Lately there’s been a lot written about the importance of analytics at Liverpool Football Club. The negative articles claim the analytics department there was responsible for flops like Aspas and Suso. The positive ones give the analysts credit for Coutinho, Sturridge, and Can. And pretty much all of them say there was tension between the club’s former manager, Brendan Rodgers, and the numbers folks. Believe it or not, this isn’t how analytics works at every club around the world, or even in the Premier League. Usually I recommend analytics as a first cut for recruiting, to narrow down the pool…
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A data-driven approach to squad usage
Sports aren’t static. Big changes happen, sometimes suddenly and other times gradually – but either way, they happen. Baseball’s starting pitchers used to go nine innings routinely. Basketball players didn’t dunk. Ice hockey teams had never heard of line changes. And soccer has a long history of tactical innovations, to which this post might just contribute. First, let me say that I’m not a coach. I’ve played thousands of hours of soccer, but I’ve never coached a single match. I also have a background that’s very different from most coaches in the world’s top leagues. So what I recommend here may…
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The limits of expected goals models based on shots
When I try to understand a complex system like soccer, I usually find myself going through three stages of analysis. First I try to come up with a theory of the system that makes intuitive sense and reflects its actual dynamics, to the extent I can learn about them. Then I try to build a model based on this theory using rigorous statistical methods. Finally, I test the results from the model for their robustness, to make sure the whole exercise hasn’t led me to spurious or unwarranted conclusions. To my eye, the evaluation of expected goals models based on…
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