Reliability explained

Reliability answers the bluntest question on the report: when this player is available, are they a starter?

What it shows

Volume. How often the player starts, and how often they are in the squad at all, across their career. No variance, no direction, no context about level — just how much football this player actually plays.

The verdicts run: Always starts · Usually starts · Often starts · Sometimes starts · Rarely starts · Barely plays.

What it does not include

The level. A player who always starts in a fourth division reads the same on this circle as one who always starts in a first. That is intentional — the level question is answered by the Match Score and the tier column in the Development Path, and mixing the two would make both harder to read.

So Reliability is never the whole answer. It is the answer to "does this player play", which you then combine with "at what standard".

The pairs worth reading

• High Reliability, low tier — a genuine starter at a modest level. Often exactly what works in US college soccer, because the player arrives used to being relied on.
• Low Reliability, high tier — a squad player at a strong club. The name on the CV is impressive and the football played is not. This is the profile international recruiting gets wrong most often, and the circle exists to catch it.
• High Reliability, low Form — a career starter who is not playing right now. Injury, a new coach, a fallout, a transfer window; the record cannot say which, so ask.
• High Reliability, low Consistency — plays a lot, but in bursts. Look at the Development Path for where the gaps sit.

Why "starts" and not "minutes"

A starting place is a coach's judgment, repeated every week. It is the clearest available signal of what the people who see a player every day actually think of them — and it survives translation across leagues and countries in a way that raw minutes do not.

How to use it

Reliability is the circle to weight most heavily when you need someone who can contribute immediately, and to weight less when you are recruiting a project player two years from starting. Read it beside the tier letter in the Development Path — always, in both directions.