Compass

What Compass is

Compass describes how a player, a side or a coach plays. It does not say how good they are. 2 players can sit at the same point on the wheel and be 3 divisions apart in quality; the point tells you they solve the game the same way. Ratings, role scores and the stat tabs answer the ability question. Compass answers the fit question: will this profile suit this side, this coach, this position, this way of playing.

Every profile is built from the last 12 months of matches in the leagues FDscout tracks, refreshed every night. A player needs 600 minutes in that window to be placed, and his lean settles fully at 900; a side or a coach needs 8 matches, and the placing settles fully at 20. Anyone under that gets no point rather than a guessed one.

The wheel

The wheel has 8 sectors running clockwise from the top: Organiser, Enforcer, Igniter, Entertainer, Connector, Facilitator, Regulator and Architect. The right half is direct and the left half patient; the top half is measured and the bottom half adventurous. A profile's position is a direction (which sector) and a distance from the middle (how strong the lean is).

The 4 colours are the 4 energies. Blue at the top left is Control, red at the top right is Drive, gold at the bottom right is Spark and green at the bottom left is Link. 4 sectors sit in the heart of one colour (Enforcer in Drive, Entertainer in Spark, Facilitator in Link, Architect in Control) and 4 sit on the line between 2 (Organiser between Control and Drive, Igniter between Drive and Spark, Connector between Spark and Link, Regulator between Link and Control). A player's colour mix is the pie next to his name, and the same mix drives the bars on page 2 of every report.

Click any sector name on any wheel for its definition; report wheels also carry a question mark beside each name. Any underlined term in the text opens its definition where you are.

The rings

The rings say how strong the lean is, and they are set by rank rather than by a fixed number. Among every ranked profile of the same kind, the 8% nearest the middle read Centre, the next 22% Adaptable, the next 45% Classic and the strongest 25% Pronounced. So the share in each ring is the same for players and for sides, coaches are placed on the sides' scale, and a Pronounced Igniter is in the top quarter for that lean.

• Centre: no sector dominates. The profile mixes its neighbours and shifts with the game. Read the badge as a tendency, not a type.
• Adaptable: a lean rather than a rule. The style shows in some games and not in others, and the profile can be asked to play another way without much loss.
• Classic: a clear lean that shows in most games. This is the typical member of the sector, the one the definition describes.
• Pronounced: a strong lean that shows in nearly every game. The style is fixed enough that a system asking for the opposite will fight it.

Players are ranked against players in the same position group, so a Pronounced full-back is pronounced for a full-back. Sides and coaches are ranked against every covered side.

In and out of possession

Every profile has 2 points, one with the ball and one without it, and the report shows one at a time with a toggle above each wheel. The 8 sectors keep their geometry out of possession but take different names, because the same lean means something different without the ball: Reader, Interceptor, Presser, Hunter, Challenger, Ambusher, Sentinel and Screener. The right half is front foot and the left half contained; the top half reads the game and the bottom half commits to challenges.

The 2 points rarely match. A patient Architect with the ball can be a front-foot Presser without it, and that gap is part of the profile. The report calls it flow.

Energies and flow

Underneath the sectors sit 4 energies, each scored from 0 to 6: Control, Drive, Spark and Link. Control is measured and patient; Drive is direct and measured, getting the ball forward early; Spark is risk, invention and running at people; Link is combination and finding the pass between the lines. A sector is a blend of 2 energies, so the bars on page 2 show what the badge is made of. Click any bar for what that energy means on that side of the ball.

Flow is the shift between the in possession point and the out of possession point, measured in degrees around the wheel and named for the energy it moves towards. A small shift means the player or side plays the same way with and without the ball. A large shift means the 2 halves of his game are different, which matters for how a coach uses him. The same holds for a side.

The player report

The Compass tab on a player profile is a 4 page report, and the pie next to his name is the short version: click it for both badges, the flow line and the overview.

• Page 1, Profile: the badges for both sides, the wheel with his point, the overview in plain language and how to read the wheel.
• Page 2, Colour dynamics: the energy bars for both sides, what he brings and how to use him.
• Page 3, Facets and fit: the facets behind his point, where he may frustrate, his opposite type, and the systems line, which reads the 60 profiles nearest his and tells you what kind of sides players like him mostly play in.
• Page 4, History and method: the trail of his monthly points since Compass began recording them, so you can see whether the profile is settled or moving, and the method behind the numbers.

Minutes are his last 12 months across clubs, so a player who moved in the window is read across both sides. The trail shows the move if it changed him.

Teams and coaches

A side's point is read from its own matches, not from its players. With the ball it reads tempo (direct or patient: long balls, crosses and possession) and approach (measured or adventurous: shot selection and dribbling). Without it, engagement (front foot or contained: passes allowed per defensive action, the opponents' completion, fouls and defensive actions per minute of opponent possession) and manner (reading the game or committing to challenges: interceptions against tackles, fouls and cards). Every measure is a rate or a share of the side's own play, so a side that has less of the ball is not punished for it.

The team report has 5 pages: The side, Colour dynamics, The squad and who fits, Recruit for this side, and History and method. The first page also shows the squad average from the players' own profiles as a hollow marker next to the club crest. They are different readings. The crest is how the side plays; the hollow marker is what its players would do left to themselves. Squad averages sit near the middle for almost every club, because averaging 20 players cancels them out, so read the crest first.

A coach's point is read from the matches he coached in the window, across every club in that time, using exactly the measures a side uses. Each spell gets its own point once it holds 8 matches. His report shows his sides, the typical squad for the way he sets up, and his current squad mapped on the wheel with his own point marked, so you can see who already plays his way and who is being asked to play against their preferences.

Style fit and recruitment

Style fit puts a number on how closely a player's profile matches what his position usually looks like in sides that play like the one in question. FDscout takes the 40 sides nearest the team's point, reads their profiled players by position, and builds a typical profile for each position from them. A player's fit is his distance from that typical point, scaled by how widely the position varies in those sides: 100 sits on the point, the high 60s is the usual range for the system, and under 35 is a different way of playing.

That scaled score is the one in the squad table and on the coach page. The fit number beside a search result, a quiz result, a recruit candidate or a similar side is simpler: plain distance on the wheel, where 100 is the same spot and 0 the far side.

Fit is style, never ability. A 49 does not say a player is poor. It says his profile is a long way from what that system usually asks of his position, which can be exactly what a coach wants if the plan is to change. Pair the number with ratings and role scores before anyone gets a name on a list.

The recruit page on a team report searches the whole database for a position with 3 targets to choose from:

• Like for like: nearest to the players already in that position at the club.
• Fit the system: nearest to what that position usually looks like in sides that play like this one.
• A new direction: nearest to what that position looks like in sides that play a chosen way, set by clicking a point on the wheel, by picking a reference club, or by picking a coach.

Leagues and age filter the pool, and any result opens a preview with both badges before you open the full profile.

Search the wheel, describe a profile, league wheel

The Compass page in the sidebar has 3 ways in. Search the wheel lets you drag a point onto the in possession wheel, and the out of possession one if you want both, then filters by pitch position, league, age range and minutes to list the players nearest that point. Describe a profile asks 8 questions in the standard set or 16 in the detailed one, with a most and a least answer to each, and turns your answers into a point on the wheel with the players who match it. League wheel maps every profiled player in the leagues you pick, coloured by position, so you can see where a league's full-backs or strikers cluster and click any dot for a preview.

Questions people ask

• Does a low fit mean a bad player? No. It means a different style from the one that system usually uses. Ability lives in the ratings.
• Why has a player's point moved? The window is always the last 12 months, so a change of role, club or coach shifts it gradually as old matches drop out. Page 4 shows the trail.
• Why is the squad average in the middle? Averaging many players cancels their leans. The side's own point, read from its matches, is the reading to use.
• Why does a side have no point? Fewer than 8 matches in the window, or a league that does not supply every measure. Compass gives no point rather than a partial one.
• Are goalkeepers included? Not yet. Goalkeepers play a different game and will get their own wheel.
• Does league strength change anything? No. Compass reads style only, so a Pronounced Igniter in League Two and one in the Premier League sit in the same sector on purpose.

Every sector, ring and energy

The definitions below are the same ones the popups use, generated from the current Compass definitions so they never drift. Click any name to open it.

[[compass-library]]

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