4 ms·

Funny to stumble across this on Hacker News. I'm the analyst mentioned in the article. Happy to answer any questions about our weird little industry.

gadders 8y ago
How did you end up in your current line of work? Ever used any of your stats for gambling?
- dpleuler 8y ago
  I stumbled into it largely by coincidence and luck. As you could imagine, there aren't many people that study computer science who were also relatively high level soccer players. I'm very fortunate to occupy the very narrow intersection of that obscure venn diagram. I stumbled across some high resolution soccer data during college and began writing a blog that became popular in soccer analytics circles. The company that produced the data that I was scraping eventually hired me to their data science team. I spent a few years with them before I was recruited to my current team. I have never worked in gambling but there are a few people in my sort of role that have that sort of background. It requires a pretty similar set of skills. I am not sure that I could beat the market by a large enough margin to make it worthwhile. It's quite efficient. But for the most part, I'm more interested in understanding the underlying mechanics of tactics than I am interested in predicting the result of games.
  - gadders 8y ago
    Thanks for your reply. Is your blog still going?
r2d2-c3po 8y ago
Do you have any recommendations for how a hobbyist can get more into the field? Someone who has a technical background, but works in a different field unrelated to sports at all. Any reading material to get familiar with some of the stats and metrics that are used in the industry?
- dpleuler 8y ago
  There isn't a ton of great public resources out there. For the most part, anyone who's writing smart analysis in the public space gets hired away to a club. It's exactly what happened in other sports. But, I would read "The Numbers Game: Why Everything You Know About Soccer Is Wrong" and read the backlogs of the StatsBomb blog. That will get you up to speed pretty quickly.
pvg 8y ago
It doesn't really explain what 'Premier League analyst' is. Is this someone who works for a particular club? Or writes for some publication? Or walks the earth like Caine of Kung Fu, offering analysis to those in need?
- tbiteteitb 8y ago
  'Premier' meaning the England soccer competition
  - pvg 8y ago
    That's not what I was asking but thanks.
- dpleuler 8y ago
  I'm the other analyst mentioned in the article, but my position is probably quite similar. I work with a team's coaching staff and management to help them make more data-driven decisions. This ranges from topics around opposition analysis to player recruitment.
  - pvg 8y ago
    Oh, I coffeelessly missed that bit. Analyst for an MLS team sounds even more interesting. You should do an AMA, perhaps.
    - omaranto 8y ago
      Why does being an analyst for an MLS team sound more interesting than being an analyst for a Premier League team?
      - pvg 8y ago
        It seems more interesting to hear from an insider under those circumstances. For starters, an MLS analyst might actually be able and willing to chitchat with you. MLS is an odd place compared to the top European leagues - there's no threat of relegation, no scrambling to earn Champions or Europa League spots and, comparatively, also no money. There's the business with the 'designated players'. The dominant sport in this particular analyst's market is ice hockey. Etc.
r2d2-c3po 8y ago
From following various soccer blogs, it seems that defensive stats aren't as polished and explored as offensive ones. I'm curious what stats beyond things such as tackles/interceptions are looked at. For example, Maldini has the reputation of being one of the top defenders ever, but also is known for his quote "If i have to tackle, then I have already made a mistake" (paraphrased). His tackling stats seem to support that style of play in that he made fewer challenges than most. Perhaps he made tons of interceptions, and in that sense, never had to tackle? I'm unable to find a good source of his playing stats. Anyways, what sort of things do you look at for defensive players? It seems that its when I look at things such as WhoScored's statistical team of the season, it has players such as Mustafi, who generally has a negative reputation for his play. I suspect he is so high because the rating metric used by whoscored overvalues offensive contributions of defenders, vs. pundits more likely look for a defender's defensive contributions. Are there any form of 'advanced stats' for defenders beyond the basic measured stats of challenges, interceptions, etc, that you and/or the industry looks for? https://www.whoscored.com/Statistics https://www.whoscored.com/Statistics
- dpleuler 8y ago
  Defensive metrics are very difficult for a couple reasons. The first problem is the data. The soccer viewing public is largely familiar with event-level data, typically provided by (my previous employer) Opta. They've done a great job normalizing soccer statistics on the cultural level, but the information they've collected at scale isn't that useful for creating good defensive metrics. Other companies have sensed an opportunity here and have started providing more detailed data around things such as defensive pressure. Suddenly, you can contextualize each offensive event with the level of defensive pressure applied to it. I think this will be a game changer, but we're in early days there. Other companies provide player-tracking solutions that give you real-time position of all players on the field. This is great because you have a "complete" picture of the game, but it requires a lot of work to build more sophisticated spatial/geometric models. There's also the "Howard Effect", coined largely as a basketball term, but it's similar to the Maldini example you provided. Some defenders are so good that they don't have to be "active" defenders. That's something which is really difficult to adequately control for.

gadders 8y ago

How did you end up in your current line of work? Ever used any of your stats for gambling?

dpleuler 8y ago
I stumbled into it largely by coincidence and luck. As you could imagine, there aren't many people that study computer science who were also relatively high level soccer players. I'm very fortunate to occupy the very narrow intersection of that obscure venn diagram. I stumbled across some high resolution soccer data during college and began writing a blog that became popular in soccer analytics circles. The company that produced the data that I was scraping eventually hired me to their data science team. I spent a few years with them before I was recruited to my current team. I have never worked in gambling but there are a few people in my sort of role that have that sort of background. It requires a pretty similar set of skills. I am not sure that I could beat the market by a large enough margin to make it worthwhile. It's quite efficient. But for the most part, I'm more interested in understanding the underlying mechanics of tactics than I am interested in predicting the result of games.
- gadders 8y ago
  Thanks for your reply. Is your blog still going?

r2d2-c3po 8y ago

Do you have any recommendations for how a hobbyist can get more into the field? Someone who has a technical background, but works in a different field unrelated to sports at all. Any reading material to get familiar with some of the stats and metrics that are used in the industry?

dpleuler 8y ago
There isn't a ton of great public resources out there. For the most part, anyone who's writing smart analysis in the public space gets hired away to a club. It's exactly what happened in other sports. But, I would read "The Numbers Game: Why Everything You Know About Soccer Is Wrong" and read the backlogs of the StatsBomb blog. That will get you up to speed pretty quickly.

pvg 8y ago

It doesn't really explain what 'Premier League analyst' is. Is this someone who works for a particular club? Or writes for some publication? Or walks the earth like Caine of Kung Fu, offering analysis to those in need?

tbiteteitb 8y ago
'Premier' meaning the England soccer competition
- pvg 8y ago
  That's not what I was asking but thanks.
dpleuler 8y ago
I'm the other analyst mentioned in the article, but my position is probably quite similar. I work with a team's coaching staff and management to help them make more data-driven decisions. This ranges from topics around opposition analysis to player recruitment.
- pvg 8y ago
  Oh, I coffeelessly missed that bit. Analyst for an MLS team sounds even more interesting. You should do an AMA, perhaps.
  - omaranto 8y ago
    Why does being an analyst for an MLS team sound more interesting than being an analyst for a Premier League team?
    - pvg 8y ago
      It seems more interesting to hear from an insider under those circumstances. For starters, an MLS analyst might actually be able and willing to chitchat with you. MLS is an odd place compared to the top European leagues - there's no threat of relegation, no scrambling to earn Champions or Europa League spots and, comparatively, also no money. There's the business with the 'designated players'. The dominant sport in this particular analyst's market is ice hockey. Etc.

r2d2-c3po 8y ago

From following various soccer blogs, it seems that defensive stats aren't as polished and explored as offensive ones. I'm curious what stats beyond things such as tackles/interceptions are looked at. For example, Maldini has the reputation of being one of the top defenders ever, but also is known for his quote "If i have to tackle, then I have already made a mistake" (paraphrased). His tackling stats seem to support that style of play in that he made fewer challenges than most. Perhaps he made tons of interceptions, and in that sense, never had to tackle? I'm unable to find a good source of his playing stats. Anyways, what sort of things do you look at for defensive players? It seems that its when I look at things such as WhoScored's statistical team of the season, it has players such as Mustafi, who generally has a negative reputation for his play. I suspect he is so high because the rating metric used by whoscored overvalues offensive contributions of defenders, vs. pundits more likely look for a defender's defensive contributions. Are there any form of 'advanced stats' for defenders beyond the basic measured stats of challenges, interceptions, etc, that you and/or the industry looks for? https://www.whoscored.com/Statistics https://www.whoscored.com/Statistics

dpleuler 8y ago
Defensive metrics are very difficult for a couple reasons. The first problem is the data. The soccer viewing public is largely familiar with event-level data, typically provided by (my previous employer) Opta. They've done a great job normalizing soccer statistics on the cultural level, but the information they've collected at scale isn't that useful for creating good defensive metrics. Other companies have sensed an opportunity here and have started providing more detailed data around things such as defensive pressure. Suddenly, you can contextualize each offensive event with the level of defensive pressure applied to it. I think this will be a game changer, but we're in early days there. Other companies provide player-tracking solutions that give you real-time position of all players on the field. This is great because you have a "complete" picture of the game, but it requires a lot of work to build more sophisticated spatial/geometric models. There's also the "Howard Effect", coined largely as a basketball term, but it's similar to the Maldini example you provided. Some defenders are so good that they don't have to be "active" defenders. That's something which is really difficult to adequately control for.