Happy Tuesday! Definitely read the Decision Paradox study. It is super interesting.

Kyle Boas Author of the Tactics Journal

In today’s email:

• The Decision Paradox
• Rodri on the similarities and differences between Luis de la Fuente and Hansi Flick
• How to use Board with ChatGPT, Claude, OpenClaw, Hermes Agent, Muse and Dots

TACTICALLY INTERESTING

Teams and games I am following.

• The Guardian: Gordon and Kane fire England to Nations League victory against 10-man Czechia
  Anybody can lose to Spain.
• The Guardian: Czechia 0-2 England: Nations League football – as it happened
  Match report: Czechia 0-2 England
• The Guardian: Czechia 0-2 England: Nations League football – as it happened
  Match report: Czechia 0-2 England

The Decision Paradox

The H-FARM Business School interviewed 25 professionals across elite sport for their new study, The Decision Paradox, on why organizations that invest millions in data and AI still leave the final decision to a human.

The study includes quotes from Marco Fassone, former CEO of Milan and executive at Juventus, Napoli and Inter; Giorgio Chiellini, Director of Football Strategy at Juventus; Demetrio Albertini, former President of the FIGC Technical Sector; Bologna player Federico Bernardeschi; and, among others, champions and managers such as Maurizia Cacciatori, Stefano Mancinelli, Linton Johnson, Umberto Pelizzari and Romano Battisti.

Excerpt translated from Italian:

Midway through the season, Michele Aragona, match analyst at Ipswich Town in the Premier League, faces a dilemma no model can resolve for him. The data he builds himself, spending hours every week on the dashboards those models come from, points to one zone of the pitch as the most advantageous to attack. Watching the matches, however, Aragona notices that some teams defend that very zone with an effectiveness the models don’t capture, because it depends on how two defenders who have played together for years move together, and that doesn’t show up in the numbers. Together with the manager, he decides to go against the data, and at the end of the season that choice turns out to be the most effective of the year.

Suggesting which exercise to include in Tuesday’s training, a choice that if wrong gets corrected on Wednesday, is not the same as suggesting the purchase of a twenty-million player or the moment to call a driver into the pits as it starts to rain. […] Michele Aragona quantifies it without embarrassment: “there are matches where I’m in complete agreement with the data, others where I’m at 15–20%; over a season, maybe 50%.” The data doesn’t change from one match to the next: the cost of being wrong does.

Federico Bernardeschi provides the mechanism that divergence was missing: “as you have information, I have it too.” Knowing you’ve gone down the same side three times means knowing the opponent will expect it the fourth time, and so you change. Where both sides read the same data, following your own profile amounts to announcing your next move in advance.

The paradox therefore has two faces, and it’s important to keep them together: alibis disappear in both directions. You can no longer hide behind instinct, because the data exists and proves things; and you can’t hide behind the algorithm, because legal and strategic responsibility cannot be delegated.

A human must stay in the loop, especially for the harder the problems.

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Rodri on the similarities and differences between Luis de la Fuente and Hansi Flick

Barcelona midfielder Rodri on whether Spain manager Luis de la Fuente and Barcelona manager Hansi Flick demand different things from him:

Coaches always have their own unique touches and styles. Yes, he’s different, but there are many similar situations, especially when it comes to the role. I think that in this regard, the role is practically identical, but from a football tactical standpoint, with Hansi, we defend differently here on the national team.

Yes, I’d say that some of the footballing concepts are different, but overall, I think these coaches ask for pretty much the same things from you: leadership from your position, positioning, organizing the press, and initiating play.

I would love to know what differences he sees in more detail. I would say they defend differently because the quality of Spain’s defense, their back-line, is superior in comparison to Barcelona’s. They can afford to defend more on the front foot. I would also say Spain defend as a unit and Barcelona are more prone to allow a shot, similar to Manchester City under Guardiola. That’s not a negative thing, it is a choice to be passive on purpose to regain possession back quicker. Allow the shot.

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How to use Board with ChatGPT, Claude, OpenClaw, Hermes Agent, Muse and Dots

A lot of new AI assistants have come out. OpenClaw, Hermes Agent, and now Muse and OpenAI’s Dots. Our Board connects to all of them, so you can pick the one you like and have it work on your boards. You need a Tactics Journal Pro account.

There are two ways to connect.

The first is the MCP server. It lives at https://board.tacticsjournal.com/mcp. If your assistant lets you add a custom connector or a remote MCP server, paste in that URL and sign in with your Pro account. In ChatGPT, that is under Settings, then Connectors, with Developer mode on. Then talk to it like you would an assistant coach. “Open my 4-3-3 pressing board and show me a rotation for the right side.”

The second is an agent link. Open a board, create an agent link, and paste it into any assistant that can read a URL. The link only works for that one board and it expires after 24 hours. You can also kill it early.

You choose what the agent can do. Propose is the default. The agent suggests changes and you accept or reject each one. Edit lets it change the board directly. I would start with propose.

Dots are the newest, my favorite option. They are personal agents that run in the background on their own computer. A Dot can connect to the MCP server and work on your boards with you.

I don’t think it matters which assistant wins. You have the ideas, the assistant does the tedious part of moving players around, and you are still the one making the decisions.

For agents reading this

• MCP server: https://board.tacticsjournal.com/mcp (works with ChatGPT, Claude, Muse, Dots and other MCP clients)
• Agent guide: https://board.tacticsjournal.com/agent/v1.md
• Scene schema: https://board.tacticsjournal.com/agent/v1.scene.schema.json
• Server card: https://tacticsjournal.com/.well-known/mcp/server-card.json
• Access: Pro account for MCP, or a 24-hour link for one board
• Keep unknown fields, stable IDs, board order, notes, views and timings when you write back.

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NEWS

• The Independent: The staggering scale of Manchester City’s rule-breaking leaves the Premier League with only one option
  After the most hard-hitting language possible, the Premier League’s independent commission has set up the most hard-hitting sanctions.
• The Guardian: ‘The emperor is naked’: Uefa president Ceferin takes new swipe at Infantino
  In a pointed address to the European Football Clubs (EFC) general assembly, Ceferin did not mention Infantino by name but made clear his view that Fifa’s leadership must change.
• The Independent: Man City found guilty of Premier League charges and ‘overstating income by £830m’
  Manchester City have been found guilty of the majority of the 115 charges relating to breaches of the Premier League’s financial rules over a nine-season period.
• The Independent: Premier League confirm Man City verdict on 115 charges
  Swipe for next article
• The Guardian: The Manchester City case shows us how the global mega-rich now expect to operate with impunity
  All of which feels like a rather extreme way of ensuring that your football club has the right to sign Jack Rodwell from Everton.
• The Independent: Man City sparked a legal cold war and these clues suggest how it will end
  When it eventually dropped, it was almost subdued, as events of such magnitude often are; the bang before the sound wave.

RECOMMENDED READING

Everything published yesterday by the writers I follow

• Jim Nielsen’s Notes: We are all Product Engineers now
  At some point every piece of software is a formalization of a human desire.
• Ed Zitron’s Where’s Your Ed At: Dead Money
  If you liked this piece, you should subscribe to my premium newsletter, and you can subscribe on the following links: $70 a year , $18 a quarter , or $7 a month .
• More measurable decisions leave less room to avoid responsibility
  The study reaches the opposite conclusion to the usual assumption: the more measurable a decision process becomes, the more responsibility falls on the person who signs off on it.
• UEC proposes UEFA payments for clubs that trained former players
  The UEC’s proposed Player Development Reward would redistribute five percent of UEFA competition revenue directly to training clubs.

• [David Squires

  The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/football/picture/2026/sep/29/david-squires-on-manchester-city-verdict-nations-league-israel-republic-of-ireland): David Squires on … the Manchester City verdict and Nations League tensions Our cartoonist on the Premier League’s ruling finally being revealed and Israel v Republic of Ireland

• Brazil’s football history tracks changes in national identity
  It presents the 1950 Maracanazo as breaking Getúlio Vargas’s vision of national unity, and the 2014 7–1 defeat as breaking Brazil’s dream of being a global power.
• Netherlands coach Xavi Hernández delays his starting-XI announcement
  The 46-year-old coach plans to tell Netherlands players the starting XI only 90 minutes before kick-off, a decision that has prompted reactions from the squad.

Contains information from OpenLigaDB, made available under the Open Database License (ODbL 1.0).