The Night Before A Big Interview
I have sat across from coaches, executives, and players more times than I can count, and there is always a version of me the night before who wants a shortcut. Something that gets me ready fast without doing the slow work. Over the years I have found one shortcut that actually holds up, and one that looks smart but wastes everyone’s time.
The Shortcut That Works: Read The Box Score Of Their Career, Not The Headlines
When I prep for a conversation, I skip the recent headlines about a person almost entirely. Headlines are written for someone scrolling past, not for someone trying to understand a career. Instead I go looking for the plain record: where someone started, what job they had before the one people know them for, what changed between one season and the next.
This takes less time than people assume. A roster archive, an old program note, a league press release from five years ago. None of it is exciting to read. All of it tells you more than a quote someone gave a bigger outlet last month.
Here is why this works. Most people being interviewed have already answered the headline question a dozen times. Ask it again and you get the polished answer, the one they have said so often it has worn smooth. Ask about the year they moved from an assistant role to running their own program, and you get something they have not rehearsed. That is where the real conversation starts.
The Shortcut That Does Not Work: Building Questions Off Other Interviews
The tempting move, especially on a tight schedule, is to read three or four other interviews with the same person and build your questions from the gaps you notice. It feels efficient. You are triangulating, using other people’s work to shortcut your own.
It does not work, and I learned this the slow way. If you build questions off other interviews, you end up asking a variant of what has already been asked. The subject recognizes the shape of the question immediately, even if the wording is new, and they reach for the same answer. You get color, maybe, but not substance. Worse, you inherit whatever the other interviewer missed.
If three people asked about the championship and nobody asked about the losing season before it, you will probably skip it too, because nothing in your prep pointed you there.
The record does not have that blind spot. A roster page does not care what angle another reporter chose. It just tells you what happened.
What This Looks Like In Practice
Before I sit down with a coach, I want to know two or three specific, unglamorous facts. What was the record the year before the one everyone remembers. Who they reported to early on. What position group or age level they worked with before the one they are known for now.
I do not lead with these facts. I hold them until the moment the conversation slows down, usually ten minutes in, when the rehearsed answers run out. Then I ask about the year that does not usually come up. Nine times out of ten, that is where the interview actually starts.
Why This Matters More In Soccer Specifically
Soccer careers, especially in the US, rarely move in a straight line. People coach club before college, or move from playing to broadcasting to the front office and back to a sideline. The straight-line career, the one that fits neatly in a bio paragraph, is rare. That means the box score approach pays off more here than it would with a subject whose path is simple to summarize in one sentence.
It also means I have to do this work myself. There is no shortcut where someone else has already mapped the interesting turns for me, because in soccer the interesting turns are usually the parts a short bio leaves out.
The Habit I Would Pass On
If you interview people for a living, or even occasionally, resist the urge to build your prep off what other people have already produced. Go to the plain record instead. It is slower by twenty minutes and it is the difference between an answer someone has given before and one they have not.