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Analytics, Metrics and Statistics - the death of football magic?

Punchanello said:
...the coach who instictively feels the tide is turning, calls in the changes, shifts the approach. How many subs changed games at the WC?
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Yep....this is where the data actually intersects with pure drama.

While the little fella sitting at the back of the bench with his laptop plots out the optimal minute for a double-change, the raw human element remains....

A fresh pair of legs attacking a retreating, exhausted defence in the 90th minute, turning a stagnant 0-0 stalemate into a piece of folklore.

I'd hazard a guess there was quite a lot of games changed by substitutions?

Err I haven't looked at the err data!!
 
Here's an example....

Yesterday I was watching Rennes v PSG in Ligue Un.

Rennes a traditional mid table side 2-0 up at HT against probably the best club side in world football...

On paper, under the cold light of pre-match analytics, PSG should dominate possession, create a predictable avalanche of high-xG chances, and cruise.

But Rennes are all over them and PSG are rattled....

When Luis Enrique looked at that 2-0 deficit, he didn't pull out his laptop, he trusted his gut instinct, completely flipped his attack at half-time by throwing on fresh legs, and watched the sub Ferran Torres claw it back to 2-2.

proving that no matter how advanced the analytical models get, a game can still be blown wide open by raw panic, inspiration, and a 20-minute spell of pure, unadulterated chaos.....
 
Does anyone remember the late great Rale Rasic incensed by Socceroos performances and FAs obsession with analytics via Ron Smith's laptop? I seem to recall an epic TV rant in thick Balkanese along the lines of "Gomputah? Gomputah!? I don't need a gomputah to tell me what I can see!". *not verbatim.
 
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Punchanello said:
Does anyone remember the late great Rale Rasic incensed by Socceroos performances and FAs obsession with analytics via Ron Smith's laptop? I seem to recall an epic TV rant in a thick Balkanese along the lines of "Gomputah? Gomputah!? I don't need a gomputah to tell me what I can see!". *not verbatim.
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Yep... it was on TWG one Sunday afternoon.
 
Punchanello said:
Does anyone remember the late great Rale Rasic incensed by Socceroos performances and FAs obsession with analytics via Ron Smith's laptop? I seem to recall an epic TV rant in thick Balkanese along the lines of "Gomputah? Gomputah!? I don't need a gomputah to tell me what I can see!". *not verbatim.
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I think that WAS verbatim mate. hahahahah
 
Do you know what scares me more than anything? How soon do you think before we see an AI bot as manager of a professional football team? I reckon it will happen before we let women manage at that level.

Mull over THAT shit and see if you can ever go back to sleep at night again. hahahahaha
 
Football us life said:
Here's an example....

Yesterday I was watching Rennes v PSG in Ligue Un.

Rennes a traditional mid table side 2-0 up at HT against probably the best club side in world football...

On paper, under the cold light of pre-match analytics, PSG should dominate possession, create a predictable avalanche of high-xG chances, and cruise.

But Rennes are all over them and PSG are rattled....

When Luis Enrique looked at that 2-0 deficit, he didn't pull out his laptop, he trusted his gut instinct, completely flipped his attack at half-time by throwing on fresh legs, and watched the sub Ferran Torres claw it back to 2-2.

proving that no matter how advanced the analytical models get, a game can still be blown wide open by raw panic, inspiration, and a 20-minute spell of pure, unadulterated chaos.....
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Playing devil's advocate here, but how do you know Luis Enrique's decision to make those changes wasn't influenced by an analyst presenting some data to him at half time?
 
Keeper66 said:
Playing devil's advocate here, but how do you know Luis Enrique's decision to make those changes wasn't influenced by an analyst presenting some data to him at half time?
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Yep...That is a fair comment, and honestly, it exposes the exact grey area where modern football lives.

But even if it was a data driven decision, it's stl bold choice to haul off a player like Dembele at halftime and reshape the entire dynamic of his attack.....

And above all else that kind of change still requires intuition, authority, and gut instinct.
 
And to play devil's advocate myself...

I was at a boxing match at White Hart Lane in London in the early 90s between two British middle-heavyweights fighting for the WBC world championship.

One was Chris Eubank, an absolute technically perfect boxer, against Michael Watson, a street-fighter per se.

Eubank would win on every metric had a computer programme been assessing the fight. But Watson mauls him for ten rounds.

In the 11th, Eubank, barely on his feet, came out and his technical prowess shone through, and his ability to punch like a superlative pro knocked Watson out....

If an analytics programme had been running that fight, it wouldn't have just looked at the fact that Michael Watson was mauling Eubank for nine rounds. It would have flagged something deeper.

Watson was operating at an unsustainable output....

He was walking through fire, expending a massive volume of energy, and taking heavy, accumulative strain to do it.
The computer would have looked at Eubank's cold, clinical precision and calculated his punch efficiency and the fact that Eubank wasn't wasting energy, while Watson was burning through his gas tank.

The metrics would have whispered to Eubank’s corner: "He’s overextending. His defence is leaking when he crowds you. Keep absorbing, preserve your energy, and the opening will statistically widen by the championship rounds."

And that’s exactly what happened. Eubank didn’t win on a random miracle, he won because his technical perfection meant his punch economy was superior.
When Watson inevitably tired, the data's baseline prediction, that precision and power eventually punish exhaustion it proved completely, brutally correct.

So even in a sport as raw and savage as boxing, the metrics didn't fail. They just saw the ending long before anyone in the stands could.

Edit) And just in case anyone is wandering what this has to do with football?

Well Michael Watson was a well known Arsenal fan and Chris Eubanks supported Brighton.....😋
 
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Monoethnic Social Club said:
Do you know what scares me more than anything? How soon do you think before we see an AI bot as manager of a professional football team? I reckon it will happen before we let women manage at that level.

Mull over THAT shit and see if you can ever go back to sleep at night again. hahahahaha
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Nagelsmann was already called the laptop manager. I wonder how much data clubs already use.

Thanks for ruining my sleep. Players sit in a lab and study what the bit has put together. Go out and practice and get feedback and adaptations accordingly.

Hang on! Maybe a bot would actually play Australia to its strengths and we'd see more direct play.
 
I think the data can be insightful but also predictions are often debunked by something that happens in a game. Would the data have picked Chelsea 3 Fulham 2 last night?

The bookies use the data for their odds but the favourite odds don't always win. Often perhaps but even the tighter things like over/under goals is wrong. I'd be rich otherwise.
 
JS96 said:
I think the data can be insightful but also predictions are often debunked by something that happens in a game. Would the data have picked Chelsea 3 Fulham 2 last night?

The bookies use the data for their odds but the favourite odds don't always win. Often perhaps but even the tighter things like over/under goals is wrong. I'd be rich otherwise.
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Well I hope the day doesn’t come that geeks and bots totally run the game.
Though I expect it will just as the predictions of the Terminator movies way back attack of the bots and geeks/programmers.
The game will become even more of a bot game than it currently is.
 
JS96 said:
Nagelsmann was already called the laptop manager. I wonder how much data clubs already use.

Thanks for ruining my sleep. Players sit in a lab and study what the bit has put together. Go out and practice and get feedback and adaptations accordingly.

Hang on! Maybe a bot would actually play Australia to its strengths and we'd see more direct play.
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There's a young Scottish coach called Ian Cathro who is known in Scottish coaching circles as "the laptop coach" because he's big into data and analytics.

The " laptop coach" nickname is somewhat derogatory in this case I think.

He's had a manager stint at Hearts and Estoril in Portugal and has now turned up at St. Etienne in Ligue 2.

Well." the laptop coach" is doing okay in St. Etienne because they are sitting top of Ligue 2 with 3 wins out of 3 and a GD of +9
 
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