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 @npranav10, data analyst intern at @NashvilleSC
Here is @npranav10, data analyst intern at @NashvilleSC
After opting out of placements last July in my UG (a rare decision taken in my country), I badly wanted to make a career as a Data Analyst in Cricket/Football.
During my previous internship as Cricket Analyst, I found that Data in Cricket is still used by the Media community more than the coaches. Hence I was looking for other opportunities where I can make use of both my passion "to investigate the data" and experience with the game. With at least 10 years of experience in watching football, I thought I will give it a try in this sport. I approached one of the latest MLS expansion clubs (Nashville SC) for the internship role that they posted on LinkedIn after successfully passing a test, now I am working part-time for the club.
What attracted you to scouting/analytics? What’s more intriguing now names or numbers?
Rewinding 2 years in my life as “Sports Enthusiast”, I started using data (to support my alternate hypotheses) in making decisions. Whether it was a Lunchtime discussion or setting up a team in fantasy leagues, it helped me a lot. I even won the fantasy league 3 times in a row (a streak which includes a win in the league comprising experienced data analysts from my previous internship in Cricket.).
Those little things were part of my decision-making process to work in this field. It’s hard not to say numbers are not intriguing. I try to stick with names while watching a game (like an ordinary Joe) but in the end, I can't help myself revisiting the performance of team/players using numbers. “With the advent of some advanced metrics like xG/Chain and xG/Buildup, one can argue that the numbers can soon replace the need to watch player-specific video clips.”
Who/what is the first player/concept you "found"? What caught your eye?
Concept of Analytics: When I hear the phrase “analytics in football” arguably it is Marcelo Bielsa who comes to my mind first. His 3-3-3-1 formation, meticulous in-game and training-ground-preparation analysis and his attempt to educate reporters during the Spygate incident (https://www.youtube.com/watchv=p2uDEXug6ic) all caught my eye. I wish he comes to Premier League soon.
Who/what is the player/concept you "missed"on? What did you learn from it?
Concept: I always thought that the coaches would be happy to see "data insights" being a part of their decision-making process. But this isn’t the case everywhere or every time. I feel that if the coaches aren’t ready to accept your findings, then it’s on you to improve your "data-to-inference" translation to an extent that they fall in love with findings and understand the need for it at the current instant.
If you could start over what skill would you build on first?
Programming skills. I proclaim myself to be a problem-solver working independent of the problem’s domain. Hence most of the time I come up with a “Yeah. It solves the problem” approach rather than giving the expected-best approach because I am satisfied with being the jack of all trades but master of none. So I never dedicated time to learn state-of-the-art programming. I would love to start building it soon.
Do you see player development as more of an art or a science? Is
development on the club or the player? Why?
I believe I am not an experienced professional to answer such a question, but in my opinion, it’s 50-50. The way Klopp brings the best out of every member of starting XI and the way Man Utd has a streak of > 4000 matches with at least one youth academy graduate, it’s a great art produced by great artists. But it is proven that it is successful from a scientific development perspective too.
Just look at the recruitment of Brentford FC. The have techies running the club in the background and with collaboration with the “Right To Dream” academy from Ghana and FC Nordsjælland, they have mastered the art of making it scientific.
I think the responsibilities of player development starts with the club (say starting from youth academy) and as the career progresses it ends up on the player’s shoulders. The likes of CR7 and Virat Kohli have the set up a standard of what it means to be a sports professional. Both had tremendous support, encouragement and mentor figures playing with them when they started out and now they take care of their own development. I think that’s how things should pan out.
What is your favorite sports moment? Why?
In Cricket: As a huge fan of Sachin Tendulkar, it has to be the 200* vs South Africa on 24th Feb 2010. I even remember the time, if I am not wrong it is 6:13 pm IST.
(P.S: If you look at my handle name say in Twitter or GitHub, It says npranav10. The “10” in my name is the testimony of being a Sachin Tendulkar fan.)
What coach/player/team inspires you? Why?
Team 1 (EPL): As a Man Utd fan its hard to mention Liverpool here. But the way the Data Science team has succeeded in recruitments and in-game strategies, and how Klopp has been tinkering the team with those inputs has fascinated me.
Team 2 (IPL - Cricket): Although being a CSK fan, I have
to give credits to MI’s Rohit Sharma and his coaching staff who play by extracting a formidable amount of juice from video/data analysis.
What advice would you give to someone wanting to get into media/analytics?
If you don’t have a solid profile/mini-projects to back your interest in getting into analytics, no one’s going to hire you because of how the field is. There is a tremendous amount of research going from the academic background and I would advise anyone interested in this field to appreciate the works presented in conferences (like Sloan, OptaPro Analytics and by start-ups like SciSports), start trying out them with the open data available and share it in the social networks.
It’s even more difficult if you have other works to do besides trying to get into this field. (like how I am working on my Bachelor thesis and interning with Nashville SC.). At the end of the day it’s about trusting the process and hoping your hard work pays off soon.
What is your favorite app/tool to use (fun only!!)?
App: I hope FIFA (game series) makes the cut as an application. I use it a lot to get to know players and teams (EA’s AI is improving year by year) and I get to try a lot of formations and in-game strategies that might come handy in my profession.
What other sport/hobby/discipline do you feel improves your work as an analyst? Why?
Sport: Cricket is a religion in India and I am a fervent follower of it. In my spare time, I keep building my R package (statsguRu) and the shinyapp associated with it.
Hobby: Open-Source contribution.
I think these two help me improve my programming and data manipulation skills.
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