8 Questions with Orbinho

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 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 Orbinho:

What is your first memory of football?

The 1971 FA Cup final. Most of my extended family are Liverpool fans, but I know that I was supporting Arsenal that day. Perhaps I was just being a difficult child and chose the other team to annoy them. The next 18 years that didn't feel like a good decision, but Anfield '89 made it all worthwhile.

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

I would read fanzines and it annoyed me that so many articles were just full of subjective opinion. I felt that any argument should be supported with facts, so I started using data to write pieces for publication and the more depth you get into, the more you want to know. It's also great to find something that no one else has spotted, to be the first person to know that piece of information and to see people's reactions when you share it or see it get used in the media or even by coaches at press conferences.  

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

Probably that so many, including those in the game itself, still believe you don't need data to enhance your decision making or to challenge your opinions. You still hear people say that statistics have no value in football, then they'll say they'd seen someone say such and such a team is bad at set pieces and they agreed with that, as if it wasn't data that was used in drawing that conclusion.

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

I was fortunate that I had worked in advertising for 10 years prior to starting at Opta, so I came into this world knowing that you couldn't pump out data en masse and expect people to understand. It's important to find the right data but also to communicate it in as simple a way as possible. I guess if I had my time over I would have liked to have done more computer science so that I could query and model data without having to ask someone else to do it for me.

What is more important domain knowledge or curiosity?

You need both. You can't ask the right questions if you don't understand what you're looking for, but at the same time encyclopaedic knowledge isn't useful if you don't have the creativity to seek answers in the right places.

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

Arsene Wenger, Alex Ferguson and Pep Guardiola - All three changed the way football was played and achieved success. I'd be curious as to what they looked for in scouting and tactical terms and then I'd look to get our team to try to find data that might help others understand what to look for. 

Ferguson once said he didn't need data to know a good player, but then he saw so many players and his brain processed so much information about those players that he was able to make good decisions more often than not. 

But once he retired that knowledge is lost to the sport. If you could package that skill, it would enable others to achieve success without having to put 50 or more years into logging the information in their heads.

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

Firstly, find good stuff to read or watch and learn as much as you can. Think about what works, what doesn't and how you can add value. Then create stuff and get it out there. Most people who are getting hired have blogged, written for free, posted on social media and get themselves noticed. It's much harder to get hired just sending in a CV which says "I like football more than anything else."

What is your favourite quote or saying?

An old boss told me "Always hire people who have the potential to be better than you. They make your life easier and you get credit for all their good work." There are too many people who feel threatened to hire someone who has the potential to go past them and recruit people who can do the job, but won't progress.