Here is Euan Dewar of Statsbomb. Cheers Euan!
What is your favorite sports moment?
Apologies if this isn't what you intended with your question, and there's some big recency bias in here of course, but Bielsa's 'spygate' press conference last January was incredible. I think everyone has forgotten it too quickly. In addition to being mind-bendingly hilarious, it was also a genuinely beautiful distillation of a mind that is unique not just in football but in all walks of life. I felt like I both understood and, importantly, sympathised with him, a great deal more from that day on.
What coach/player/team inspired or inspires you?
Tampa Bay Rays (a few baseball teams actually but will just stick with the one), Baltimore Ravens. Probably Bielsa too now, to follow on from the above. More as a person than in the sporting sense though.
What attracted you to analytics?
I got progressively more and more frustrated with mainstream analysis (MOTD, The Guardian etc) and the qualities in it that drive a lot of people away. The cliches, the generalities - it all seemed perfunctory to me a certain point and so I started scrabbling around for more concrete approaches. First it was the tactics community and places like Spielverlagerung. Through there I stumbled upon the analytics community on twitter, started consuming StatsBomb articles from that time (2017ish?). I was drawn to the focus on actively showing evidence of something you've observed in football, rather than just a couple of clips or vague opining without any burden of proof. As well as exploring the boundaries of what data can do in sport. Those parts are a virtue, even if the analytics community has its own equivalent issues to contend with nowadays.
Have you always been a gamer?
Ha, yep, absolutely ages now. When I was a properly wee young'un I was playing on lime my cousin's old consoles. Then on my fifth birthday, or thereabouts, I got a game boy and I've been ensconced ever since. I don't think a year has gone by since then - especially after I got to grips with the internet - when I haven't been keeping up gaming news and new releases. It's easily the subject I know the most about (yes yes, low bar I know). I wish there were more folks in the circles I run in that shared my level of investment in games.
How did the Statsbomb opportunity come about?
The company needed more folks on board around the time they were launching the StatsBomb dataset back in early 2018, so Ted and Thom both approached me to join as analyst. I think mostly due to my work writing for the site and various bits and bobs I'd posted on Twitter. Just incredibly lucky, basically. I've no idea what about me singled me out as being worthy of taking a chance on, but I'm massively grateful all the same and spend most days freaking out, hoping that I don't make them regret it.
What did you give up or sacrifice along the way to focus on your career thus far?
Little. Again, extremely fortunate. Especially considering I'm a white dude who comes from a family with no financial issues. Only thing I can think of really is time, due to commuting, staying over in hotel rooms etc. Take no pity on me.
What is the most gratifying part of your role?
Working with people who are absurdly smart, kind and put up with my nonsense like saints on a daily basis.
What is the most tedious or difficult part of your role?
Data. I'm not being facetious, it's data. For any company - regardless of size but especially so for a small one like ours - it is super difficult to stay on top of a dataset you're creating and maintaining. Coordinating to find and squash the inevitable bugs and other issues as they pop up. And I am by no means the one who bears the worst of it (pray for Nat and Thom).
Who is the first player that you "found"; what caught your eye about that player?
No idea about the first but the one that I'm most attached to in recent times is Lautaro MartÃnez. He looked interesting in the data so I digged deeper on that along with watching him and I loved the dude. He was so energetic and aggressive in his off-ball runs and defensive work. We were doing a project early on in my time at SB, helping out with recruitment for a team and I threw his name out there. Then Inter bought him like a week later and I root for him hardcore every time he's out there.
Who is a player you completely missed on? What did you learn because of that?
Like half of Sheffield United's team. I really liked them the last couple years in the Championship and gained a huge amount of respect for Chris Wilder (and his fun set pieces back then!) but I thought they'd struggle as Norwich are right now. I'm not entirely sure what I specifically wasn't seeing, but I think it was some combination of league translation and underestimating the effect of a coach. Which really annoys me because I always thought I was too high on coaching importance, if anything. I just had a total mental lapse on them, and was oddly stubborn about the idea of a promoted team actually carrying these qualities over. I sometimes fail to adhere my own ideas of good practice.
If you were to start from scratch in football analytics what would you learn first and why?
Some form of coding. Being able to answer questions that occur to you on your own without needing to ask others is quite a freeing feeling. I always want to dig down the most obscure levels possible, and it's hard to do that with other people's pre-built metrics/vizzes.
What is your favorite football league and why?
German Bundesliga. It is consistently great craic due to its transition-heavy style of play, and in recent seasons especially has gotten quite out there at times. I remeber a couple of seasons ago it seemed like no team had a midfield. andmost matches were chaos It was lovely. Always produces some intriguing coaches too.
What is your favorite app/tool?
I don't know if this is the kind of thing you were thinking of but: I played about 7000 hours of Peggle on my phone back in t'day.
What is your favorite quote or saying?
This is one of those questions I could spend ages on, so to prevent myself doing that I'll pluck two from my youtube favourites. First a nice one:
and also a horrific one:
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