Why Strategy Wins
How the Best Clubs Make Long-Term Decisions in a Short-Term Industry.
In modern soccer, patience is a rare commodity. Owners crave instant success, fans demand weekly wins, and managers often live or die by their most recent result. Beneath the noise, the world’s most successful sporting leaders share one key defining trait: they play the long game. While others chase momentum, these clubs build models. These models include systems, philosophies, and processes. Sporting leaders and coaches are mere caretakers of a club, yet how they perform during their time of service becomes their legacy. Sporting strategy, not sentiment, becomes their competitive edge.
The Pressure to Win Now
Those who choose to pursue leadership roles within the beautiful game face constant pressure from every direction. The media scrutinizes a club relentlessly, often without fully understanding the complexities of its soccer operations department. Another crucial group is the fans in the stands. Though it’s not always obvious, supporters are true investors in their clubs, committing both time and money. Naturally, they expect a return on that investment in the form of performances and wins on the pitch.
At the same time, club leaders must deliver results that meet the expectations of ownership and the board of directors to maintain stability and trust. Recent examples of leadership instability include Erik ten Hag’s short, turbulent spell at Bayer Leverkusen and Ange Postecoglou’s brief 39-day tenure at Nottingham Forest. In both cases, decision-makers prioritized immediate results over long-term strategy, leaving their clubs in a deeper hole to climb out of.
The Power of Long-Term Thinking
True long-term sporting strategy isn’t just establishing a long-term plan; it’s about building a framework that guides every decision a sporting club makes. Strategy is clarity. Strategy is identity. Strategy is alignment. A well-structured sporting strategy connects every department to a shared philosophy.
A Footballing Identity- how the team wants to play, and the type of players who fit that vision.
A Recruitment Model- data-driven, values-based, and consistent through coaching and sporting director changes.
A Player Pathway- linking the academy, reserves, and first team with purpose.
A Financial Model- balancing ambition with sustainability.
A Human-Centered Culture- where people, not just players, are developed.
When these, and other important elements, are aligned, clubs stop being reactionary and start building.
Trusting the Process
Consider Brentford, who climbed the levels of the English Football Pyramid without abandoning their data-driven recruitment approach. The Bees built a system that identifies undervalued talent, sells at peak value, and reinvests strategically. Additionally, FC Midtjylland, Brentford’s sister club, built a strategic vision that shaped recruitment, analytics, and the youth development pipeline into a successful operation and one of the world’s top talent exporters.
On this side of the pond, LAFC offers another blueprint. Before signing their first player, Sporting Director John Thorrington built a clear identity: high-energy football with a clear style of play. Every sporting decision since has reinforced that identity, creating continuity as personnel changes.
Clubs that succeed don’t chase short-term hype. They build long-term sustainable habits that build resilience for seasons to come.
Building Long-Term Thinking in a Short-Term World
So, how do you hold onto long-term strategy when everything around you demands immediacy?
It starts with alignment. Ownership, sporting leadership, and other key stakeholders must be aligned with a strategic vision.
Then comes consistency. The pillars of consistency include:
Communication of the plan: internally to staff and players, and externally to supporters.
Recruitment to the long-term vision, not the short-term moment.
Measure progress through key performance-based indicators, not just on field results.
A strategically aligned club can weather dips in form because the long-term vision is in mind. Without this foundation, every setback becomes an emergency.
Why Strategy Wins
Results are temporary, systems become sustainable. Managers will come and go. Players will rise and fall. Situations will change, and the market will evolve. But a strong strategic framework that is anchored in philosophy, structure, and culture will outlast these short cycles. It’s what allows a club to continuously evolve without losing its essence.
The best organizations in soccer don’t just plan for the next season; they plan for the next era in club history. They know who they are, what they stand for, and where they are going, no matter what goes on on the pitch. In a sport that lives week to week, the true advantage belongs to those who think in months, years, and decades.