This is from a McKinsey report on how European clubs turn budget into team quality. The research points to a principle: don’t buy what you’re good at building.
The starting point is self-awareness: knowing what you’re already good at building and the constraints you operate within. Constraints reduce optionality and force the deliberate design of a bespoke strategy.
Building a team comes down to the most important decisions a club makes: identifying, recruiting, developing, retaining and releasing player and staff talent. Good decisions across these determine whether a club succeeds.
Team performance is the product of those decisions, measured in results and player value growth. Player development and recruitment expertise and infrastructure are the biggest levers for improving the club’s long-term success.