This series was originally a book I failed to publish, so I will be posting it in parts here.
Growing up I watched football go from an enjoyable game to one of the most convoluted, messy, and complicated games. Here is one of my reasons to explain why it became that way.
Introduction
Before I start talking, let me say that I don't consider myself a football analyst. Not that I am humble or anything, it is just that an analyst is a profession that you enter courses, have exams, and study to get as a title. Being an analyst has the same basics as you would for being an engineer.
To be a football analyst, you must have the basics instilled in you. Basics include knowing how a match would go style-wise by just looking at a line-up. It includes knowing what is the best formation for each style and includes knowing why someone like Klopp, Tuchel, Ancelotti, Guardiola, and many more managers line up the way they do. That, and a thousand more things.
Analyst As A Job
Clubs now hire analysts, and more importantly, they hold them accountable. When you hold a title to accountability, it turns it from just a title you put in your bio into a clear definition with demands you must fulfill.
There are things you must know as an instinct if you are an analyst. Such as why would the left-back and center-back of a relegated Hull City would be a great addition to Liverpool and Leicester City as they aim to secure a UEFA Champions League spot in the Premier League based on passes, work rate, and positioning in a relegated side.
That is how Andrew Robertson ended up in the conversation for the best full-back in the world and Harry Maguire ended up becoming the most expensive defender in history.
Analysts also determine how Klopp, while failing at Dortmund, was a great manager pick to have at Liverpool. It is a process with thousands of equations to make just one decision.
Observers
On the other hand, there are people like me. At best we could call ourselves bloggers, writers, or simply with a deep interest in football. We are merely observers of the game. We are only equipped to answer a handful of questions at a time, and our answers might not even include a lot of details.
The Main Difference
An observer could look and laugh at a player who passed the ball to no one and just insult him. An analyst realizes that such a pass going to waste wasn't even the passer's fault and that in training, a player was supposed to occupy that area.
Simply put, an observer judges what he sees, while an analyst knows what he doesn't see. Apply that to every part of the pitch and you realize how vast the difference is.
Observers could talk about everything, analysts talk about one or two things at a time. Observers need analysts' work to talk in-depth about something, but not the other way around.
The Problem
Sadly, the observers' category is what dominates the space. People who don't understand the significance of De Gea stopping a hard shot after a mistake from Phil Jones simply explain it as "that's his job".
People often mistake ex-players as experts in analyzing football. We watch those people on our screens every day. People who simply judge the results. A team could dominate the game with 25 shots on target and lose by 1 own goal, and those people could claim that the team was outclassed.
Those have a simple and repeated answer to everything. Mourinho and Pep Guardiola could face each other and if Pep won then the Spaniard would be praised for his offensive thinking and control of the game. If Mourinho wins then his team's defensive commitment and works on counterattack is praised. On the surface, this makes sense, but, it doesn't offer anything of substance.
The Result Isn't Everything
While everyone was saying that Klopp is finished as Borussia Dortmund finished 7th in the league, Liverpool's analysts took a closer look at the numbers and saw that besides the ball going into the net, almost nothing changed at the club when it came to statistics. That's how Jürgen Klopp ended up at Liverpool.
In Conclusion
Football analysis has no relation to how many trophies you have won as a player, the number of likes your page has on Facebook, the number of followers, or the number of burns and "pwned" you produce. It is a science built on data that often cost millions to gather.
There's nothing wrong with being an observer, after all, I am one. The problem comes once you mistake analysts with observers. There are no qualifications required in being an observer, but there is a lot required in being an analyst. And I believe the distinction matters.