How research works
Where Specula looks, how it checks what it finds, and how it handles uncertainty.
1. Identify the player
Specula first pins down exactly who you mean — full name, club, position and date of birth. If several real players share a name, it asks you to choose.
2. Search trusted sources
It searches the live web, prioritising:
- Transfermarkt — profile, market value, contract, transfer history, representation
- FBref — season statistics, advanced metrics and published percentile profiles
- Sofascore — match-level and season statistics
- Official club, league and federation websites — squad details, appearances, honours
- Reputable football media — context, interviews and reported interest
It then reads the most relevant pages in full to extract exact figures rather than relying on search snippets.
For analytics, it resolves the player's club, competition and season, then reads that competition's complete player table from a statistics provider approved for commercial use and builds the peer charts from those rows. If no approved provider covers the competition, the report says so rather than using another source. Research reads and cites individual pages to answer your question; it never copies a site's data wholesale.
For public and fan sentiment, Specula sweeps X, Reddit and supporter forums with many phrasings and every form of the player's name, widening from the last four weeks to three months and then the season until there is enough to read. Posts are kept with their link, author and date so the report can only quote what a post actually says. They're used only for the sentiment section, never as evidence of ability.
3. Cross-check
Important facts and statistics are checked against more than one source wherever possible. When providers disagree, Specula prefers the most recent authoritative source and notes the discrepancy. It uses the most recent data available and always states the competition, season and timeframe for each statistic.
4. Verify every citation
Before a report is saved, every source it cites is checked against the pages that were actually retrieved during the research. Figures that cannot be matched to a retrieved source are removed and noted under Research limitations. This is what keeps reports free of invented numbers.
5. Write the report
Finally Specula writes the scouting report (or, for a club, a team report): verified facts, clearly labelled scouting interpretation, charts drawn only from sourced numbers — each stating its competition, season and comparison group — and a full list of sources with the date each was checked.