SIDELINE — how it came to be
A planning and analysis tool for football coaches. Born from the weekly pain of cobbling together a meaningful training session every Thursday evening.
Why this exists
I've coached my son's team at TSV Weilimdorf for years. Thursday 6pm: shorts on, whistle out, off to the pitch. Thursday noon: still no clue what I'm going to do. Scroll through last year's Excel sheet, pick a few drills, hope the balance is okay. That was my "training planning" for years.
Eventually it started to bother me. I wanted a tool that helps me plan structurally — not one that does the work for me, but one that nudges me when there hasn't been a finishing drill in three weeks.
Time invested
Hard to say. A few weekends to get something usable, then ongoing background work — maybe one or two hours a week, depending on what's annoying me at the moment. Most of it built late evenings after the kids are down, or Sunday mornings with coffee.
What worked
- Treating training sessions as drafts was the right call. Capture an idea, revisit three days later, then publish — or trash it.
- Modeling learning goals as a first-class concept. Suddenly I can see what I actually covered this season.
- AI as an assistant, not an authority. Suggestions yes, "write the whole session" no. Took several iterations to land that ratio.
What didn't
- First UI iteration was too complex. Modes for everything. I didn't trust myself to use it.
- Early AI prompt was too authoritative — generated whole sessions out of the box that I'd just throw away. Now it only delivers building blocks I curate.
- Migrations, because I rebuilt the schema more often than I care to admit.
Where I am now
I plan trainings with it. Other coaches at the club ask for access. That's the most honest validation there is.