Sacked in the morning - can football clubs make better decisions when evaluating coaches performance

Project description

Coach replacements in professional football often occur due to underperformance in the table or expiring contracts. Previous research has primarily focused on win/loss statistics, which do not always reflect the true impact of a coaching change. This project takes a multi-perspective approach to studying coach replacements. We will first explore how frequently coaching contracts are terminated early in the 25 highest-ranked European men's leagues to understand the differences and similarities between leagues and the communicated reasons for these changes. This will result in an open dataset accessible for further research. Using this dataset, we will analyze coaching changes from a club perspective to determine whether and when coach replacements impact team performance and identify factors contributing to success or failure. Additionally, we will assess coaching changes from an individual coach's perspective to understand performance across different contexts. This will include analyzing how coaches adapt to various club environments, which ones consistently outperform expectations, and which ones only succeed under specific conditions.

Finally, we will conduct interviews with club representatives to understand how they currently evaluate coaches during employment and recruitment, as well as how decision-making processes regarding coaching contracts are structured.

Method and Execution

This project consists of several interlinked studies:

1. Mapping Coach Replacements in European Top Football
   We will create an open dataset containing information on coach replacements in the 25 highest-ranked European men’s leagues. This dataset, which will be submitted to a data journal, will include details on all coaching changes, along with coaches’ age, experience, contract length, and the stated reasons for contract terminations. The dataset will serve as a foundation for subsequent studies and enable a descriptive analysis of how frequently coaching contracts are terminated early and whether there are significant differences between leagues and levels.
2. Analyzing Coach Replacements from a Club Perspective
   Using a natural experiment with matched controls, we will investigate whether and when coach replacements impact team performance. We will also analyze patterns in what successful and unsuccessful coaches change—or fail to change—after taking over a team. Advanced probability-based football analytics will be used to identify key contributing factors, including organizational stability, squad composition, and financial resources.
3. Examining Coach Performance from an Individual Perspective
   We will analyze coaching careers over time to identify which coaches consistently perform well, which succeed only in specific environments, and which struggle regardless of the club. The same factors used in the club perspective analysis will be applied to understand the broader context and why some coaches excel while others fail to meet expectations.
4. Interviews on Coach Recruitment and Evaluation
   Club representatives will be interviewed to understand how they assess and recruit coaches. We will explore decision-making processes, the criteria used in evaluations, and how clubs work to find the right coach to optimize team performance.