I have supported Manchester United for a long time. That means I know what it feels like to believe in a plan, and then watch the plan fall over in the 88th minute.
Lately I think about this when I build software. A football club and a codebase have more in common than I expected.
Short term noise
One match tells you almost nothing. A lucky goal, a bad refereeing call, a tired week. Yet fans and pundits rewrite the whole story after every result.
I do the same with my projects. One bad deploy and I want to throw out the architecture. One good day and I think I am a genius.
Pick a direction and hold it
The worst years for any club are the ones with a new idea every few months. New manager, new style, new players who fit nothing. Nothing compounds.
Code works like that too. If I change my stack every month, I never get good at any of it. A boring decision kept for a year beats a perfect decision changed six times.
Systems beat stars
A great player can win you a game. A good system wins you a season. I try to build small habits and clear structure so my work does not depend on a lucky afternoon.
Patience is a skill, not a mood
I used to think patience was something you either had or did not. Now I think it is closer to a habit. You practice it in small moments.
When a refactor feels slow, I stop and look at what changed in the last week, not the last hour. Usually there is more progress than I felt. The same goes for a team table. Look at how the team plays over ten matches, not one.
Make the plan visible
Football fans argue forever because nobody wrote down what the plan was. Without that, every result can be explained any way you like.
I try to write my plan in a plain note before I start. What am I building? What would tell me it is working? What would tell me it is not? Then when a bad week comes, I can check the note instead of my mood.
This works well with AI tools too. If I give an agent a clear goal and a clear check, I can judge the result calmly. If I only have a vague feeling, I judge it by the last thing it did.
Small wins count
Clubs that build well celebrate small things. A clean sheet. A young player who gets his chance. A pattern of play that finally clicks.
I try to do the same. A test that now passes. A page that loads faster. A function that I can finally read without a headache. None of it is dramatic, but it adds up, and it keeps me going through the dull middle of a project.
The dull middle
Every project has a long dull middle. The start is exciting. The end is exciting. The middle is just work.
Football is the same. Most of a season is Tuesday nights and tired legs. The fans who stay are the ones who learned to like the middle.
Be patient, but not blind
Trusting the process does not mean ignoring evidence. If the plan fails for a long time, you look at it honestly. I try to ask one question: is this a bad week, or a bad idea?
Most of the time it is a bad week.
Anyway. That is how I try to think about it. Up the Reds.
