Contemporary football seems more isolating than ever for the fans. As the game accelerates towards video assistance for officials and ever-increasing astronomical transfer fees, there feels little to cling onto.
Yet supporters continue to occupy seats in the stadium. It’s an addiction, one that is completely unmanageable yet all encompassing and one that manifests itself through various types of yellow and green memorabilia.
My football club was chosen by my postcode and although my brief period on this planet has been, for the most part, fruitful in regards to Norwich, those who have endured the eras of Glenn Roeder and Peter Grant witnessed a period of stagnation, decline and even relegation.
But they still kept coming.
Even in League One, they kept coming; one whole population knitted together by yellow and green thread. At Wembley, 40,000 donning their colours with their heart located on their sleeve, they came, and even in the face of a mass transformation, the supporters continue to support this club.
If you need hope that a long-term project can be a success, look no further than Denmark Superliga side FC Midtjylland.
FC Midtjylland supporters are now marching to the beat of a different drum following a revolution which has made for an unbelievable narrative in Denmark. A prosperous season for the Danish side prior to the 13/14 season would result in a 2nd or 3rd place finish. On the flip-side, a disappointing season would be a 7th or 8th place finish.
In 2017/18 season, FC Midtjylland sit top of the division, a point clear of FC Brondby. What has unfolded in Midtjylland has been innovation that the sport had never seen before. This is a club where the relationship between players and supporters isn’t fragmented or mediated. This is a personal football club who innovated the way recruitment happens in football.
Matthew Benham made his money by defeating the gambling system on football matches and purchased Superliga side FC Midtjylland in 2013/14. A lifelong Brentford supporter, Benham has subsequently become the owner of proceedings at Griffin Park.
His success has been derived through the use of data collation and analytics.
Essentially, Benham is the chief cymbal-clapper for the use of analytics in football. He pioneered Moneyball, and his unknown methods are designed to strike the characteristics of luck and randomness out of football. Primarily, FC Midtjylland and Brentford compile enough data and organise it as if all teams played against each other.
Confused?
Essentially, it predicts the current performance more accurately. Goals aren’t taken into consideration, instead, the ‘Expected Goals Method’, is one prominently used. It’s a lengthy mathematical process, and I only have a C in GCSE Maths, so I’ll link an article explaining that method in the article.
Alongside Benham is Rasmus Ankersen, and the duo have innovated the recruitment system in how their clubs bring players to their respective clubs with a finite amount of resources. Ankersen has major roles at both clubs, and the number-crunching methods has seen an uplift in fortunes at Brentford and in Denmark.
Innovation doesn’t come from the clubs with most money.
‘So how does this link to Norwich, Connor?’
It’s a good question, but my point is that player recruitment is simply more than one scout watching hour upon hour of a player in the flesh whereby he is required to make a decision whether or not to recommend. This process now involves data analysts, heads of recruitments and hours of video being consumed and watched.
That makes his approach easier for Daniel Farke.
No longer does he have to consume hours of footage and analyse meticulous details of a footballer alongside training schedules, player performance and transfer requests. Furthermore, the splitting of the role into a head of European recruitment and a head of UK recruitment underlines this shift in the recruitment process.
Norwich will have a global data collation program whereby the likes of Tom Trybull, Moritz Leitner and Christoph Zimmermann have been analysed and all avenues explored.
To relate this back to Benham, if a team is over-performing his system allows their players to be ranked in a table as though all teams in Europe played in the same division. If, for example, Greuther Furth were overachieving, their players would be scouted in more detail. Tim Sparv was plucked from Greuther Furth for FC Mitjylland using this system.
The Finnish international was cheaper than other options and proves how innovation can lead to success. It would be plausible to suggest that elements of this method have been adopted by Norwich to conduct their business. It’s all about getting value for money and for a club with limited resources, that is vital.
It means obscure transfer links and unknown quantities will arrive in the future. More overseas options from outlandish places will arrive in Norfolk and is a bi-product of the club’s transition.
Can Norwich City’s innovation turn into success?
I’d like to extend my deepest condolences and thoughts to Michelle Dack’s family and friends after she sadly passed away. All of the Norwich City family will stand together at such sad news. Rest in peace, Michelle.
I thought we were following Southampton or was it, Burnley, no, sorry, Reading, no that was last season, Hang on it was Wigan a few years back, then Blackpool, Reading, Southampton, Burnley and LEICESTER!. That was it, Leicester. Hang on, who is it now………?
Who?
It’s a recruitment system that Connor is talking about, not a club per se… and he is correct in that it does seem we are already starting to follow this system, at least to some extent. Certainly all the recruitment’s that have happened since Webber’s arrival will have been made using analytics.
Good article Conner, I believe that progressive techniques in football are long overdue. Brendan Rodgers,Aidy Boothroyd are forward thinking managers who have to some extent bought into this type of player analysis and with the advent of progressive young coaches from abroad the trend of the “moneyball” system will become more widespread throughout the English game. It is certainly time for the upcoming British future coaches to get on board with the latest innovations or we will continue to be left behind both in the English game and the national scene
Benham and Ankersen may have refined analytics to their own ends and it maybe paying dividends to an extent (let’s see it propel Brentford to the PL before we say its that super!). But the use of stats and tech were hardly new techniques or unique to them. Fat Sam was well known for this not just having a player watched but finding out how fit they were, how high and long they can kick a ball and how cute they are at kicking the more artistic oponent.
The reality is that pioneers long before B & A set the ground work by which much modern scouting is based. I think it is unlikely that any modern day coach would even look at a player that didn’t meet certain metrics that they define for their scouting team. Maybe I give football too much credit, I’m sure their are still some dinosaurs out there who rely on a scout giving a short verbal report on how he thinks they played.
We have Webber now and I’m sure as its his stock and trade he doesn’t share the secret to how he scouts successfully, Tony Brown, I think its Huddersfield we’re copying now!
Bah!
Hi Connor
A very analytical read.
Wasn’t this the same system that was used when Brentford were neck and neck with city for promotion and their then manager Warburton said he had no choice of what players were recruited to the club and wasn’t offered a contract at the end of that season.
Innovation is good as long as it goes with good scouting stats can be made to read what ever you want them to just to prove a point..
No matter what system a club uses to recruit players the coach MUST have the final say he might have inside information on a player or can get said information that doesn’t show up via the stats or system used or how said player reacts to certian situations.
Sky uses a system that they say is used by thousands of clubs world wide during the transfer windows but clubs still it seems scouts watching players playing games live and in all conditions before making a final approach to their clubs so lets hope scounting continues.
Hmm. I suspect Zimmerman was signed simply because Farke knew all about him from his time as Dortmund U23 coach.
I remain unsure about the Moneyball approach in football. Used in conjunction with other, old school, techniques, I’m sure it has a place, but I don’t believe it would work in isolation.
I both agree and disagree with the moneyball approach. For tactics I think broadly it’s a good idea. I saw a piece on it that showed adopting a strategy focusing on crossing from the byline (I think) was statistically better than trying to work it through the middle.
However, that was based on hundreds of thousands of hours of football, thousands of games, and lots of comparison data. Which is broadly what’s said in that linked article.
In baseball you can do something similar at a player level, just about. Because each season is 120ish games. Each game a batter is guaranteed a number of times up to bat. And each situation is identical. E.g. the ball is always going from point A to B.
There are of course variables, is the batter up against someone who throws Knucleball (a good documentary there btw) etc.
But for football to say that X player will perform well based on data, for me, is a bit of a stretch. At any one point there are so many variables in play, did the player go down the wing, if so did they get tracked by multiple players, if so is the defender on a yellow card, and does the defence have every man behind the ball etc… How many times does that happen for you to get statistically relevant data. Not sure.
If you’re just saying “this person regularly runs Xm per game”, that’s useful, or perhaps average position, okay. But buying player X because they put in 0.2x more crosses a game compared to player Y, which is really what Moneyball was (does X person get to first base X% more), then I don’t know.
Here’s a system we use at work to figure out how many ‘conversions’ (e.g. a click on the buy button) you need to make a decision.
https://www.optimizely.com/sample-size-calculator/?conversion=5&effect=10&significance=90
Using the above link let’s pretend a conversion is a “pass” and you want a player to be able to tell if a player is 10% better at passing. You need compare (the one you have and the one you’re looking at) 30,000 passes before you could declare one was better than the other. Even then there’s a 1/10 chance this is wrong.
And from that, there’s nothing to say that those passes were actually useful. And those passes would not be under controlled environments, that’s to say the players you’re comparing could be in different leagues.
There’s not a lot of ‘science’ in that sport science. I’d imagine a good scout would tell you much faster if a player is a better passer of the ball.
It seems to me as an avid reader of MFW that the average article has 24hrs for the bulk of its comments, 48hrs before everything has inevitably moved on to the next 2 articles published in that period. One of the best things about MFW is that often the writers on the site engage with the comments on their articles in a way that I just don’t see elsewhere. For this reason Martin Penney is possibly my favourite on MFW. I think this is bourne out in the fact he gets a much larger number of comments than others who perhaps don’t. (OK with each reply there is a bit of padding to his comment totals!) Topics of course will also have a baring.
This was an interesting article from Conner again, who does write interesting peices, but could you engage more?
back to moneyball, I think it is a very useful tool and I think the stats are excellent for weeding out the players you don’t want, but ultimately you need to see them play, ideally want the manager/HC to believe they are the right player for the role they have in the team. If like Swansea as an example you want each manager to continue with playing the Swansea way, then passing accuracy over byline crosses will be more important, dangerous through balls will be the statistical order of the day. But no amount of stats can really compensate for a manager seeing and meeting a player to see how they will fit in.
will anyone read this even as its day two? I always revisit if the articles interesting as often the comments are as interesting as the article.
Bah!
I read it General …. and noted. 🙂
Cheers for the kind words; I’ll encourage the team to engage in the way Martin does. (And do so more myself!).
Hi Gary
Don’t go beating yourselves up, It is precisely that you all do for the main part engage and not just on your own articles that I think holds added appeal to the MFW articles and site.
Bah!
Yes, and others of us read it too General, and I would agree with your comments both on moneyball and Connor engaging!
Hi mate,
Firstly, thanks for your comment and for reading the piece, it means the world to me, genuinely. In regards to engagement, I want to make it clear I do read comments and what not and the majority of my engagement happens on Twitter.
Furthermore, I use to engage with comments and received a little bit of flak on some things- which is fine- but made me consider that in a different light. It is something I need to improve upon, and certainly will strive to do on upcoming articles.
Thanks again Pal,
Connor