Analyzing football tactics

Finding the next edge.

Kyle Boas

Author of the Tactics Journal

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Learning from rejection

12 November 2026

Years ago, I self-published a booklet for political activists. My timing was good, and I had a chance to sell the books from an organizer’s booth at a march on the very topic my book was about. It was a beautiful April day, and I stood on the side of route as the march went by. More than 400,000 passed my table, and I sold four books.

That’s 399,996 rejections. Maybe more.

Was it the price? Halfway through the march, I lowered it from $10 to $1, just to have a good story to blog a few decades later.

Sales did not increase. Perhaps it was the color of the jacket, the page count or the typo on page 32? None of those things.

What did I learn? That people at a march are at the march to march, not to shop.

Watch what people do, not what they say. And if you really want to learn something, change the situation and see what happens the next time.

Learning from rejection begins with understanding the lesson that’s being offered.

Seth’s book The Dip has stuck with me throughout my life to spot, ‘am I in a dip, or am I in a dead end?’ I would highly recommend anyone read it because it is timeless and it will save you a lot of time.

Dejan Kulusevski refused a knee transplant during his 500-day injury

12 November 2026

Tottenham Hotspur forward Dejan Kulusevski in VoetbalPrimeur.nl translated from Dutch:

I spent the whole summer talking to other doctors about a third operation. That would have been a knee transplant. They would replace my knee with someone else’s. Then I said no. I thought: if I’m in pain while playing football, then I’ll just play with pain.

[…] They told me that nobody had ever come back after an operation like that. It was fifty-fifty. Then I said: no, I don’t want that.

[…] Zlatan and Perisic really wanted me to go there. That Serbian has been very important to me. He said: don’t think about other operations, this is what we’re going to do. He was so sure it would turn out well.

Always listen to your gut.

Harry Kane credits electrical acupuncture with transforming his injury record

11 November 2026

Asked whether his acupuncture work with Dr. Alejandro Elorriaga Claraco transformed him after years of ankle and hamstring injuries, Harry Kane said:

Yeah, without a doubt. I tore my hamstring pretty much off the bone in 2020, I believe, and that was off the back of having many ankle injuries and rarely having a full season where I was fit.

We got in touch, then started working a few months later. COVID happened, so it gave me, I think, seven months between my injury and getting back playing again, which looking back gave me the time I maybe needed to get the help.

And then from that moment we pretty much work every month for a few days, with all the needles, a lot of nervous system stuff. Honestly, I don’t know if I’d be at this stage in my career without that work and without him.

It was an incredible find, I guess. Not everyone’s lucky enough to maybe find someone like that who can help them at that stage in their career.

On the results of his treatments:

The results, and I think just the facts, are there. I think I’ve maybe missed, you know, around 10, 15 games in the last seven years, and the previous seven years was more around 60, 70 games.

So just from that point of view, I know it’s worked, and just the level I’m playing at at 33 years old just tells me that everything we’re doing is on the right track.

In a separate lecture, Claraco explained the goal of his treatments:

The ultimate goal of most treatments is to vasodilate, improve perfusion, and then let the cells regulate themselves with the new energy and the new temperature that facilitates activity.

On repeated treatments:

Repeated treatments are like exercise. They will reinforce the aspects involved in the response to that given input.

On his treatment philosophy:

The power is in the body, not in the tools.

Kane was also asked whether he could emulate Wayne Rooney by moving deeper into midfield as he gets older:

Maybe, yeah. I think it’s possible for me to play in midfield, no doubt. I think it kind of depends on the system that you play, the coach you’re playing for.

Right now, you know, I have a lot of freedom in where I can go, where I can move. So although I’m a striker on paper, I think I play in many different positions on the pitch, and I kind of find the space where I think it’s going to affect the game and use my different qualities to help the team.

But also, it then allows me to arrive in the box in different areas, and I’m not so easy to pick up for defenders.

I think I’d always be a player that wants to score 30, 40, 50 goals a season, and I think any manager out there would probably see me as that type of player.

But I guess time will tell, and there might be a time where it will suit the team to drop a little bit deeper. But right now that free role I have is working really well.

He basically is a midfielder today. Just don’t ask him to play as a fullback.

Freedom to fail

11 November 2026

Netherlands 3x3 basketball programme manager Victor Anfiloff in De VoetbalTrainer translated from Dutch:

You can’t fake it. My first question is always: has that athlete already shown it in training? If someone hasn’t mastered a skill there yet, I don’t find it credible to suddenly shout during a match that they can do it. That athlete knows themselves that they can’t do it yet.

But I have very often seen someone show something in training and then no longer dare to do it in matches. Then that person is no longer focused on the skill, but on the possible consequences.

At a moment like that I try to create freedom. Freedom to do the right thing, but above all freedom to fail. I take over part of the responsibility. I can literally say: do it. You have my full permission. If it doesn’t work, I’ll take responsibility for it. I know you can do this.

You must have no fear of failure if you want to succeed in anything.

Dark mode themes for Tactics Journal Board

11 November 2026

I present to you dark mode for Board, our minimal tactics board.

You can now draw with the board, in any theme, and then export the same board in a different theme.

I was never a fan of dark mode before, but I started using it recently. We needed this desperately because the white is blinding, but people do love the white theme.

Now I can edit in the dark theme and then export in the light theme, which is nice.

I will also be adding something special thing to our website that will allow me to embed the board directly into the post for you to edit yourself, and then it will change to the light or dark mode depening on your device’s theme.

You can, of course, share a link to a board with other people or agents to collaborate on a board.