Good point about the lack of evolution in the football analytics discussion. Sometimes I hear "this team underlying numbers..." and I think, yeah, you mean almost literally this team's xG.
I follow the NBA closely and I'm a bit more optimistic about this tho. My feeling with the NBA is that the teams are obviously way more forward than the public knowledge about analytics, but there are more or less constant improvements in the public discussion. It will be slower in football beacuse there's much less 'stats culture' in the fans and the media, but I guess we will eventually get there somehow
As someone who follows both Baseball and Football, one long term effect of all (most?) teams using some form of data analysis is that it has been quite anti-player and been used to suppress earnings. Maybe as a less closed shop across Europe (for now…and the EPL makes this arguable too) this won’t be as much of a worry. Publicly there has been some interesting things about biomechanics that have filtered from teams to the public a bit in baseball and that could be interesting in the future for football
You might want to read an article that was just published in Sports Illustrated about how the reliance on data and analytics in baseball has fundamentally changed the relationship and roles of the front office and manager and think about what could mean for this sport.
Brilliant article, thanks Grace! Certainly helped with my Christmas list ideas haha.
Quite a sobering conclusion. Hopefully unattached persons can keep progressing things as best they can, but as you say it will be hard if they keep getting picked off by clubs. And then we had this week fbref switching from statsbomb to opta data so felt like the whole free data market went backwards about 3 years in one fell swoop.
It's interesting in formula 1 , which I also follow closely, how when personell switch teams they often have ludicrous gardening leave periods in-between jobs, to allow time for their knowledge of the previous teams designs and ideas to become more obselete. Wonder if we will see the same in football.
‘I was just a nerd who liked football and found it fascinating to learn more about how the sport really worked.’
Hey me too!
I stumbled across Statsbomb around the same time
‘I’m a writer with a degree in film studies who doesn’t know how to code. I just looked at analytics work done by others and used it to tell stories about football.’
I gave this type of writing a go after an accounting degree, wasn’t quite me and I gave coding a go and it wasn’t the right fit either.
Like yourself I enjoy looking at the analytics work of others to find out more about how the sport works.
I’ve found conferences useful for keeping up to date with what is happening in the space alas with covid I’ve not been to any for a while.
Talking for 10-15 minutes with Barcelona Innovation Hub was really interesting back in 2019.
Good point about the lack of evolution in the football analytics discussion. Sometimes I hear "this team underlying numbers..." and I think, yeah, you mean almost literally this team's xG.
I follow the NBA closely and I'm a bit more optimistic about this tho. My feeling with the NBA is that the teams are obviously way more forward than the public knowledge about analytics, but there are more or less constant improvements in the public discussion. It will be slower in football beacuse there's much less 'stats culture' in the fans and the media, but I guess we will eventually get there somehow
As someone who follows both Baseball and Football, one long term effect of all (most?) teams using some form of data analysis is that it has been quite anti-player and been used to suppress earnings. Maybe as a less closed shop across Europe (for now…and the EPL makes this arguable too) this won’t be as much of a worry. Publicly there has been some interesting things about biomechanics that have filtered from teams to the public a bit in baseball and that could be interesting in the future for football
You might want to read an article that was just published in Sports Illustrated about how the reliance on data and analytics in baseball has fundamentally changed the relationship and roles of the front office and manager and think about what could mean for this sport.
Brilliant article, thanks Grace! Certainly helped with my Christmas list ideas haha.
Quite a sobering conclusion. Hopefully unattached persons can keep progressing things as best they can, but as you say it will be hard if they keep getting picked off by clubs. And then we had this week fbref switching from statsbomb to opta data so felt like the whole free data market went backwards about 3 years in one fell swoop.
It's interesting in formula 1 , which I also follow closely, how when personell switch teams they often have ludicrous gardening leave periods in-between jobs, to allow time for their knowledge of the previous teams designs and ideas to become more obselete. Wonder if we will see the same in football.
Great article, and some great comments to this one, too. Thanks, Grace.
‘I was just a nerd who liked football and found it fascinating to learn more about how the sport really worked.’
Hey me too!
I stumbled across Statsbomb around the same time
‘I’m a writer with a degree in film studies who doesn’t know how to code. I just looked at analytics work done by others and used it to tell stories about football.’
I gave this type of writing a go after an accounting degree, wasn’t quite me and I gave coding a go and it wasn’t the right fit either.
Like yourself I enjoy looking at the analytics work of others to find out more about how the sport works.
I’ve found conferences useful for keeping up to date with what is happening in the space alas with covid I’ve not been to any for a while.
Talking for 10-15 minutes with Barcelona Innovation Hub was really interesting back in 2019.