've Tested
I've applied the DecisionMotion framework to my own coaching—from muddy grassroots pitches to slightly less muddy JPL pitches—with strong results. I've applied it to betting markets, backtesting a model across a full Premier League season that returned 19% ROI. I've made predictions about player and manager fit that have held true. I've had research submitted to Hudl for presentation that was accepted, although I declined due to other commitments.
At the same time, I've run some very questionable training sessions. Overseen heavy losses. Gone down rabbit holes that led nowhere. Seriously questioned why I bother.
But every time I'm ready to walk away, I see something that pulls me back in. Something that makes me think I'm right. So I keep going. I keep digging. I keep building.
What I'm Building
I couldn't find anything that trains what I believe matters, so I started building it.
It's going into beta testing soon. Its primary focus is to help players understand and process information in a footballing context. It's deeply grounded in the DecisionMotion framework and directly targets all three cognitive areas.
I'll share more once testing validates the approach.
Where This Is Going
I'm documenting my journey as I attempt to prove that cognitive ability can be identified early, that it predicts development better than current methods, and that a youth structure built on this foundation can produce results the conventional approach can't.
I want to prove this works, and show that the current data analysis approach, for all its advances, is measuring the wrong things.
My ultimate goal is to implement DecisionMotion at a professional football club. Not as a consultant. Not as a side project. Not as a data analyst. Fully—across everything. Recruitment, coaching, academy development, first team performance.
If any of this resonates, get in touch. If it doesn't, check back in a year and see if I was right.