11 Questions with Adam Darowski

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 Adam Darowski, UX/IA consultant for @sportsref and @fbref

How did your first opportunity in football come about?

Football is still pretty new to me. I've only been following the game for about five years. By day, I'm a web product designer and developer and I've always been a big baseball fan—particularly the history of the game and the statistical aspects of it. A combination of these things led to me consulting with Sports Reference about five years ago. I'm still working with them today, first on their baseball site, then working on the redesigns of all other sports (basketball, American football, hockey, etc.). When they started working on their new world football site (FBref), I started working closely with them. Football analytics are a hobby for me, but working on analytics tools is also what I do for work.

What attracted you to scouting/analytics?

As mentioned before, I was first and foremost a baseball fan. Analytics are such a huge part of baseball, but they didn't seem as prominent in other sports. If I ever watched another sport, I always wanted to know the context of what I was seeing. Does this particular play happen often? What's the best performance a player has ever had in this aspect? How good is this historically? When I started following football, I had these same thoughts while watching the game.

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

I can't really say that I've "found" anything novel. But I've started writing about football recently and a piece that really resonated with readers was about how BVB's stats would look if football assists were scored like hockey. Julian Brandt flew up the assist charts as he's often providing the important pass to the player who sets up the goal scorer. That's something that's missing from traditional football metrics. I was pleasantly surprised when the article was shared by some journalists and broadcasters I really admire.

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

I'm in the process of trying to figure out why Roman Bürki's numbers look weak this year (not just the traditional ones, but the xG-based ones) while he has largely passed the eye test (except for that enormous gaffe against Leipzig). I'm still trying to learn from that!

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

I love the combination of skills that have—design and code—but if forced to start from scratch I would definitely go deeper on the code side. My development chops just can't catch up with what my brain would like to do. My advice for ANY young person (I'm 41, so I suppose I'm old enough to give out advice) is to learn to code. You will always have work.

Do you see player development as more of an art or a science?

As a designer who codes (or a developer with a design eye) I think I see some of both in everything. You need to be grounded in analytics but there's a creativity in discovering new concepts. That's the art.

What is your favorite sports moment? Why?

The Red Sox winning the World Series was huge for me. It had been 86 years since they had done it, so the entire region was craving it. 

What coach/player/team inspires you? Why?

I have to say Borussia Dortmund. They're the only club I watch every match of… and boy do I watch every minute. As a result, much of what I've learned about football over the last five years I've learned through a Borussia lens. I simply identified with the club right away, from their underdog status behind Bayern to their loyal veterans (Marco Reus and Lukasz Piszczek, my two favorite footballers) to their political stances.

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

Beyond learning to code, I'd practice writing as much as you can. Keep a blog or journal. Share your thoughts. Get on Twitter. Converse with journalists and analysts that you admire.

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

Not only am I working on FBref, but I'm on the site many times a day (or most of the day if we're being honest) digging into the endless abyss of football numbers. I just keep clicking and sorting until I find something I haven't seen before or find some data that makes me think of something in a different way.

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

I already mentioned coding and writing—those are incredibly important. But people skills are right there, too. Be nice to people. Be helpful. And don't worry about people who don't do the same. They're not worth your time. Be a person that people like being around first and foremost.