How social platforms manufacture instant football coaches ⚽📱

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If a coaching license were handed out for every hot take posted on social media, Cameroon would have an army of head coaches by now. With the national team off to a strong start at the Women’s AFCON currently underway in Morocco, the commentary is flooding every platform — a small but telling sign of how deeply technology has reshaped the way fans consume and critique football.

An old digital habit, turbocharged📲

Weighing in before, during and after a match is nothing new for football fans. What used to happen in barbershops and living rooms before internet access spread across Cameroon has simply moved onto the algorithm-driven feeds of social platforms — and it’s only accelerated since. How did we get here? Much of it traces back to the football-specific groups and pages where the habit took root.

« I noticed this happening in groups dedicated purely to sports, football especially. Debriefs, coaching sessions, self-styled pundits — the digital machine has been running for a long time, » says Moïse, a supporter of the Indomitable Lionesses.

The race to create content 🎥

Coaching sessions and post-match debriefs eventually spilled over onto broader, general-audience platforms. By simplifying football talk for a wider crowd, these platforms let even casual viewers reinvent themselves as sports analysts from behind a screen.

« The other platforms want you talking drama, players’ private lives, anything — as long as it’s loosely tied back to on-field performance, »

says Nicole, a self-declared « Églisienne » — the well-known Cameroonian nickname for die-hard fans of Samuel Eto’o, currently president of the Cameroonian Football Federation (FECAFOOT).

Betting apps: the digital engine behind it all 🎲

Online sports betting has done more than anything else to fuel this rise of armchair football criticism. Dedicated groups trade predictions, odds and breakdowns of team strengths and weaknesses, run by self-appointed betting « coaches. » These apps and platforms, powered by prediction algorithms, sell the illusion that expertise is available to anyone willing to log in. Plenty buy into it — Roméo among them:

« These tips basically train you, like a real course. Whoever understands the system best is going to win. In a way, we’ve become mini football coaches ourselves, » he says.

A merciless digital VAR 🔍

That prediction culture also feeds a constant wave of criticism aimed at professionals who are, first and foremost, human beings with real emotions. Picking apart players’, teams’ or clubs’ performances for personal gain can take a real emotional toll on the people on the receiving end. Global football hasn’t been spared either: several players have reportedly spoken out about the psychological weight of this kind of online pressure.

All of which proves that online coaching rarely equals genuine expertise — the kind needed to actually judge a player’s physical and mental readiness. Beyond posting a take online, it still takes a license and real know-how to work with these professionals on the pitch.

Do you think social media has done more harm than good to football analysis? Tell us in the comments.