Working relationships that analysts have

One of the positives of working an analyst (especially at a professional sports club) is the camaraderie and team spirit of working closely with your colleagues to achieve common goals.

So, in this week’s post I wanted to highlight some of the key relationships you may have an analyst, based on working within a football club. Some of these roles will depend on how big your club is and also the type of analyst that you are but as you can see, there are some interesting relationships that you have as an analyst and so being adaptable and having strong communication skills can be very important.

A big point on this, is actually the large amount of time that is spent together. Working in a professional team over a busy season can be very intense. You will find that you spend A LOT of time with your colleagues and so good relationships and trust is key.

Manager / Head Coach
Pretty obvious that this will be an important relationship to have. The manager will want to have a good level of trust with their analyst and rely on them a lot to make sure games are properly prepared for.

We have seen some cases where coaches and their analyst form a strong bond and actually end up working together again wherever the manager may move onto. The manager will have a lot of stress and so will feel much more comfortable if they have a hard working and knowledgeable analyst that they know they can trust and rely on.

Other Coaches
By this I mean the assistant coaches, goalkeeper coach or set piece coach. From my experience, these guys may come to you with different requests either just by themselves or with certain players.

Modern coaches are much more skilled in technology and software these days so they may do their own analysis but will always lean on you to help. These coaches can also act as a connector from you to the manager and players as they spend more time with them, than you will.

Players
A football team is nothing without the players and as you will know, these come in all shapes and sizes. You may have an academy player, a young first team player or a veteran and they will all be different. The players are all just people at the end of the day and so have different personalities and communication/learning styles.

You will always have some players that are more interested in analysis than others but you job is to support the players and be there for what they may require. You will be travelling with them and potentially delivering presentations to them and so they should see you as an important part of the coaching team.

Other Analysts
Like I mentioned, the description of this point will be determined by the type of analyst that you actually are. For example, if you are a traditional first team analyst, you will want to have a good relationship with people such as:
- assistant analyst
- set piece analyst
- data analyst
- academy analyst
- recruitment analyst

From my experience, the analyst team is a close-knit 'team within the team' and you can each lean on each other for help and support. Also, different roles complement each other nicely. For example, the data analyst could be providing useful insights for the first team analyst, head of analysis or recruitment analyst.

The set piece analyst will give their input to pre- and post-match reports/presentations and if you have an assistant analyst, you will probably be spending more time with this person than anyone else!

Here is a video I did where I asked current analysts what they enjoyed the most about their jobs. The ability to work with elite players and practitioners on a daily basis was mentioned by a few. You can check that out here:

Sports Science / S&C
I think there is much more of a link between analysts and sport scientists than a lot of people realise. After all, both are looking at the performance of players albeit one from a physical point of view and the other more technical.

With GPS units, a lot of data is now being collected and you can get interesting insights when physical data is overlayed to match event data (tracking etc.).

Really, you and the sports scientists are part of the coaching team that are there to support the players and manager. You may share an office with these guys so always good to have a solid relationship.

Team Doctor / Physio
Although a bit more of a scientific role, they are part of the team and so you may have interactions together. In my experience, I have had physios request video footage of specific injuries to help diagnose what actually happened.

They will likely have a closer link to the sport scientists and S&C coaches than the analyst but still, there will be times when you may have to collaborate.

Recruitment Team
I have already mentioned recruitment analysts. but here, I also mean the head of recruitment or scouts. As an analyst you have lot of knowledge and information on players in your league and own squad which can be useful to lean on when making recruitment decisions.

The recruitment team may ask for footage, or data on specific players and you may also use scouting reports to add more detail for pre-match planning.

Head of Football / Technical Director
This person will be overseeing the whole football department and so although you may not have day-to-day interactions with this person, they are pretty much your boss.

Depending on your club set up, this person might deal more with a 'head of analysis' rather than the individual analysts, but they will want to understand what is going on and whether things are operating properly. Even when you aren't communicating directly with this person, they will likely by seeing and consuming your work/reports and also get feedback from the manager or head coach on how things are going.

Can you think of any other types of roles that you would have a working relationship with as an analyst? There likely is more and the bigger your club or organisation, the list may get better.

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