Every September, clubs start the season intending to “do more with video”, and by October half of them have quietly stopped. The difference between the programmes that stick and the ones that fizzle is almost never the software. It is that the survivors made their decisions in preseason, while the fizzlers tried to invent a workflow in the chaos of round three. With the northern hemisphere’s 2026-27 season a few weeks out (and our southern hemisphere clubs mid-campaign and welcome to steal all of this for next year), here is the playbook.
Step one: audit last season while it still stings
Before planning anything new, spend one evening on last season. What did you actually want to know and never found out? Where did close games slip? Which habit did you spend all season telling players about without ever showing them? If you have footage from last season, even patchy phone footage, pull three moments that made you want video analysis in the first place. That list is your requirements document, and it is a better guide than any feature comparison. If you have last season’s data, this is the moment to turn it into this season’s gameplan.
Step two: fix the filming, once
Decide now, in preseason, exactly how every match gets filmed: what device, mounted where, operated by whom, and who carries the spare battery. The single most common analysis failure we see is not software, it is round-five footage that never got filmed because the one person who knew the setup was away. Write the answer down and make it survive absences. You do not need to overspend here: a phone on a tall tripod genuinely works, and we tested the options honestly in our camera guide. If you are buying hardware, buy it now and test it in a preseason friendly, not in round one.
Step three: decide who does the analysis (the honest version)
Someone has to turn footage into clips and numbers. In preseason you have exactly three options, and pretending otherwise is how programmes die. Option one: a named volunteer does it manually, in which case cap the job, ten clips and a handful of counts per match, so it stays survivable. Option two: buy tagging software and give that person better tools, which makes the hours somewhat faster but does not remove them. Option three: have the analysis done for you, which is what we do, where the match comes back tagged, clipped and counted without anyone at the club spending their Sunday on it. Any of the three can work. The fatal choice is “we’ll figure it out during the season”, which reliably means option one, unnamed, uncapped, and gone by half-term.
Step four: build the routine players will actually follow
Analysis earns its keep when players engage, so design the weekly loop now. Keep it small: match on Saturday, clips reach players by Monday evening, five minutes of video opens Tuesday training, done. Deliver clips where players already are rather than adding another app for them to ignore, which for most squads means the team WhatsApp. And set the tone in preseason friendlies: the first clips of the year should include good moments, not just crimes, because the fastest way to make players dread video is to make it a tribunal.
Step five: pick three numbers and a target
Choose no more than three measurable things to move this season, tackle completion, set-piece retention, whatever last season’s audit surfaced, and write down a target for each. Not because the numbers are the point, but because in February, when everything feels average, three tracked numbers will tell you whether the plan is working. If you are unsure which numbers deserve the slots, start with the metrics that actually matter.
The timeline
Six weeks out: audit last season, choose your analysis route, order any kit. Four weeks out: test the filming setup at a friendly, end to end, footage to clips. Two weeks out: run the full weekly loop once, including the WhatsApp delivery and the Tuesday five minutes, so round one is a repeat rather than a premiere. Round one: nothing new to invent, you just run the routine. That is the whole trick: clubs that analyse all season are the ones for whom, by the first whistle, it was already a habit.
