11 Questions with Jonas

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 Jonas:

How did your first opportunity in football come about?

I create tactical analyses for an online newspaper as a side job, so I guess that counts as football industry in the broader sense. I got there by writing a blog and got noticed. There was a niche to fill and I did.

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

I like football and I enjoy understanding things. That was the starting point. Also, at that time, the first tactics blogs like Zonalmarking and Spielverlagerung were already around and provided orientation which helped to get started.
I also have a passion for analytics, but I haven't done much work yet in that area. So I can't say yet what fascinates me more.

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

Everyone who analyses football has a unique way of conceptualizing the game, so there is nothing special or necessarily relevant about mine. Something that caught my eye early was the ability of some players to pass very tightly past an opponent. As an analyst, this was very obvious to see and it has significant tactical effects, but it doesn't seem to be talked much about specifically. I still use the concept sometimes to form a tactical picture of a player (using strange terminology to write it down in my notes!).

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

Way too many things (and players) to single out one. Developing skill is a process that by definition leaves you inadequate at any point in time. But that's not tragic as long as you're honest with yourself and not too attached to your (supposed) expertise.

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

Maybe getting some coaching experience.

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

I don't develop players, so I can't say anything specific about that. But I think, for most endeavors, you need a mixture of science and art. There is a body of scientific knowledge that gives you very good answers to a few very broad questions. These make a valuable foundation. Then, your own scientific/rational thought can guide many of your decisions. But this only works on a strategic level. You don't have the time and capacity to reason in detail about most everyday decisions. 

So you want to make sure you develop a good, reliable intuition for those. Also, science doesn't give you answers for the most fundamental questions that guide your life and also your work, like what your goals and values are. These things ultimately can't be rationalized. They need to be felt and created. So, in my opinion, you need an artistic approach on both ends of this spectrum while science finds its place in between.

What is your favorite sports moment? Why?

In October 2016, VfB Stuttgart won 4:0 against Greuther Fürth in the German second tier. Benjamin Pavard made his debut for Stuttgart and one minute into the game he played this once-in-a-lifetime 50 meter pass through the entire opposition formation which lead to the 1:0. Stuttgart moved on with great creative football, Pavard later scored a goal himself - the game continued in fairy tale mode. It was absolutely ridiculous.

What coach/player/team inspires you? Why?

As a Stuttgart fan I'm biased toward the (many) coaches they had in the last decade. First and foremost, Tim Walter is a tactical innovator but the thing that makes him the most inspiring is that he embodies a great (and difficult to advocate) football mentality. Bruno Labbadia also represents a cool such mentality (with some caveats). There is also Hannes Wolf who was exceptional at getting all people around the club on board. I also have sympathies for his somewhat radical way of building a tactical system around the peculiarities of his players.

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

Regarding media, I think there is still a lot of potential for good qualitative (and probably also quantitative) analysis. The problem is that it's very hard to do well. You need accuracy and detail on the one hand while still making things engaging and relatable for your audience. If one of these is missing, or they don't combine into an organic whole, your end product is not valuable to a large amount of people. Most of the time though, the two qualities cannibalize each other. Also, they require very different skills. But if you manage to get them together on a very high level, it should be relatively easy to get your stuff published and paid for.

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

Boring but true: Spotify is just really convenient for music.

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

I hope that creative work (other than football writing) helps me to eliminate blind spots in analysis because it forces you to leave space in your head for things to come to you rather than narrowing things down. Also, reflecting and developing yourself is always a helpful practice.