The Development Path and Development Curve
Below the fit sections, the report turns into evidence: a season-by-season table, a chart of the same story, and four short written summaries. This is where you check whether the circles told you the truth.
The Development Path table
One row per competition per season:
- Season — the football season, not the calendar year.
- Club
- Level — U17, U19, Senior.
- Tier — where that competition sits on its country's ladder.
- League — the competition's official name.
- GP, GS, G, A — games played, games started, goals, assists.
The two columns that carry the most information are Tier and GS. Tier tells you the standard; games started tells you whether the player was actually trusted at it. Read them together, top to bottom, and a career reads in about fifteen seconds.
Goals and assists are there for context and should be read with position in mind — a right-back with two goals in a season is not underperforming.
Split seasons
One season can occupy two rows when a league divides into a group stage and a promotion or qualification round. That is one season, not two, and the appearances are split across the rows accordingly.
The Development Curve
The same career as a chart, with the level and tier printed under each year, and points coloured positive, neutral, negative or no data.
It exists because a shape is faster to read than a table. A climb, a plateau and a slide all look like what they are. It is the visual companion to the Trajectory circle — when Trajectory says "Steep climb", the curve is where you see what that climb was made of.
The four written summaries
Around the curve sit four short analyses in plain English:
- Usage & Role Stability — how coaches have actually used this player, and whether trust in them has grown.
- Competitive Exposure Level — what standard they have genuinely been tested at, and when they stepped up.
- Development Trajectory — the shape of the career: progression, setbacks, and the response to them.
- Stability & Continuity — clubs, gaps, and whether playing time survived transitions.
These are the most forwardable part of the report. A head coach or athletic director who will not read a table will read four paragraphs, and they say the same thing the numbers do.
What to look for
- The tier letter moving down the page — a career climbing in real terms rather than in club names.
- GS close to GP — a player who starts, not just travels.
- The season after a move — did the appearances hold up? That is the closest thing in the record to a test of adapting.
- Any season with no rows — a gap. We do not say why; it is a good question to ask.