11 Questions with Abel Meszaros

The pursuit of wisdom in any walk of life quickly reveals that what you think you know is not nearly enough to get you to where you want to go. As I'm starting out in my football scouting journey I challenged myself to reach out to those already working in various roles in football to answer a short list of questions. My goal wasn't to get answers but relevant perspectives on the game within the game.

Here is Abel Meszaros, creator of this awesome newsletter.

How did your first opportunity in football come about?

I assume the question refers to working in football and not playing, though I probably peaked at U9 level playing with our academy (Debrecen, Hungary) vs Inter. 

Anyhow, let's fast forward in time: it was late 2015, after I've already started to get more seriously interested in the tactical\analytical side of football and discovered Football Twitter. 

When my teaching gig in the US came to an end later that year, I, thanks to the encouragement of my amazing wife, decided to give writing about football a go, picking the Bundesliga, because I was a huge fan as a kid growing up in Hungary (there's a lot of reasons, but they're probably uninteresting for the readers). I came across the superb Bundesligafanatic.com who for some reason allowed me to express my passionate but rather basic (at the time, they are now verging towards mediocre) views on German football. 

That, thousands of hours of watching matches/reading/learning from people smarter than me and critically reevaluating everything I knew about football plus the activity on Twitter in 2015\16\17 allowed me to write for a lot of outlets and eventually land a gig on TV thanks to someone I knew from Twitter. 

What attracted you to scouting/analytics? What’s more intriguing now names or numbers?

Still working on figuring out the scouting part - I'm not the "let's find the next XYZ guy" - but I guess it's really perhaps my fascination of knowing things on a deeper level that make analyzing and learning about a player interesting. Analytics was a whole new thing - although I was familiar with it from baseball\basketball - for me, but I really enjoy how it brings more info into the conversation and allows for more interesting discussions in football. 

Who/what is the first player/concept you "found"? What caught your eye?

Ugh I'm not very good at remembering stuff like this, but I was in pretty early on a few guys (Upamecano in mid 2017, Joelinton in preseason before he started for TSG, always liked Pascal Gross, but I think that's bc of Ted Knutson, etc)

Who/what is the player/concept you "missed" on? What did you learn from it?

I still probably undervalue a lot of the hard to measure things like physiology, injury prevention,  team chemistry, player fit on a team, the roles and lots of unquantifiable things we don't get to see publicly. I think, as per usual, Rene Maric had some really nice thoughts on this, but I don't remember where.

If you could start over what skill would you build on first?

Probably coding.

Do you see player development as more of an art or a science? Is development on the club or the player? Why?

It's a bit of both for sure,  but I'm not sure if you can devise a clear number for the right mix, that would be too much science and not enough art. But also I'm a big believer in data and accountability.

What is your favorite sports moment? Why?

That's really hard, because in general the fan part of me has more or less "died" - I think the great Zach Lowe wrote about this phenomenon - but going to the Westfalenstadion (def not Signal Iduna Park), seeing Messi\Ronaldinho in 2006 in an exhibition match, getting to see Djokovic vs Murray from 3 ft distance from Judy Murray in US Open QFs, a Westbrook triple double / Kawhi/Tim Duncan in SA, TX. 

What coach/player/team inspires you? Why?

Way too many to mention, but I'll go with Christian Titz bc https://www.seedshirt.de/ilovebigtitz

What advice would you give to someone wanting to get into media/analytics?

Stay in your mom's basement. Jk, my no 1. advice is to specialize yourself and become an expert in ONE area (youth football, scouting, data, tactics, women's football, player profiles, etc)

What is your favorite app/tool to use (for work or fun)?

I like StatsZone a ton, Infogol bc of live XG, Sofascore's average positional thing, and of course all the video ones like Instat or Wyscout. In terms of reading I like that kicker, 11Freunde and the Athletic also have apps .

What other sport/hobby/discipline do you feel improves your work as an analyst? Why?

Hmm, not sure if I can name ones, bc I've found that watching other sports mostly takes time away. I do enjoy playing football obviously, though there's not enough time\i'm old, so now it's probably running, which is meh, but it's a good stress reliever.