Tough week in the data wars.
In the days leading up to the Champions League match between Newcastle United and Union Saint-Gilloise, the incredible story of the Belgian champions and league leaders got its first proper mass-audience airing. Here was a club who went from the third tier of Belgian football to the Champions League in the space of a decade. Not just that, they did it on a shoestring of a shoestring of a shoestring.
Union SG are so small-time that they had to move the game to Anderlecht’s home ground because their stadium only holds 9,400. Yet here they were, somehow facing off as equals. Everyone loves a story like that.
And so the football media turned its jeweller’s eyepiece on Union this week. You couldn’t move for articles and podcasts and clips on How They Do It. Lots of granular examples of their use of stats, their advanced player metrics, their reimagined bonus structure. The involvement of Tony Bloom in their initial 2018 revival before he sold off a lot of his stake two years ago meant there was easy shorthand for them – pointy-headed, numbers-based, the Belgian Brighton, etc.
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Which was all fine and well until they got mollywhopped 4-0. Some handicaps that can’t be overcome, no matter how brainy your boffins. Like the fact that Union’s wage bill for the current season will be a shade under €8 million, whereas Newcastle’s comes in at a sporty €250 million. Bruno Guimaraes earns more in a year than the entire Union squad combined. Take that, nerds.
That tension is always there though. Union SG v Newcastle is very obviously a bad example because of the difference in sheer military might between the two. But the more you watch modern football – and particularly the more you tune into the discussions around it – the harder the battle lines appear to be drawn.
On the one side, you have the data analysts. The geek army who have consumed the game over the past 15 years and who dictate all the modern trends. On the other you have what might broadly be termed the Football Men. They are better known to the general public, they have won a thing or two in their time and they don’t mind reminding you of it either.
It’s the Martin O’Neill thing, basically. On his recent round of interviews to promote his latest book, O’Neill has made a splash taking a stand against Expected Goals. Now, you might be inclined to say that he’s a little late to the debate – Match of the Day started showing xG stats as part of their coverage in 2017, back when he was still Ireland manager. Arguing about it now feels a bit like bending someone’s ear in the pub about the smoking ban.
Nonetheless, here’s O’Neill on Talksport during the week.
“I’m not against using data. Data’s there for a purpose. There’s no doubt at all about it. You can have data. But if you’re turning round and relying totally on data without having an eye for a player, then you’ve got a problem. You’ve definitely got a problem ... Expected goals is clueless because it doesn’t mean anything. The game is about football. It’s about winning football matches ...”
You get the picture. O’Neill invoked Brian Clough and Bill Shankly in the next breath before claiming that his critics would cast him as a dinosaur for even mentioning their names. And on it went, another chunk of content pie sliced and diced and sent out into the world to feed the inexhaustible outrage machine.
Here’s the thing. Martin O’Neill is no dinosaur. His book has grabbed some less than edifying headlines but that’s what a media tour is for. The game is the game and too much work goes into writing a book for the author not to try to play it. When you actually sit down to read it, there’s plenty of interesting stuff in there. O’Neill has a weakness for trying to sound like the smartest dude in the room, which can be desperately off-putting at times. But he’s no idiot.
He must know that his xG ranting is pure straw-man stuff. He can’t not be aware that data is the absolute engine of modern football and that all the best managers at all the top clubs use it in every facet of their job. His beloved “eye for a player” is obviously critical too – literally nobody is saying otherwise. He seemed surprised when Talksport’s Jim White put it to him that Pep Guardiola is a data acolyte – but that was surely a pose. He had to be putting that on.
The more interesting question is why do it. Why waste so much energy pooh-poohing something that is so ingrained in the sport that you are trying to explain? O’Neill’s book is called ‘The Changing Game’ – the premise is that this is his take on the evolution of football.
But look around you. Data analysis has been the guiding principle behind all the changes to all the sports across the planet over the past two decades. The American sports were first, soccer is the biggest, the richest and the one that has the most people interested in its demystification. Claiming that it’s all nonsense seems like nothing more than a way to exclude yourself from the pool of people worth listening to on the subject.
Meanwhile, Union SG have the 10th highest wage bill in the Belgian league and not only are they the reigning champions from last season, they are already six points clear after nine games this time around. Their sporting director is Limerick-born Chris O’Loughlin, who has been a coach in places as far-flung and varied as Orlando, Kinshasa, Melbourne and Charlton. He is 47 years old and told the Examiner this week that he never takes recommendations on signings from agents.
He must have some eye for a player.
