8 Questions with 11tegen11

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 11tegen11:

What is your first memory of football?

For me, the memory of the 1986 World Cup in Mexico really stood out as something special. I was seven years old at the time, and my parents allowed me to watch the first half of several of the matches that were on show in the evening time in Europe. The opener, Bulgaria v Italy, may not have been the most spectacular of games, but it made such an impact on me that flashes are still in my memory. Collecting Panini player cards also heightened the suspense a lot, since this really inspired my imagination, looking at these players that I never heard of before.

What attracted you to data and scouting? What’s more intriguing now, refining your processes and acumen or 'discovering' players?

I started out, like many people do, as a tactics blogger. Having done that for over two years, I felt the need to gather more evidence for the statements I was making purely on observation, so this triggered my need for data. This was back in 2012, so public data was nowhere to be found, and I linked up with a source of very rough data, things like shots, shots on target and possession percentage. 

This led to the development of a concept called total shots rate, which we completely milked in a newly found small community of public analysts. Even when the concept went out of use with the advent of much more refined event data, this period was still a very important learning phase.

Later came the development of an expected goals model, creating visualisations like the expected goals plot and passmaps. All of these helped reach a wider audience on Twitter, which still is the best place for public football analytics right now. 

Then, a next step would be to quantify player skills and identify player types, which is the essence of scouting. I got approached by a club proposing to help with their player scouting, and one thing led to another with 11tegen11 turning from a hobby into a business. 

Right now we're working for several clubs, both in Europe and in the US, doing various consulting services with the mainstay of our activity still in player scouting where our strength is that we offer a completely integrated data and video scouting line. 

From a personal hobby, it has grown into a business, where multiple people are involved in various roles like video scouts and computer coders. Most of the data analysis is still my personal work though, and the sense of working on my hobby has never really gone away.

Ideally, I'd want to devote more of my time to refining the process, but at the end of the day it's also important to produce quality advice for the client clubs, and to learn from the feedback that this generates.

What is the biggest misconception/cliche regarding recruitment you’ve found in this space?

That would probably be the perceived dichotomy between data driven scouting and video / live scouting. For me, this has always been hard to understand, even though I see the point that a new tool enters the arena of player scouting and is treated with caution initially. Simply said, I think one should make optimal use of all available viewpoints to make complex decisions. And player scouting is about making complex decisions, estimating player quality, potential, fit in terms of tactics, fit in terms of personality, etc.

It makes complete sense to use all available tools, and therefore our business model is a completely integrated data and video scouting, to present clubs with the optimal suggestions to incorporate in their existing scouting line. We therefore prefer to work with a limited number of clubs, aiming for a close long-term relationship so we can really connect with the tactical identity and get the optimal feel for what the people at the club want.

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

This is a hard question to answer with a single skill, because it all ties together. 

In this field of work it's important to combine many different skills, like football knowledge, coding, visualisation and communication. Then, you'll also need the energy to do this for a while, even when the adoption of this integrated form of scouting may be slow and run into preconceived ideas.

What is more important domain knowledge or curiosity?

Between these two I'd go for curiosity. I'm an autodidact, so curiosity does lead to the expansion of your domain knowledge. The reverse is harder to picture.

In football, curiosity should be that you grab actual football related questions and try to answer them as best as you can, using information from as many angles as possible. If any of these angles falls outside your skillset and you have the time, then try to expand your skill set. That's the process that has worked for me at least.

What three (3) football icons would you want to have a meal with? Why?

The first one to spring to mind would definitely be the late Socrates. He's a compelling character with a very unique skill set as a medical doctor, political activist, full-time drinker and professional football player, all at the same time. His biography is very much worth a read.

I'd also love to invite Valeriy Lobanovskyi, for being probably the most influential manager ever, leaving a legacy of total football and being a very early adopter of pressing football.

Third, let's invite ...

What advice would you give to someone wanting to get into this space?

There is only one advice really, and that would be to start.

Find something you like, be it tactical writing, data analysis, video stuff, whatever suits you best. And go to work, create things and publish them in the public sphere. This way you'll receive feedback you can use to improve your skills, and build a relevant portfolio at the same time. Over time, you may well get picked up if your work meets a certain standard, but don't be disappointed if it doesn't happen since you just work on things you like.

What is your favorite quote or saying?

Oh, there are many. 

Let's go for 'most people use data like a drunkard uses a lamp post, for support, rather than illumination'. This applies for all fields of data use, but it's particularly applicable in football from what I have seen.