Football coach replacement – short-term effect on performance
Football coach replacement – short-term effect on performance

Summary/Abstract: Sporting performance is undoubtedly one of the key aspects of the way in which professional clubs operate. Insufficient results often result in coach turnover. The initial motivation to replace the coach suggests that improvement should come after the change. This paper aims at determining how the rotation on the coach position influences football clubs’ short-term sporting performance. The material for analysis consists of ten games before and ten games after each coach replacement in Premier League and La Liga in the past three seasons from 2018 to 2021. A statistical analysis is conducted to determine and highlight the difference in performance in respective time frames before and after the turnover. The analysis helped to understand that coach replacement does in fact come with a performance booster in most cases – the teams generally benefit short-term. Drawing conclusions from the analysis, it needs to be noted that this positive effect quickly wears off. Eventually, however, accumulated data is an indicator that the shock-therapy, which coach turnover is, works. When the performance regresses, rotation on coaches’ chair should be considered as a possible solution.

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