Analytics FC Podcast

This month, Analytics FC teams up with Ankura Consulting Group, an independent global expert services and advisory firm, to discuss the process and pitfalls of acquiring a football club. Alex is joined by Analytics FC CEO Jeremy Steele and Ankura's Jonny Gray and Jon Brown to discuss their new partnership.

This month, Alex spoke to Dan Micciche. Dan is widely regarded as a coaching innovator whose career has encompassed stints at the FA, coaching England youth teams, Arsenal, MK Dons, and most recently, Crawley Town. Dan talks about the England DNA approach, football and language, and how to create a set-up that fosters creative coaching. You can find Dan on LinkedIn - he is smart enough to avoid Twitter! We’ll be back next month with another interesting guest, but until then, make sure you subscribe to this podcast, rate and review it, and check out all the content that is going out from Analytics FC on our Twitter account @analyticsfc.

This month, we spoke to Brexitball expert Andy Watson and immigration lawyer and senior partner at Fragomen LLP, John Kiely, about Analytics FC's ground-breaking new report. The report examines the impact of the GBE regulations on the British transfer market. The pod discusses, among other things, the difference between the English and Scottish markets, the impact on the Women's game, and breaks down effects on a league-by-league basis.

This month, we spoke to Mike D’Auria, Chief Commercial Officer at Second Spectrum, a tracking and analytics provider working in, among others, the NBA and the Premier League. In our chat, we talked about how Mike came to work in the analytics space, what Second Spectrum do, and how clubs and media organizations are harnessing the power of tracking data to improve understanding of the game, which can be leveraged in different ways. You can follow Mike on Twitter @mikewdauria and Second Spectrum at @SecondSpectrum.

This month, we spoke to Elliott Stapley, a software engineer working on the match engine and data for Sports Interactive’s Football Manager game. During our conversation, we talked about how the Football Manager match engine works, how Sports Interactive use data benchmarking to guarantee the realism of Football Manager, and considered what Football Manager can teach us about the game in real life. You can follow Elliott on Twitter @elliott_stapley and Sports Interactive @SIgames.

This month, we spoke to David Sumpter. David is Professor of Applied Mathematics at Uppsala University, the author of a number of books about data analytics, and the co-founder of football analytics company, Twelve Football. He also works for Hammarby in the Swedish Allsvenskan. In the course of the conversation, David talked at length about the use of tracking data within football analysis, the industry’s shift towards more bespoke modelling and the impact of big data on football itself. You can follow David on Twitter @Soccermatics and Twelve Football @twelve_football. We’ll be back next month with another interesting guest, but until then, make sure you subscribe to this podcast, rate and review it, and check out all the content that is going out from Analytics FC on our Twitter account @analyticsfc.

This month, we spoke to Justinas Gasiunas, the first-team goalkeeping coach at Hajduk Split. After ending his career as a goalkeeper, Justinas has coached with a number of clubs including Brighton and Hove Albion and Brentford. In the conversation, we talked about the development of goalkeeping analysis, Justinas's processes for analysing opponents ahead of games, and the future of goalkeeping analysis. You can follow Justinas on Twitter @GasiunasJ. We’ll be back next month with another interesting guest, but until then, make sure you subscribe to this podcast, rate and review it, and check out all the content that is going out from Analytics FC on our Twitter account @analyticsfc.

This month, we spoke to Kim McCauley, Director of Analytics at Angel City Football Club. Starting off working in the media, Kim has spent the last year or so setting up an analytics department at one of the newest clubs in the world. In our chat, we talked about implementing a data strategy from scratch at a club that has no players, working towards an NWSL and NCAA expansion draft, and how the capacity to be able to make mistakes is important for the implementation process. Kim McCauley is Director of Analytics at Angel City Football Club. You can follow her on Twitter @lgbtqfc and Angel City @weareangelcity. We’ll be back next month with another interesting guest, but until then, make sure you subscribe to this podcast, rate and review it, and check out all the content that is going out from Analytics FC on our Twitter account @analyticsfc.

This month, we spoke to Oliver Seitz, business intelligence director of United World. During his career, Oliver has worked with agents and clubs, he has completed a PhD and lectured on the topic of football business, he has worked on the scouting side of the industry, with coaching staff and with ownership groups. This depth of experience led to a very insightful conversation. In the course of the discussion, Oliver talked about the processes of implementing data strategies within a multi-club, the importance of having a long-term approach to data, and how communication is key when working across a number of clubs.

This week, we spoke to Richard Battle, founding director of Left Field Football Consulting. In the conversation, we talked about the processes of implementing data strategies within football, the importance of getting data buy-in at the highest levels, and what the future of data in the football industry looks like. To find out more about Left Field Football Consulting, visit their website: www.leftfieldfc.com. We’ll be back next month with another interesting guest, but until then, make sure you subscribe to this podcast, rate and review it, and check out all the content that is going out from Analytics FC on our Twitter account @analyticsfc.

This week, Jon spoke to Peter McKeever, Data analyst at StatsPerform and Data Visualisation Editor for Opta’s new website, The Analyst. In their conversation, they talked about the importance of visualising data within the football industry, the challenges faced by visualisers and how the industry can use visualisation better.. Peter is on Twitter @petermckeever and you can read The Analyst at theanalyst.com. We’ll be back next month with another interesting guest, but until then, make sure you subscribe to this podcast, rate and review it, and check out all the content that is going out from Analytics FC on our Twitter account @analyticsfc.

This week, Jon spoke to Oliver Gage, the director of football for the Canadian Premier League. Originally from Sheffield, Oliver’s career has carried him to North America via Leeds Met University and Sheffield Wednesday. Working as an analyst, he spent time with Houston Dynamo before joining the newly-founded Canadian Premier League as their director of football in 2019. In their conversation, they talked about the various challenges faced by analysts working at the level of individual players, within clubs and then finally at the league-wide level. To find out more about the Canadian Premier League, visit www.canpl.ca. Oliver is on Twitter @G4gey. We’ll be back next month with another interesting guest, but until then, make sure you subscribe to this podcast, rate and review it, and check out all the content that is going out from Analytics FC on our Twitter account @analyticsfc.

This week, we spoke to Hugo Schoukens and Jo van Hoecke, the co-founders of Double Pass, a Belgian company that assesses, advises and educates (con)federations, leagues, clubs and individuals on optimising their talent development. We focused on their work assessing football academies and asked what impact the auditing process can have on a club’s academy production. If you want to find out more about Double Pass, you can visit their website: www.doublepass.com. We’ll be back next month with another interesting guest, but until then, make sure you subscribe to this podcast, rate and review it, and check out all the content that is going out from Analytics FC on our Twitter account @analyticsfc.

This week, we spoke to Alex Farnell, an economics researcher at the University of Lancaster looking into labour markets and issues to do with personnel, specifically using data from professional sports to illustrate. We focused on his work investigating the contribution of Head Coaches to the success of football teams, and whether changing coaches brings the desired change to performance. His other research includes looking at discrimination in the market for NFL coaches and looking at how fatigue and multi-tasking contribute to the in-game decline in performance of baseball pitchers in MLB. His collaborative paper on head coaches is titled ‘Special Ones? The Effect of Head Coaches on Football Team Performance’ and it can be found online at www.iza.org. We’ll be back next month with another interesting guest, but until then, make sure you subscribe to this podcast, rate and review it, and check out all the content that is going out from Analytics FC on our Twitter account @analyticsfc. Goodbye!

This week, Jon spoke to Tal Brown, co-founder and CEO of Zone7. We talked about the problem of predicting injuries in sport, the impact of coronavirus on injury and the future of big data in the sports medical sphere. Through Zone7, Tal and his team develop and apply proprietary artificial intelligence to help athletes, coaches and medical teams forecast injury risk and attain peak performance. He has worked with professional and amateur teams across the EPL, MLB, MLS, NCAA, La Liga, Serie A, and the Olympics. Here’s what Tal had to say: So that Tal Brown, founder and CEO of Zone7. If you want to follow Tal, he can be found @talbrown on Twitter and to find out more about Zone7 visit @Zone7ai on Twitter or go directly to their website: www.zone7.ai. We’ll be back next month with an episode looking at the impact on coaches on team performance but until then, make sure you subscribe to this podcast, rate and review it, and check out all the content that is going out from Analytics FC on our Twitter account @analyticsfc. Goodbye! Intro music is MMHHMM by LiamLRY. Logo created by Erik Wagner from the Noun Project.

On the Analytics FC podcast, we’ll be putting out episodes every month with a thematic focus from using data to analyse injuries to quantifying the cognitive aspect of football, from working with agents to the use of tracking data. This week I spoke to Tom Worville about Analytics and the media, focusing on the challenges faced by presenting data to a public audience and asking what, if anything, analytics can learn from the use of data in the media space. Tom Worville was one of the founders of Analytics FC. From there, he went to Opta where he worked for four years. Since 2020, Tom has been The Athletic’s Football Analytics Writer where he has overseen the roll-out of a form of data journalism across their platform. Follow Tom on Twitter @worville and read his articles and listen to his podcasts at www.theathletic.com. We’ll be back next month with an episode on using data to quantify injuries but until then, make sure you subscribe to this podcast, rate and review it, and check out all the content that is going out from Analytics FC on our Twitter account @analyticsfc. Goodbye! Intro music is MMHHMM by LiamLRY. Logo created by Erik Wagner from the Noun Project.

Joel and Jeremy are joined by Christofer Clemens, the German national team's head of match analysis and scouting. Tweet us! www.twitter.com/AnalyticsFC Find Joel and Bobby on twitter: Joel www.twitter.com/MessiSeconds Bobby www.twitter.com/BobbyGardiner --------------- Intro music is MMHHMM by LiamLRY. Logo created by Erik Wagner from the Noun Project.

We put your twitter questions to Brentford FC's Xarius Desai! Check out our previous podcast with Xarius here: https://soundcloud.com/analytics-fc-podcast/xarius-desai Tweet us! www.twitter.com/AnalyticsFC Find Joel and Bobby on twitter: Joel www.twitter.com/MessiSeconds Bobby www.twitter.com/BobbyGardiner --------------- Links from pod: OneShortCorner https://oneshortcorner.wordpress.com/ Statsbomb list https://twitter.com/StatsBomb/following GoalImpact https://twitter.com/GoalImpact Intro music is MMHHMM by LiamLRY. Logo created by Erik Wagner from the Noun Project.

In which we chat to Xarius Desai, performance analyst at Brentford FC, about his role and football analysis more broadly. Tweet us! www.twitter.com/AnalyticsFC --------------- Find Joel and Bobby on twitter: Joel www.twitter.com/MessiSeconds Bobby www.twitter.com/BobbyGardiner --------------- Intro music is MMHHMM by LiamLRY. Logo created by Erik Wagner from the Noun Project.

This week we met Rory Campbell, Head of Technical Analysis at West Ham. Tweet us! www.twitter.com/AnalyticsFC --------------- Find Joel and Bobby on twitter: Joel www.twitter.com/MessiSeconds Bobby www.twitter.com/BobbyGardiner --------------- Intro music is MMHHMM by LiamLRY. Logo created by Erik Wagner from the Noun Project.