Football Analytics: Data Driven Research on Talent Identification, Recruitment, Trends and Developments in Football

Analytics and stats are areas that have been grown rapidly in football alongside other sports in recent years and they are expected to grow even more in the future. From performance analysis departments that have been emerged in professional clubs, to casual blogs, pre and post analysis on media and educational courses. Everything seems to be surrounded by numbers in sports nowadays. Can numbers predict which team is going to win the game, the league or the cup? Can numbers predict who is going to perform well and who is not? The answer is no, there is not a magic algorithm or a magic equation that predicts flawless the results of the games and performances of players. However, there are estimations. A player who is performs well throughout the season is expected to perform well in the forthcoming game. It is not guarantee though. Anything can happen in a football game as anything can happen in life. This book is split in 2 parts which each one of them has its own theme, but they are interconnected to each other as they both demonstrate the application of stats in modern football.

Part 1 is a practical example of a data-driven recruitment dossier for a mid-table Premier League club in 2021/22 season. Eleven first team players have been identified from top 5 leagues based on their statistics and the significant value that those players could bring on the pitch in 2022/23 season and in affordable prices. Part 2 is theoretical example of the current trends in football analytics and some areas of development. The research shows how data help other areas besides talent identification and recruitment (e.g. coaching or opposition analysis) and how analytics could be improved even further in the future.

This book aims to give you a different point of view on football analytics. Instead of describing situations, it is double research with real data that you can use them for your own work. Whether you work as an analyst or scout for a football club; you are a student in performance analysis; you work for a sports data company; or write a blog; you can take some ideas and step up your work. Knowledge is meant to be shared and hopefully you will get some new ideas after reading this book.