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!

Episode 36: Alex Farnell - The Impact of Head Coaches on Performance

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.

Episode 37: Hugo Schoukens and Jo Van Hoecke, Double Pass - Assessing Academies

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.

Episode 38: Oliver Gage, Canadian Premier League - Doing Analysis within a League

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.

Episode 39: Peter McKeever, StatsPerform - Visualising Data

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.

Episode 40: Richard Battle, Founding Director of Left Field Football Consulting

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.

Episode 41: Oliver Seitz, Business Intelligence Director at United World

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.

Episode 42: Kim McCauley, Director of Analytics at Angel City FC

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.

Episode 43: Justinas Gasiunas, First Team Goalkeeping Coach at Hajduk Split

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.

Episode 44: David Sumpter, Uppsala University and Twelve Football

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.

Episode 45: Elliott Stapley, Sports Interactive and Football Manager

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.

Episode 46: Mike D'Auria, Second Spectrum

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.

Episode 47: Brexitball Report special with Andy Watson and John Kiely

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.

Episode 48: Dan Micciche, Ex-England, Arsenal and Spurs Coach

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.

Episode 49: Analytics FC x Ankura – how to buy a football club

In the inaugural Analytics FC Podcast we introduce ourselves and interview freelance journalist Richard Whittall about the change he's seen in analytics in football, where he thinks the community is going and find out the motives and ideas behind some of his recent work. 

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Richard Whittall is @ RWhittall on Twitter and www.richardwhittall.com

Tom Worville is @ Worville 
Sam Gregory is @ GregorydSam

analyticsfcpodcast@gmail.com for any comments and questions! 

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Intro music is MMHHMM by LiamLRY (https://soundcloud.com/liamlry/mmhhmm) 
Logo created by Erik Wagner from the Noun Project.

Episode 01: Introductions and Richard Whittall

In Episode 03 of the Analytics FC Podcast Sam and Tom are joined by Omar Chaudhuri, Head of Football Intelligence at 21st Club.

We discuss Omar's background in the sports industry, what his job involved at 21st Club and what 21st Club does in the industry. We also cover Omar's interest in cricket, debating lessons the English Premer League can learn from the IPL. Finally we talk about Omar's latest piece about the European Coefficient and give our thoughts on the Premier League season just gone.

Please take the time to give us a rating. It really helps us grow the audience for this podcast and get new people involved. As Sam says, at least 2 stars! 

For those interested, you can find Omar's excellent blog here: http://5addedminutes.com/ 
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Omar Chaudhuri is @ OmarChaudhuri
Tom Worville is @ Worville
Sam Gregory is @ GregorydSam

analyticsfcpodcast@gmail.com for any comments and questions!

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Intro music is MMHHMM by LiamLRY
Logo created by Erik Wagner from the Noun Project.


Episode 03: Omar Chaudhuri

In Episode 05 of the Analytics FC podcast Tom and Sam are joined by Dan Altman - economist, writer and founder of North Yard Analytics. 

We talk about the challenges in the market for analytics, using different data and how likley clubs are to take onboard the ideas of 'fanalysts' (anybody got a better word than fanalyst?)

We also discuss the use of economical thinking and theories in football, namely Dan's application of Shapley values. Finally we talk about Dan's latest blog post for Opta Pro and the likelihood of him one day becoming technical director of Newcastle United (spoiler alert: not likely).

Please take the time to give us a rating on iTunes or a share here. It really helps us grow the audience for this podcast and get new people involved. Once again, at least 2 stars!
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You can find Dan's company North Yard Analytics here: http://www.northyardanalytics.com/ 

Tom Worville is @ Worville 
Sam Gregory is @ GregorydSam
Dan is @ Altmandaniel

analyticsfcpodcast@gmail.com for any comments and questions!
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Intro music is MMHHMM by LiamLRY 
Logo created by Erik Wagner from the Noun Project.

Episode 05: Dan Altman

Episode 02: Ben Torvaney

Episode 04: Womens World Cup Preview with Emily Dulhanty and Danny Page

Episode 08: A Mixed Bag

In Episode 13 of the Analytics FC Podcast we are joined by Michael Cox (writer at Zonal Marking, The Guardian and ESPN FC among others) to talk about the origins of Zonal Marking (the blog), the combination of tactics and analytics and the future of analytical football writing. Michael also gives some tips on how to break into football journalism. You can read Michael's blog at http://www.zonalmarking.net

Another plug for Intopress, if you're an aspiring young writer and want to get started in the football journalism industry check it out: www.intopress.co.uk/

Also a reminder to apply for the Opta Pro Forum here. The deadline is this Sunday (October 18th): www.optasportspro.com/about/optapro-blog/

Please take the time to give us a rating on iTunes here: itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/analy…id991610009?mt=2. It really helps us grow the audience for this podcast and get new people involved.
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The guys can be found on Twitter:

Michael Cox is @ Zonal_Marking
Analytics FC is @ Analytics_FC
Tom Worville is @ Worville 
Sam Gregory is @ GregorydSam

analyticsfcpodcast@gmail.com for any comments and questions!
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Intro music is MMHHMM by LiamLRY Logo created by Erik Wagner from the Noun Project.

Episode 13: Michael Cox

In Episode 17 of the Analytics FC podcast we briefly discuss the new Analytics FC consultancy and then welcome former Liverpool and Tottenham Director of Football Damien Comolli onto the show to talk about his previous roles, evaluating transfers, quantifying defenders and goalkeepers and how injury prevention may be the next frontier in Football Analytics.

If you're interested in sponsoring the podcast, send us an email using the address below.

Please take the time to give us a rating on iTunes here: itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/analy…id991610009?mt=2. It really helps us grow the audience for this podcast and get new people involved.
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The guys can be found on Twitter:

Analytics FC is @ AnalyticsFC
Tom Worville is @ Worville 
Sam Gregory is @ GregorydSam

analyticsfcpodcast@gmail.com for any comments and questions!
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Intro music is MMHHMM by LiamLRY Logo created by Erik Wagner from the Noun Project.

Episode 17: Damien Comolli

In Episode 27 of the Analytics FC Podcast we are joined by David Sumpter, author of Soccermatics: Mathematical Adventures in the Beautiful Game, to discuss his new book. 

We also are running a competition to win 3 copies of the book. Listen to the podcast or check our Twitter for details! Competition runs until 12/05/16 and is for UK listeners only.
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Links from the podcast:
http://www.fourfourtwo.com/search/content/soccermatics (David's work over at FourFourTwo)
http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/soccermatics-9781472924124/ (Buy the book here!)
http://statsbomb.com/2016/04/the-search-for-confidence-and-the-hot-foot-theory/
(Bobby Gardiner's "Hot Feet")
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The guys can be found on Twitter:
David Sumpter is @ Soccermatics
Analytics FC is @ AnalyticsFC
Tom Worville is @ Worville 
Sam Gregory is @ GregorydSam
analyticsfcpodcast@gmail.com for any comments and questions!
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Intro music is MMHHMM by LiamLRY . Logo created by Erik Wagner from the Noun Project.

Episode 27: David Sumpter

In Episode 28 of the Analytics FC Podcast we are joined by Michael Caley and Mike Goodman to discuss their new podcast (The Double Pivot), the recent Champions League Final and to roundup our favourite team’s 15/16 seasons.

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 Links from the podcast:

http://www.howlermagazine.com/060616-dp-klinsmann-isnt-wrong/ (Latest episode of The Double Pivot)

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 The guys can be found on Twitter: 

Mike Goodman is @ TheM_L_G
Michael Caley is @ MC_of_A
Double Pivot Podcast is @ DoublePivotPod
 Analytics FC is @ AnalyticsFC 
Tom Worville is @ Worville 
Sam Gregory is @ GregorydSam

 analyticsfcpodcast@gmail.com for any comments and questions!

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 Intro music is MMHHMM by LiamLRY 
Logo created by Erik Wagner from the Noun Project.

Episode 28: Michael Caley and Mike Goodman

This week we're joined by Red Bull Salzburg and Spielverlagerung's Rene Maric!

Tweet us! www.twitter.com/AnalyticsFC

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Links from the podcast:
Rene's twitter www.twitter.com/ReneMaric
Spielverlagerung (English) http://spielverlagerung.com/
Spielverlagerung (German) http://spielverlagerung.de/

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Find Joel and Bobby on twitter:
Joel www.twitter.com/MessiSeconds
Bobby www.twitter.com/BobbyGardiner

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Intro music is MMHHMM by LiamLRY. Logo created by Erik Wagner from the Noun Project.

Episode 30: Rene Maric (Red Bull Salzburg)

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

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Find Joel and Bobby on twitter:
Joel www.twitter.com/MessiSeconds
Bobby www.twitter.com/BobbyGardiner

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Intro music is MMHHMM by LiamLRY. Logo created by Erik Wagner from the Noun Project.

Episode 32, Part 1: Xarius Desai (Brentford)

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

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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.

Episode 32, Part 2: Xarius Desai (Brentford)

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

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Intro music is MMHHMM by LiamLRY. Logo created by Erik Wagner from the Noun Project.

Episode 33: Christofer Clemens (German National Team)

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.

Episode 34: Tom Worville - Analytics and the Media

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.

Episode 35: Tal Brown, Zone7 - How Predictable Are Injuries?

Analytics FC is a football podcast looking at the beautiful game in a different light. 

Each episode, we’re joined by a guest from the world of football analytics to talk about the ways we can use numbers, statistics and data to better understand the sport.

Popular tracks by Analytics FC Podcast