I wrote a book! Kind of.
All my 2026 season previews – in one place.
As regular readers will know, I’ve just completed my favourite project of the year: my season previews.
To commemorate that work, I’ve had them compiled into an e-book.
You can pay whatever you deem a fair price for it – including zero.
Click the button below to go to the product page, where you can download the e-book in either .epub or .pdf formats.
I’ve pasted the foreword down below, after the fold. Hopefully it provides all of you, especially new readers, with an insight into why I started One Percenters, why I so enjoy the season previews, and what I’d like to see it become in future.
My sincere thanks to everyone who reviewed a draft preview. My thanks also to my good friend Connor O’Brien, who did the design work for the book. He also designed my logo. The visual identity of One Percenters is entirely the product of his imagination. If ever you need graphic design work, please consider Connor.
Two years ago, I was someone who spent an unhealthy amount of time watching and thinking about footy, while also lamenting the relative absence of intellectually serious footy writing. Where was the writing, I wondered, that reflected my own preoccupations?
Today, I still spend an unhealthy amount of time watching and thinking about footy. But now, with One Percenters, I have somewhere to think about it in public.
The premise is simple: I try to write the kind of footy analysis I’d like to read. Writing that respects complexity. Writing that respects the intelligence of supporters. Writing that treats a game which exerts such unreasonable emotional control over us with the seriousness it deserves.
I haven’t always succeeded. But more or less by accident, I’ve found a niche with these season previews.
They allow me to appraise clubs from every angle – how they play, how they’ve built their lists, what could go right, and what could go wrong. Most of all, they let me pursue the question that defines One Percenters: what are clubs actually trying to do?
We already have a measure of how successfully clubs achieve their objectives. It’s called the ladder. Outcomes dominate footy coverage. But beneath outcomes lie processes and intentions. Those are just as interesting – and often more revealing. That’s what these previews attempt to capture.
It may seem strange to write this much – more than The Great Gatsby, apparently – about footy at all, and doubly strange when there’s no footy on. But February is when plans are still intact. It’s easier to understand intention before reality intervenes.
I’m certainly no oracle. I speak every day with people who know more about footy than I do, and many of them generously reviewed drafts of these previews. I’m grateful for their time - and solely responsible for any errors that remain.
If you believe there isn’t enough serious footy writing, I’d ask one thing: share this book. Tell your footy-mad friends about it. Subscribe if you haven’t. If you have a platform and want to talk footy, invite me on. If you have an idea to collaborate, reach out.
The response to this year’s previews has convinced me that One Percenters can be more than a hobby. It can be a community.
That’s enough from me. I hope this set of previews teaches you something about at least one club suiting up in 2026. If you’d like to argue about any of it, you know where to find me.
Hope your team makes you happy this season.
Mateo.
Have a friend you think would enjoy my book of 2026 season previews? Share it with them!
Thanks Mateo - I was wondering how to support this huge body of work that has me champing at the bit for this season. And now I have a way! Well done.