Questions to Ask Soccer Players
Questions for talking with a soccer player, whether for an interview, a school project, or plain curiosity, covering position and off-ball work, talking on the pitch, injuries, playing time, and what the game has cost them.
The questions
Open any question for the note
What position do you play, and did you pick it or were you put there?
Why ask it
Position is the quickest route into how someone sees the game, and being converted, a forward pushed into midfield or a midfielder dropped to full back, usually comes with a story about what a coach saw that they had not.
Who taught you the game, and what did they drill into you?
Why ask it
Most players can name one person and one instruction: first touch away from pressure, head up before the ball arrives, never dive in. That instruction is often still visible in how they play twenty years later.
What are you doing during the stretches when the ball is nowhere near you?
Why ask it
Off-ball work is most of the ninety minutes and almost never discussed. Answers about scanning, holding a line, or shepherding a runner separate players who think about the game from those who only play their own moments.
What does a good player do that most spectators never notice?
Why ask it
This invites them to explain their craft to an outsider, which most players enjoy. Expect something unglamorous: the decoy run that drags a defender away, the yard of space bought by standing still.
What are you thinking about in the ten seconds before a corner?
Why ask it
Set pieces are the one part of the game where everyone has a rehearsed job. Asking about the ten seconds before, rather than about the goal, gets you the plan and usually the argument about the plan.
Where do you look when the ball comes to you with your back to goal?
Why ask it
A technical question with a real answer: the far shoulder, the nearest support, or nowhere, because they decided before the ball left the passer. Vagueness here usually means a young player nobody has coached on it yet.
How do you and the players around you talk during a game?
Why ask it
On-pitch communication is invisible from the stands. The answer usually reveals who actually organizes the team, and it is often not the captain.
Which opponent has made you feel slow?
Why ask it
Better than asking about their toughest opponent, because it requires them to concede something. Players remember the one who beat them repeatedly and are usually generous about it once the fixture is behind them, so a flat refusal to name anybody is itself worth noting.
What is the difference between your level and one level above it?
Why ask it
Anyone who has moved up a division answers this precisely: the ball arrives faster, mistakes get punished, there is no time to look twice. A player who describes the gap as being about fitness or desire rather than about time on the ball has usually not been tested above their own level yet.
How much of your game is what the coach asked for, and how much is yours?
Why ask it
Every player negotiates between instruction and instinct. If they cannot separate the two, they are either very well drilled or not thinking much about it, and one follow-up will tell you which.
What does a coach say at halftime that actually changes the second half?
Why ask it
Cuts through the mythology of the halftime speech. The answers that ring true are tactical and dull: press the other shoulder, stop passing into the left channel, pick up the short corner.
How do you handle a teammate who has stopped tracking back?
Why ask it
Discipline problems get dealt with by players long before a coach hears about them. How they answer says more about whether the dressing room works than any question about team spirit.
What do fans blame the referee for that is not really the referee's fault?
Why ask it
Gives them room to defend an official, which players do more often than supporters expect, and it surfaces the decisions that are genuinely impossible to make from twenty yards away at full speed.
What is it like watching from the bench?
Why ask it
Being left out is the most common experience in the sport and the least discussed. Watch whether they can describe it without insisting it was fine, because almost nobody finds it fine.
What was your worst injury, and what did coming back feel like?
Why ask it
The return is the honest part, not the injury. Most players describe months of not trusting the leg long after being cleared to play, and coaches rarely hear about that.
What has actually made a difference to how you recover?
Why ask it
Ask what changed rather than what they believe in. You will hear about sleep, dull food, and one specific piece of rehab, and often which fashionable recovery routines they think are theater.
What does your week look like when there are two games in it?
Why ask it
Fixture congestion is where amateur and professional schedules diverge most. The answer shows how much of their life the sport takes, including travel and the day after a match, which nobody counts.
What has the game cost you outside of it?
Why ask it
The trade-offs are concrete: school, jobs, friendships, family events missed. Asking this way gets a straighter answer than asking whether they have found balance, which invites a tidy answer nobody believes.
Where do you want to be in three years, and what is the plan if that does not happen?
Why ask it
The second half is the part most young players have never been asked out loud. Whether they have any answer matters more than what the answer is.
What would you say to a ten year old who is the best player on their team?
Why ask it
Being the best in a small pond is a well-known trap and experienced players have watched it end careers. The advice that comes back is usually about habits rather than talent.
Talking to soccer players without getting clichés
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Choosing the moment
- Not in the ten minutes after a loss. That soon, clichés are all anyone has to give.
- After training beats before it. Beforehand they are preparing; afterwards they are tired and talkative.
- If the player is a minor, clear it with the club or a parent first. Many academies require this and will say no to an ambush.
- For a podcast or school project, send two questions in advance so they can think, and keep the rest live so the answers are not pre-written.
Getting past the stock answers
- Anchor questions to a specific match, minute, or opponent. General questions get the general answers players are trained to give.
- Use the sport's own vocabulary: the position, the phase of play, the fixture. Speaking the language earns a real answer faster than enthusiasm does.
- Do not offer your theory before their answer. Most players will politely agree with you and the answer will be worthless.
- When someone says the team came first, ask what they personally gave up for it. The second answer is the honest one.
Adjusting for who you are talking to
- Youth players: keep to their own experience and stay off selection, playing time, and comparisons with teammates.
- Adult amateurs: the interesting material is fitting the game around work, money, and family, not tactics.
- Retired players: expect far more candor about coaches, injuries, and pay than a current player can afford.
- Professionals: assume every obvious question has been put to them hundreds of times, and choose the narrow ones instead.
Questions that go nowhere
- Who is the greatest of all time.
- Asking a player to criticize a current teammate or coach on the record.
- How does it feel, at any point in any conversation.
- Wages and transfer rumors, which they either cannot discuss or will not.