2025-04-15, 06:37 AM - Word count: 1025
April 9th, 8:23AM local time.
Predrag leaves Montreal-Trudeau airport. He enters the limo that is already waiting for him. Unlike his visit to Pforzheim, he is completely calm this time. He isn't just to be Montreal's new player, he is to be their tactician.
Seems like one of the performance analysts for Istanbul used to work for Montreal. He was the one to first tip off the organization's scouts. Ironically, it was Predrag's mind that first got the team interested, even before they were able to see him perform on the pitch. Though scoring 4 goals in the game where the Schwarzwälder manager came to watch certainly helped his case.
11:00AM local time.
Predrag makes it to the Montreal United office. He's given the keys to the performance analysis room. There people are already waiting to give him reports on his teammates abilities and position preferences. It feels really weird to be working for the club as both a player and member of staff. High ranking member in fact.
Predrag takes all the folders and sorts them on his desk. He already watched several Montreal games from the previous season and has deemed it most effective to play the team in a 4-2-3-1, similar to how he played in Istanbul. Predrag takes out his laptop and loads up the most recent Montreal game.
12:15AM local time.
As Predrag was mulling over how to best use the team's right crosses, one of his coworkers glanced at his screen. Rachel, a woman in her early 30s, graduated top of her class in analytics. She had been in sport analytics since she graduated college. First in college basketball, then in the NBA, then she made a move to football. It's safe to say she was very experienced in the field. It was this experience that left her speechless in what she was seeing. Firstly, the video Predrag was looking at was 360p. It was so blurry to her eyes, she could barely make out the ball. Second was the several A4 pages of paper Predrag had already filled with notes.
"Excuse me sir." Rachel felt odd addressing Predrag. Though he was 10 years her junior and an athlete she would normally just be looking at on a screen, he was also now her boss technically. "Could I ask why you're watching the game at such low resolution?"
She feared asking him the question. She had worked with all sorts of people at this point. It didn't matter if they were doing things correctly or not, people would always get defensive about their work. The last thing she wanted was to leave a bad impression.
"It's the only video quality I have." Predrag answered nearly instantly. No change in his tone of voice.
"Come again?" Rachel asked, even more confused than before.
"These are downloaded videos from pirate websites. It's not like I had access to Montreal's personal recordings before I joined. And good internet was hard to get back where I was staying in Istanbul. Also I only have 200GB of storage on my laptop. So I just settled on getting the lowest video quality I can. That way I could save space and time." Predrag answered calmly, not even lifting his eyes off his notes.
"Right..." Rachel was partially satisfied. The idea of not having on demand HD video puzzled her but at least the explanation made sense.
She then looked at the notes. Clarke cross to Sinclair at 54th minute. Sukzuki mistimes run at 67th minute and is offside. Deflection from Millwall is caught by William at 14th minute. These were all moments from the game written down on paper form. Next to that were additional statistics. Szarekh completed 5/6 tackles. Williams punched 2/8 crosses in box. Maximiliano made 3/3 through balls.
"Sir, why are you writing all of this down? We have programs to track this data. You just submit it into the computer and it will keep track. At least use Excel." Rachel was stunned. This man was going performance analysis and tactical planning with pen and paper.
"I don't like Excel, too complicated to use. I get the job done easy enough with pen and paper." Predrag answered nonchalantly, as though he was fully confident what he was saying wasn't absurd.
Rachel sat down in her chair. Her soul practically leaving her body as she imagined what it would be like to work with Predrag for the whole season.
April 14th, 9:30PM local time.
Glory Montreal United! The chant echoed through out the stadium. Montreal had just beaten Seoul in the pre-season friendly 3-1 and it could have been even more. The man of the match? Predrag Dobrić with 2 assists and a rating of 9.0
Predrag made his way immediately to the analysis room after changing. Rachel and the others were surprised to see him there so soon.
"Oi, Rachel." Predrag called out to her.
"Yes boss?" She answered worried, half out of surprise he wanted to work on something so soon and half because his methods worked.
"Teach me to use Excel. I only had 2 hours a day to work on the tactic after analyzing the stats. The performance was not up to our standard and I can't let that happen again against North Shore."
"But sir, you won 3-1."
"I was brought here after Montreal already won the Minor League. I can't help them win, I have to help them dominate. So no. Performances like this aren't good enough. I need to be better on and off the pitch." Predrag said as he sat down at his desk and booted up his new computer.
"Yes sir! I'll help you with that immediately!" She couldn't decide if he was a madman or a genius. Probably both. But one thing she knew was that this season would be a lot more interesting.
This dramatic retelling of events was written by Predrag Dobrić and sponsored by Montreal United
Predrag leaves Montreal-Trudeau airport. He enters the limo that is already waiting for him. Unlike his visit to Pforzheim, he is completely calm this time. He isn't just to be Montreal's new player, he is to be their tactician.
Seems like one of the performance analysts for Istanbul used to work for Montreal. He was the one to first tip off the organization's scouts. Ironically, it was Predrag's mind that first got the team interested, even before they were able to see him perform on the pitch. Though scoring 4 goals in the game where the Schwarzwälder manager came to watch certainly helped his case.
11:00AM local time.
Predrag makes it to the Montreal United office. He's given the keys to the performance analysis room. There people are already waiting to give him reports on his teammates abilities and position preferences. It feels really weird to be working for the club as both a player and member of staff. High ranking member in fact.
Predrag takes all the folders and sorts them on his desk. He already watched several Montreal games from the previous season and has deemed it most effective to play the team in a 4-2-3-1, similar to how he played in Istanbul. Predrag takes out his laptop and loads up the most recent Montreal game.
12:15AM local time.
As Predrag was mulling over how to best use the team's right crosses, one of his coworkers glanced at his screen. Rachel, a woman in her early 30s, graduated top of her class in analytics. She had been in sport analytics since she graduated college. First in college basketball, then in the NBA, then she made a move to football. It's safe to say she was very experienced in the field. It was this experience that left her speechless in what she was seeing. Firstly, the video Predrag was looking at was 360p. It was so blurry to her eyes, she could barely make out the ball. Second was the several A4 pages of paper Predrag had already filled with notes.
"Excuse me sir." Rachel felt odd addressing Predrag. Though he was 10 years her junior and an athlete she would normally just be looking at on a screen, he was also now her boss technically. "Could I ask why you're watching the game at such low resolution?"
She feared asking him the question. She had worked with all sorts of people at this point. It didn't matter if they were doing things correctly or not, people would always get defensive about their work. The last thing she wanted was to leave a bad impression.
"It's the only video quality I have." Predrag answered nearly instantly. No change in his tone of voice.
"Come again?" Rachel asked, even more confused than before.
"These are downloaded videos from pirate websites. It's not like I had access to Montreal's personal recordings before I joined. And good internet was hard to get back where I was staying in Istanbul. Also I only have 200GB of storage on my laptop. So I just settled on getting the lowest video quality I can. That way I could save space and time." Predrag answered calmly, not even lifting his eyes off his notes.
"Right..." Rachel was partially satisfied. The idea of not having on demand HD video puzzled her but at least the explanation made sense.
She then looked at the notes. Clarke cross to Sinclair at 54th minute. Sukzuki mistimes run at 67th minute and is offside. Deflection from Millwall is caught by William at 14th minute. These were all moments from the game written down on paper form. Next to that were additional statistics. Szarekh completed 5/6 tackles. Williams punched 2/8 crosses in box. Maximiliano made 3/3 through balls.
"Sir, why are you writing all of this down? We have programs to track this data. You just submit it into the computer and it will keep track. At least use Excel." Rachel was stunned. This man was going performance analysis and tactical planning with pen and paper.
"I don't like Excel, too complicated to use. I get the job done easy enough with pen and paper." Predrag answered nonchalantly, as though he was fully confident what he was saying wasn't absurd.
Rachel sat down in her chair. Her soul practically leaving her body as she imagined what it would be like to work with Predrag for the whole season.
April 14th, 9:30PM local time.
Glory Montreal United! The chant echoed through out the stadium. Montreal had just beaten Seoul in the pre-season friendly 3-1 and it could have been even more. The man of the match? Predrag Dobrić with 2 assists and a rating of 9.0
Predrag made his way immediately to the analysis room after changing. Rachel and the others were surprised to see him there so soon.
"Oi, Rachel." Predrag called out to her.
"Yes boss?" She answered worried, half out of surprise he wanted to work on something so soon and half because his methods worked.
"Teach me to use Excel. I only had 2 hours a day to work on the tactic after analyzing the stats. The performance was not up to our standard and I can't let that happen again against North Shore."
"But sir, you won 3-1."
"I was brought here after Montreal already won the Minor League. I can't help them win, I have to help them dominate. So no. Performances like this aren't good enough. I need to be better on and off the pitch." Predrag said as he sat down at his desk and booted up his new computer.
"Yes sir! I'll help you with that immediately!" She couldn't decide if he was a madman or a genius. Probably both. But one thing she knew was that this season would be a lot more interesting.
This dramatic retelling of events was written by Predrag Dobrić and sponsored by Montreal United
![[Image: KYA7aL7.jpg]](https://i.imgur.com/KYA7aL7.jpg)
![[Image: n61tHmo.png]](https://i.imgur.com/n61tHmo.png)
