Jake's Road Report is Gemini Sports founder Jake Schuster’s weekly update from professional football's frontlines. He travels globally, meeting club executives to share candid insights on AI's role in football. These raw, actionable thoughts are delivered weekly, with meeting details kept confidential and specific intel omitted.

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‘Twas the weeks before January, and all across Europe, sporting directors were surveying their kingdoms (clubs), planning for the busiest transfer window of the year. Milk was in the fridge. Cookies were in the oven. Excel docs were scattered across desktops.

In the Kingdom of Chaos, a sporting director scrambled to finalize his shortlist. Notes from various agents lay strewn across his desk like discarded wrapping paper. Five browser tabs flickered open on his desktop—five disparate info streams that refused to speak to one another, like feuding relatives at the holiday table.

He summoned his 24-year-old data analyst for the tenth time that morning, incapable of answering his own questions. "How quickly do you need these answers?" the weary analyst asked. "One hour," came the royal decree.

Alas, his best data engineer had just accepted a position at a tech company for twice the gold—leaving no one to maintain the kingdom's creaky pipelines come January. But at least they had full control! They could brag about what they'd built in-house at all the finest football conferences across the land!

Meanwhile, in the Kingdom of Clarity, a different, happier tale unfolded.

Their sporting director arrived at their analyst's desk bearing gifts—insights already discovered by their AI copilot. "We know exactly what we want to focus on," they said with the confidence of someone who'd actually checked their list twice. "Can you, dear analyst, focus your considerable talents on deep-dive research? Find the granular details. Tell us exactly who we should prioritize, what we should pay, and how we can work with their agents."

The analyst smiled. Everything updated automatically. Progress was viewable in real-time within their AI app. No scrambling. No second-guessing. No wasting precious hours on questions that could and should be answered in seconds.

Back in the Kingdom of Chaos, the entire data team spent the day fixing a broken pipeline and debugging a button that prevented them from pushing the ball forward on their original questions. The sporting director checked his watch. His one-hour deadline had become four. Then eight. The shortlist remained unfinished, like a jigsaw puzzle with missing pieces.

But in the Kingdom of Clarity, something magical was happening. They were about to land the perfect player—ahead of their rivals, no less. They moved fast. Everyone stayed on the same page. They had clarity. They were decisive. While others were still scheduling meetings to discuss their meetings, they were shaking hands and announcing signings.

And so, dear reader, as the holidays approach and the January window looms, you face a choice as old as football itself:

Do you want winning transfers to wash down your eggnog?

Or do you just want to protect your turf, clutching your broken pipelines like Scrooge clutching his ledgers, muttering about the good old days when everything was done in-house?

The choice, as they say, is yours. But only one kingdom is getting what they want for Christmas.

And it's not the one still debugging buttons on December 23rd.

The End.

(Or is it just the beginning?)