Which stats to record after every match

The minimum that counts

Four numbers are enough to start with: rating, goals, assists and MVP. Add the position each player lined up in and you have a sheet that takes minutes to fill in and, after a few weeks, already tells you something.

• Position played
• Rating from 1 to 10
• Goals and assists
• Match MVP

Position looks like a detail, but it isn’t. A 7 at centre-back and a 7 on the wing don’t mean the same thing, and without that information you can’t compare players who rotate between positions.

Goals and assists are facts: they either happened or they didn’t. Ratings and MVP are opinions, and that’s where the sheet gains or loses its value.

How to give ratings

A rating from 1 to 10 is only useful if everyone understands it the same way. Before the first match, agree what each value means and write it down somewhere the squad can see it.

A reference scale

• 5 or below: below expectations, with costly mistakes
• 6: did the job without standing out
• 7: a good match, above what was asked of them
• 8 or above: decisive, changed the result

Use the decimal place to separate similar performances, not to fine-tune every detail. Between a 6.5 and a 6.6 there’s no conversation worth having.

Rate the role, not just the numbers. A defensive midfielder who shuts down the middle of the pitch for the whole match can deserve more than the striker who scored once and disappeared for the rest of it.

In VOC, ratings take one decimal place and each sheet stores every player’s position, goals, assists and MVP.

Fill it in without losing your evening

The sheet should be done before the squad switches off their consoles. The longer you leave it, the more the ratings are swayed by the result and the less by what each player actually did on the pitch.

Choose one person to fill it in. It can be the analyst, the coach or a trusted player, but it’s always the same person. The others can chip in, but they don’t vote rating by rating.

A five-minute method

• Confirm who played and in which position
• Record goals and assists first
• Give ratings in team-sheet order, from defence to attack
• Pick the MVP last, with the ratings in front of you

If there’s a genuine doubt about a particular moment, note it down and decide the next day. It’s not worth holding up the whole sheet over one assist.

Validate before it counts

A completed sheet isn’t necessarily a correct one. Validating means looking at it one last time before it goes into the stats: the goals match the score, nobody’s missing, there’s a single MVP.

The person who validates should always be the same, or a very small group with the same criteria. If every match is validated by someone different, after a month the ratings are no longer comparable.

Mistakes happen. An assist credited to the wrong player gets corrected, and the totals should follow the correction. What shouldn’t happen is ratings changing weeks later just because someone complained in the group chat.

What to leave out

The temptation is to record everything: shots, passes, tackles, possession. Every extra field is another minute after the match and another excuse not to fill it in. Start with the minimum and only add more when you have a specific question the four numbers can’t answer.

Nor do you need to copy out by hand everything that appears in a screenshot. Keep the screenshot if you like, but the sheet should only hold what you’re actually going to use. Automatic stats reading from a screenshot is coming to VOC soon. Until then, four numbers entered by hand will do just fine.

What to do with the numbers

With ten or fifteen validated sheets, you start to see patterns. Who has the steadiest rating, who’s involved in the most goals, who gets picked as MVP when the match is tight, and with whom on the pitch the team wins most often.

Look at each player’s ratings over the last few matches before you look at their season average. A player who’s been dipping for three matches deserves a conversation, even if their average still looks good.

Break it down by competition, by opponent and between home and away. An average built on friendlies against weaker teams doesn’t say the same thing as one built in the league. That’s what the sheet is for: so that your next decision about the XI rests on more than your memory of the last match.