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 don't work in football, I only do some football analytics on my free time.

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

It was something my high school math teacher one said. He said that if he ever started playing the lottery we had to put him in a mental hospital, since you of course were expected to lose money. Then he mentioned that of course it would be possible, in theory, to win money of sports betting. 

When I started learning statistical modelling I thought about what he said and tried to use the techniques I had learned to model football scores. I read the academic literature about it that I found and did some analyses that I posted on my blog. Only once did I try to bet money on some games. I lost 10€ over 12 games. I later realized there was a bug in my code, and all my bets were basically coin tosses, haha. I don't think it is possible to expect profit from using statistical modelling alone. Additional "soft" information needs to be used as well.

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

My answer here is definitely more in the "concept" realm than in the "player" realm. Of course it was not me who invented or discovered it, but I think the under-dispersed alternative to the Poisson model, called the Conway-Maxwell-Poisson is something I think I am almost the only one to write about. This modeling approach is developed by people in academia, and is still a bit difficult to work with, but Poisson alternatives like it definitely have a place in football analytics and in more general statistical analytics.

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

In terms of football analytics I really haven't progressed beyond predicting the outcomes based on previous results. I haven't paid much attention to player level data and event data and expected goals. Since I only do this on my spare time for fun, not as a professional, I haven't bothered yet.

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

Hard to say. I do these things for fun, and therefore everything I do sort of fits my skill level perfectly.

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

There is definitely a lot of science to it. But at the top level, where the science is pushed to the maximum, the art plays a large role. Like some of the top chess players put it, they often can't really justify their moves, but only feel what is right.

What is your favorite sports moment? Why?

Manchester United winning the treble in 99. Being a Norwegian, Solskjær scoring the last goal in the UEFA final was a huge moment.

What coach/player/team inspires you? Why?

I really like teams that succeed with developing their own teams with mostly local players, like Rosenborg did in the 1999-ies and the Icelandic national team. The combination of hard work and smarts is much more inspiring than billionaires buying clubs and treating them as financial investments.

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

Learn to use the computer. Especially computer programming is a surprisingly valuable skill, I think, since it learns you to think differently and get a better understanding of the digital tools and apps we use every day. Even just spending maybe a week on learning the basics is should be really valuable.

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

I use R for almost anything these days. I some times say that I know R better than I know English, and it is not a joke!

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

Of course since I actually work as a statistician, that has a lot of impact of course. But it also goes the other way as well. I am naturally curious and like to read a lot.