Athlete Journal

How to Use the Football Athlete Journal

The Athlete Journal is a free tool for football players to log their season from an individual perspective — games, actions, call-ups and personal statistics, all stored locally on the device with no account or installation required.

Setting Up the Athlete Profile

In the Setup tab, enter your name, shirt number and athlete ID. The athlete ID is provided by your coach to cross-reference your journal entries with the team's Action Stats Tracker. You can also add a profile photo and your club name. This tab is also where you configure action categories and their specific actions, and the stadiums where you regularly play.

Logging Competitions, Opponents and Games

Use the Competitions and Opponents tabs to build your season database. In the Games tab, log each match with competition, matchday, opponent, date, stadium and whether it was home or away. All this data is available to link to your actions and call-ups.

Recording In-Game Actions

In the Analysis tab, select the game and use the timer to log actions in real time or after the match. For each action: choose the category, the specific action, mark the position on the pitch and confirm. You can also record the goal location for finishing actions. Ball possession can be timed per period.

Call-ups

The Call-ups tab within Games lets you check whether you were selected and in what role (GK, starter, bench). The coach exports the call-up and you can import it into your journal, cross-referencing with your actions logged for that game.

Statistics and Export

The Statistics tab shows totals by action, player and game throughout the season. Use Export to save all data as a JSON file — you can import it into the coach's Action Stats Tracker or transfer it to another device.

Sync Data Between Tools

Each tool stores its data on your device. If you created or changed data (team, opponents, competitions, games and venues) in another SportsLabTools football tool, press Sync data, next to Export, to bring it in here — no need to export and import files. New items are added, changed items take the most recent version and items you deleted in another tool are removed. Data that belongs only to this tool is not affected.

Football Athlete Journal Features

• Athlete profile — Name, number, athlete ID, photo and club.
• Game management — Competition, matchday, opponent, date, stadium and home/away.
• Action logging — With category, specific action, pitch position and timer.
• Call-ups — Linked to the game, with position and note.
• Personal statistics — By action, game and full season.
• Export/Import JSON — Compatible with the coach's Action Stats Tracker.

Tips for Athletes

• Use the athlete ID provided by your coach so your actions can be cross-referenced with the team analysis.
• Log actions right after the game while memory is fresh — the timer lets you adjust the minute manually.
• Export the analysis data for a specific game to share with your coach directly from the Analysis tab.
• Use custom action categories to track the aspects of your game you want to improve — shots, duels, possession, passes.
• Compare statistics across games to track your progress throughout the season.

Personal Metrics by Position in Football

The journal gets more valuable when your action categories reflect your position on the pitch: a centre-back gains more from tracking aerial duels won and interceptions, a full-back benefits from counting successful crosses and recovered defensive runs, a midfielder should isolate key passes and ball recoveries in midfield, and a forward gets more out of tracking shots on target and successful runs in behind. Adjust your custom categories to your position instead of using the generic defaults — your progress becomes much clearer over the season.

Related Articles

Go deeper with these articles from our blog: Training Journal for Young Football Players: Track Your Progress and The Psychology of Pre-Season (Football): How to Build a Collective Mindset Early.