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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In September 2008, Nike ran a billboard with a short, hard-hitting headline that was good enough to make me remember it over 17 years later:

“Yesterday you said tomorrow.”

In just four words, the brand delivered a message to athletes everywhere who'd made themselves a promise—to work out, to eat clean, to get strong, etc.—and inevitably broken it. In just four words, Nike called all of us out and made us rethink the promises we’d made and broken to ourselves.

In my line of work, I talk to Sporting Directors at all types of clubs all over the world. Big budgets and penny pinchers. Old school and new school. Champions League regulars and promotion hopefuls. And one thing I've noticed again and again—so many Sporting Directors make promises to themselves they cannot and do not keep.

They're always saying they want to be innovative, more efficient, faster with decision-making, nimbler when unexpected opportunities arise. But another transfer window passes with the same old system in place. Flying by the seat of their pants. Exhausted by the end. Unsure if their new signings will pan out. They say they’ll modernize, and then the cycle repeats.

Sound familiar?

Here's what I hear constantly: “We know we need better systems. We'll look at it after this window.” “We'll modernize our process once we sort out the January signings.” “We'll invest in proper tools when we have more budget next season.”

Yesterday you said tomorrow.

The problem isn't that Sporting Directors don't know what needs to change. They know their scouts are working in silos. They know their analysts are buried in busywork. They know their decision-making takes days when it should take hours. They know all of this. 

And yet, nothing changes.

The reasons are pretty obvious. Because change is uncomfortable. Because the current system is “good enough” until it catastrophically isn't. Because there's always a reason to wait—this window is too important, next month is too busy, the timing isn't quite right.

The clubs that consistently win aren't the ones with the biggest budgets.

They're the ones whose Sporting Directors had the courage to say “today” when everyone else said “tomorrow.”