Here is Felix Pichler:
What attracted you to scouting/analytics? What’s more intriguing now names or numbers?
Since I'm 13 years old or so I always wanted to understand football as good as possible. I always knew that nobody can fully understand it and no human being can know everything about it, but I wanted to know as much as possible. Back then the reason was that I knew that on the pitch my vision and understanding of the game were my greatest strengths (I was incredibly slow and tried to always be one step ahead in my head). When I had to end my career, I had more time to watch football and think about it as I suddenly hadn't got training sessions, meetings, matchdays and stuff like that. I said to myself that the time which I have had spent on the pitch before my injury, I would now want to invest in watching games and reading as much as possible about football. And nothing of these aspects have changed until today. I'm aware of the fact that I still don't know everything about football and I think this is still my greatest motivation. Also, the numbers getting more important nowadays and I like to use data to find new and interesting players, but they are not everything. Numbers don't help you if you don't have the knowledge to understand the values. Considering this, I also really enjoy watching a player improving his skills from week to week.
What player or concept you fascinates you? What caught your eye?
That's a hard question since the most interesting and beautiful aspect of the game is his variety. There is no right way to play football, but numerous options to do so. Since I was a defensive midfielder, I would say Sergio Busquets was the man who fascinates me the most and therefore also the style of play of Barcelona. Until today I'm a fan of possession-orientated teams, but I think a lot of people should realise that no team has possession just to have possession. It's just a different way to progress the ball further up the pitch and create chances to score a goal. However, basically I love to watch football as long as you see that a team follows a plan and has a clear tactic(s). As long as this is the case, it doesn't really matter which concept they have.
What is the biggest misconception you’ve found in this space?
The greatest misconception is indeed the already mentioned aspect that some people hate Pep Guardiola, Barcelona or the Spanish national team just because they dominate a game by having more possession than the opposition and due to their calm and patient style of play. They see a team which doesn't want to progress the ball further up the pitch while I see a group of players who have a clear plan and stay patient until they see the chance for a breakthrough and permanently stick to their plan. Also, I like the following quote very much which everyone who wants to analyse football matches should always have in mind: "Possession as a philosophy is overrated. Possession as a tool is underrated."
If you could start over what skill would you build on first?
Finding my own kind of language which I use to describe what I see on the pitch and which can be easily understood by everyone who reads what I write or who listens to me. You can be the best analyst, understand everything about football and detect every single pattern and tactic of a team, but when you can't describe it in an understandable way for yourself and everyone else, this will neither help you nor anybody else.
What is more important player development or recruitment? Why?
I would say a mixture of both and it depends on the club. I think the development of a player becomes nowadays extremely important due to the huge gap between rich and poor clubs. The smaller teams would have no chance without a good player development. But on the other hand, recruitment can also help you massively as you can find great players for little money. All in all, I would say that that within the upcoming years the development of players will become more important since the corona crisis could mean that clubs have way less money to buy new players and therefore the focus will be more on the development of players, but this is just a conjecture.
What is your favorite sports moment? Why?
Andres Iniesta's goal in the World Cup final 2010 against the Netherlands. Iniesta will forever be one of the best players in the world, but people will always mainly remember the great goal scorers and due to that I was just happy that he would be the one to score the decisive goal.
What coach/player/team inspires you? Why?
Quite hard to pick one, but I would go with Busquets as he is for me one of the most underrated players of the last 20 years in football. You can't find a player who is similar to him and at the same level. William Carvalho is the first player who comes to my mind when I think about similar defensive midfielders, but Busquets is just miles ahead. His calmness, technique and vision are incredible, but can't be fully measured with data. For me, he is besides Lionel Messi the player who combines beauty and effectiveness in a perfect way. Therefore, the Spaniard is for me a role model as I am a fan of the idea that everything you do should be beautiful and effective at the same time.
What advice would you give to someone wanting to get into this space?
Just never think that you know everything about a certain topic and try to connect your knowledge of different areas. If you have for example a good understanding of data and tactics as well, combine them. Educate yourself in this area, but don't expect that you ever understand everything about it as the next day you will read an article in which you learn something completely new and you start thinking about an aspect of this certain area for the first time in your life.
Who is your favorite athlete? Why?
Roman Reigns who is a wrestler in the WWE and his real name is Joseph Anoa'i. However, he's not my favourite athlete because of his character in front of the camera, but due to his discipline, passion and professionalism. I think that these three aspects are important if you want to reach anything in your life and he is for me a role model.
What is your favorite quote or saying?
"I call them prophets of the past" is a simple quote which I once read in a book (I can't remember in which one) and has a huge meaning for me. The author meant that when somebody tries something and fails, the people always say afterwards that they knew that it wouldn't work out and so they are prophets of the past. It means for me that you should give it a try when you are sure that you want to do it and if you fail, it doesn't matter as you thought that it would be the right way before you actually did it. Also, these prophets of the past are always people who say afterwards that they knew it but before it actually happened they were quiet and due to that you should never listen to these voices after a failure.
No comments:
Post a Comment