Post-match player and head coach rating guide

The match ends; on television, experts give players marks, and newspapers publish their own ratings the next day. What they all share is a single point of view. Even two people watching the same match can give a player very different marks. In TacticIQ, the fans do this job: at the end of the match you rate the players and the head coach, and the result combined with other users' ratings forms the community average. This guide explains how to make rating fairer and more instructive.

How does rating work?

When the match ends, the Rating screen opens. Here:

• You give each player a rating by category. The categories for outfield players are: shooting, passing, dribbling, defending, duels, discipline, tactics, mentality and fitness. For goalkeepers, categories specific to the keeper are used, such as saves, penalties, aerial balls, reflexes and distribution.
• Goalkeeper categories are only for goalkeepers, and outfield categories are not applicable to goalkeepers; the app prevents wrong matching.
• If you want, you can give the same mark to all categories. This is a quick option, but for those who prefer a detailed evaluation, going category by category is more meaningful.

The head coach evaluation is a separate section and covers seven categories: result and expectation management, first XI and formation decisions, substitutions, in-match reaction, discipline and team control, post-match management, and relations with the press. According to the app's information text, a user who has made a squad and prediction can do the evaluation; the head coach evaluation is reserved for PRO members. Since the scope of plans may change over time, check the current status in the app.

Why nine dimensions instead of one score?

Saying that a player played "good" or "bad" often gives incomplete information. A striker may not have scored but may have contributed greatly to the team with runs that opened the opposing defence and with pressing. A defender may have made one mistake but played flawlessly for the other 89 minutes. Splitting into dimensions creates room for you to make this fine distinction.

Category-by-category rating has three benefits:

1. You are not influenced by one big moment: Post-match anger or joy prevents a single position from erasing the whole performance.
2. Strengths and weaknesses separate: A player with good shooting and passing but weak defending will appear with that profile in the community average.
3. Your own observation skill develops: To rate a player's passing, you have to pay attention to his passing choices. This changes how you look at a match while watching.

Man of the Match: one vote

In the Man of the Match (MOTM) vote you have one vote. The app asks for confirmation for the player you vote for; if you later choose another player, the vote moves there, so you cannot vote for two players at the same time. This rule forces a single "best" decision. For a good Man of the Match choice:

• The player who scored and the player who won the match may not be the same; think about the assist provider, the player who won the ball, and the defence as well.
• Separate individual brilliance from the contribution to the team.
• Try to justify your choice in one sentence: "Because in the second half he set the direction of play in midfield."

In the app there are also badges tied to correctly identifying the Man of the Match over a set number of matches; so accuracy in this choice also shows in your history.

Filter your emotions

The biggest enemy of the rating screen is last-minute anger or joy. If your team conceded in the last minute, you may tend to punish players too much; if you won the match with a goal in stoppage time, you may want to give the whole team a 10. A small method for this:

• Wait two minutes: Don't give marks as soon as the match ends. Drink some water and recall how the first half was played.
• Think about the average first: For each player, ask "what was this match's standard performance?", then make deviations between categories.
• Don't get swept along by the chat: Don't change your marks according to the emotional flow in the room. For the shared and other rooms, our match chat guide may help; but base your mark on your own watching.

How does the community average form?

The marks you give are combined in the app with the marks of other users and shown as the community average. When there is no connection, marks are saved locally and added to the community average when the internet returns; the app shows this as "saved locally, will be added to the community average when online." What the community average gives you is the chance to compare your own view with the crowd's view.

Two warnings here:

• The average does not show the truth; it only shows what the crowd thinks. In a sample where team supporters are the majority, marks may be biased.
• An average formed with a small number of votes is unreliable. If the number of votes is low, be cautious when interpreting the results.

A post-match checklist

Before rating, quickly answer these questions:

• Did this player adapt to the team's game plan?
• Did he make up for his mistakes, or did he repeat them?
• How did he behave in critical moments (before a goal, after a goal, under pressure)?
• How good was the team? The overall team performance pulls individual marks up or down; but don't exaggerate this.

Answering these questions for each player can take a long time; at least apply them to Man of the Match candidates and the most debated performances.

Make rating part of your football intelligence

You can use the marks you give after each match as a reference for future matches. The category trend in the marks you give the same player over several consecutive matches paints a concrete picture of his strengths and weaknesses. This also lets you make more informed choices when building your squad before the next match (see our build your own XI guide). For the general framework of match reading, you can look at our football intelligence article.

Conclusion

Post-match rating is one of the least noticed but most instructive parts of TacticIQ. Thinking category by category makes you a more careful viewer; a one-vote Man of the Match choice strengthens your decision-making; the community average lets you test your own view. Do the rating after taking a breath, not in the moment of emotion.