Update 3.0: A Change in Approach
Changes are scary, but sometimes, they are necessary.
Dear readers,
Over the holiday period, I’ve had a bit more time to do some reflecting on what I did throughout 2025 and one thing came to mind, which was the feeling of unfulfilled. I have had this feeling for a long while but could never figure out why or what caused it. So, I went and did some soul searching and read a bit about the feeling that I had, which led to me writing this newsletter.
I’ve debated whether I should write this because it is not something that many people will agree with me, especially when it comes to football analytics. I had a draft written during the break but I chose to delete it because I thought no one was going to read it either way. But I think it’s the right thing to write about and, since this is my blog anyway and I can write whatever I want, I think it’s best to share it.
tl;dr:
I felt very unfulfilled this past couple of years while doing football analytics projects, and that came from the expectation and hope of being given an opportunity to work at football clubs.
I’m not completely closing the door to working in football, but I’m not treating it as a priority anymore, which I think many people will disagree with me. I also realised that I don’t have to make money from my own hobbies.
Once again, Talking Tactics is going nowhere and I don’t plan to put it behind a paywall anytime soon. But, this means longer breaks between articles, more experimenting with new formats and ideas to find something that I enjoy writing and reading afterwards.
What happened?
It all stemmed from the project below where I created a Streamlit dashboard within a month. It’s still a project that I’m proud of cause I learned a lot of new skills and techniques to build a dashboard, but it left a weird feeling where it was unfulfilling and I never truly felt satisfied by it.
That prompted me to stop doing anything related to football analytics and did some reflection on why I had felt that way. Turns out, it was because I had set a very unrealistic level of expectation for myself and for the project. I had hoped that by creating a dashboard that was unique and packed with many features, I would be given the opportunity to work at clubs. When that never came, I felt disappointed in myself for not trying hard enough and immediately wanted to jump straight into another project just to prove a point that I have the skillset to be employed by clubs.
Probably about a year or two into my football analytics journey, I had always wanted to work full-time at a football club. Every project that I did in the past was to build up a portfolio that I can show to people within the industry with the hope that they will give me an opportunity. In hindsight, that mindset feels very toxic and it is not a healthy way of thinking.
I blame myself for a part of that, but I also got a lot of external pushes from people saying ‘you should get a job for a club’, that I should make money for doing all of this. For the longest of time, I thought that was the norm and kept pushing myself for that opportunity without knowing that I have felt hollow and unfulfilled for most of the time. I did get a few opportunities to work with clubs on a part-time/freelance basis, and while I’m forever grateful for those opportunities, some part of me still felt unfulfilled.
Doing reflections also reminded me of why I started my journey in football analytics. I only started doing this because I wanted to know more about players, specifically about Nordi Mukiele when he first joined Leipzig. I’m happy about all of the experiences and opportunities that I got throughout my journey, but that was not what I had set out to achieve.
I was definitely influenced by the mindset of making money from your hobbies, which I think is not a good habit. Speaking from experiences, that mindset have drained my passion really quickly and led to burnouts after burnouts. It is even more difficult when I was surrounded by people sharing their achievements and employments on different social media platforms because I kept asking myself ‘what have I done wrong to not get the same opportunity’ and being harsher on myself.
I also think the environment within football clubs and organisations is probably not for me. I like to drive changes and innovations by bringing new ideas to the table, and the culture within football is sometimes the complete opposite of that. To paraphrase Benoit Pimpaud (his article is paywalled but you can read it via archival websites), formerly a data engineer for Olympique de Marseille, the culture within football is still not mature enough to accept and embrace football analytics as a part of the workflow and process, and I’m not talking about the simple process of using just Wyscout or Opta and review the data that have been presented and aggregated to them.
What now?
I’m not completely closing the door to working in football, but I’m not treating it as a priority anymore. At the end of the day, I started doing football analytics projects as a hobby and I want to go back to doing that once more without having to think about getting a job or making money from it.
This is the part where I think many people will disagree with me because there are so many people who would trade everything for an opportunity or a career working for football clubs. I’m not in a position to speak for others and I won’t discourage anyone from pursuing a career in football if they feel like they want to, which is also not the purpose of this update. This is just me talking about my experiences and about what I want to do in the foreseeable future, so if you disagree with what I have said above, that’s completely okay.
I think realising that I don’t have to make money from my hobbies have helped me a lot because it has set a barrier between my actual job and what I do outside of it. It also sets a limit for me of what I should be doing with football analytics, which project I want to do for the sake of my own fulfillment, how much should I push myself for those projects, and how much time I should spend on them. I have also refrained from posting and using social media a lot, so if you have followed me on those platforms and not saw me posting, you now know why.
Once again, Talking Tactics is going nowhere and I don’t plan to put it behind a paywall anytime soon. This blog is my passion project and it’s a place where I can write and do whatever I want, with some responsibilities to you, the readers, of course. But, as I have mentioned in my previous update, this means longer breaks between articles as I can only write whenever a spark comes to me. I will also experiment with new formats and ideas more often just to find something that I enjoy writing and reading myself. It’s kinda a self-centric way of thinking, but I believe that if I write something that I don’t enjoy reading it afterwards, how can I ask everyone else to read what I just wrote?
That will be my approach to 2026 and onwards to help put myself in a healthier and fresher mindset. I want to find the fun and enjoyment in doing football analytics stuff again and I want to give this approach a try because I believe that it will help me in the long run.
Thank you for spending time reading my rant. I know these updates are quite personal and not many people want to hear what I want to say about myself, and that’s fine. But if you have made it here, I really appreciate your time and choosing to follow whatever I do. I hope you have a great new year, and please be kind and patient to others.