11 Questions with Jack Coles

The pursuit of wisdom in any walk of life quickly reveals that what you think you know is not nearly enough to get you to where you want to go. As I'm starting out in my football scouting journey I challenged myself to reach out to those already working in various roles in football to answer a short list of questions. My goal wasn't to get answers but relevant perspectives on the game within the game.

Here is Jack Coles, analyst for @LCFC:

How did your first opportunity in football come about?

I’ve been coaching in grassroots and schools on and off since leaving school, but my first serious opportunity was working as a kitman with Leamington FC in the Conference North during the 2016/2017 season when I was in my late 20s. I was looking to move into coaching and asked Leamington FC for a role, and this was a vacancy they had, so I thought “why not!?”. I travelled up and down the country with the team, and it was very interesting to be a fly-on-the-wall in first team football dressing room and training environments. From there I moved into coaching their U16 side the following season, which was more a path I wanted to follow. The club supported me in every way. They had no reason to, but they let me do whatever I wanted really. I was very lucky to work with Leamington FC and I have a strong affection for the club for many reasons.

What attracted you to coaching? What’s more intriguing now winning or developing players?

I think the initial attraction was that I wanted to work in football and this seemed the best way! Football is a very difficult industry to penetrate, but coaching has the least friction and a clear pathway.

The winning/developing players dichotomy has become a pretty sterile debate - I don’t see the two as separate. To me, results are too influential on a coaches thinking though. I always think of Guardiola losing his first competitive game to Numancia in La Liga – he didn’t change a thing after. I still remember my first win, where I picked the team and had sole control over the game, and it felt amazing. If I had to pick, developing players is more intriguing to me though.

Who is the first coach/teacher that resonated with you? What stood out?

I’ve been lucky to work alongside some good coaches and had some good coaches myself, and teachers too. I couldn’t pick a favourite as I’m worried I’m offend the others! I obviously like coaches who were nicest to me and were easiest to work with, but I don’t think they are necessarily the best coaches in terms of improving me or others as a player. To digress, I think this may be a mistake the FA are making. They place a primacy on positive feedback and having good rapport with players. I don’t feel this makes a good coach at all.

What is the biggest misconception in football? Why?

I don’t know where to begin. There’s so many. It’s almost an article in itself. A good one in my mind at the moment is that I feel people fail to see a football match as a risk/reward engine, where every action creates positive and negative effects. Football is seen as more black and white than it is, which is a huge misconception. 

Because of the popularity of Monday Night Football etc, and the technology available now, it is too easy to move a player higher up the pitch with a big arrow in your post-match analysis and say they should have been here rather than there. Football doesn’t process counterfactuals like this very well. It’s never that simple.

Another one is that the coach is always right, which isn’t really a misconception, but just something that’s unchallenged. I’ve been bailed out many times by players ignoring my instructions. As coach it’s tempting to take all the credit and blame for everything that happens on a pitch, but that’s blatantly nonsense. I let my players overrule me and correct me all the time, and I feel the team is better for it. Players have been playing since they were 7/8-years-old, and I’ve been coaching for just a few years – who is the expert?

If you could start over what skill would you build on first?

Probably coding in Python or ‘R’.

Do you see player development as more of an art or a science? Which would you start with?

Given my background in analysis, I should say science, but I think it’s a mixture of both. Good luck is also not present on that list, but from my experience it can be more important than anything else.

What is your favourite sports moment? Why?

I think Manchester United’s comeback in the 1999 Champions League final gets the vote for pure nostalgia – I was 11-years-old and it still gets me to this day. What a night.

What coach/player/team inspires you? Why?

Inspired is a strong word! I respond to individual narratives in football a lot, and I’m interested by them the same as everyone else. Guardiola is a coach that impresses me, because fundamentally he’s just very good at his job. He can do a lot of what people only say they can do. I’m still captivated by Lionel Messi for obvious reasons, and I love watching good football from any team really. I’m more inspired by people I have personal relationships with though – my family and friends. Appreciate this is a really boring answer.

What advice would you give to someone wanting to get into

coaching/scouting/analytics?

I’ve been lucky to be supported by people whilst I was waiting for football to pay the bills. My advice is that if there is pressure on you to earn money (kids, house, bills, family), you need a lot of luck and you may not have time to wait for a full-time role in football to look after this side of life. Don’t be scared to pause your football career plans if you have to and you can earn more elsewhere. If you have the time and can ride out the poor pay at the beginning, all the usual advice applies. I’m conscious of straying into a survivorship bias view on how to get into the industry, as my route in may be a pretty terrible way to go. 

Happy for anyone to contact me for advice or support though. I’ve helped a few people get into the game, and it’s fun.

What is your favorite app/tool to use (for fun not work!)?

I’m not sure if this meets your criteria but I still absolutely love playing Football Manager. I’ve had a few years where I didn’t play, but there’s some magic in that game for sure.

What other sport/hobby/discipline do you feel improves your work? Why?

I read a lot of non-fiction books that are almost exclusively nothing to do with football. This wasn’t a deliberate thing, but it’s turned out that way. I’ve found this important to get out of a lot of the industry thinking and form new and original ideas within football, so I think it helps my work a great deal. Many commonly held beliefs in football don’t stand up any more outside the industry – for example, ‘individuals learn better when they receive information in their preferred learning style’ was recently shown to be a view held by a significant amount of football coaches - but it’s not something with any basis evidentially outside of football.