Data analysis simply has not gone far in football. Things like the flight arc or height of a floated ball that can make a massive difference in a given situation are yet to be consistently captured by data much less understood. Even player ability is not well captured at all.
Data science won't go very far until there is an algorithm that understands football. Some AlphaZero of sorts that learns football by itself from scratch by running billions of match simulations (which presents the problems of dimensionality and realistic ball control in making).
If I were a corporation like Google or something interested in 'hacking' football, I'd probably hire the developers at Pro Evolution Soccer and give them resources to create the most realistic soccer simulation engine that they could and have an algorithm run a billion simulation
Until it comes up with pretty much similar patterns to what we already have in the game. Each pattern the algorithm develops will be given a weighted score to encourage it (for example, having an overload in buildup) and copied into a new algorithm without the weighted score to
eliminate optional bias, as we all know that football is not played in a rigid way.
So much can still be done and little will until clubs or corporations lean in on their massive resources to gain competitive advantage. Or some genius with a genius algorithm or metric comes.
Liverpool's current pattern of football cannot be achieved without massive amounts of athleticism. How will an algorithm from the present know that without human input?
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
People don't realize it: Buendia to Arsenal is more complicated than it seems on the pitch. It might even be a false, smokescreen signing, despite reports. Let me explain why.
BIG BUENDIA THREAD⬇️.
Arsenal play a 4231 system where the LW occupies the left halfspace and the leftback (Tierney) pushes up high to dominate the flank. It is on the other flank that things get more interesting. The RW (Saka) is expected to stay out wide while the AM (ESR) fills the right halfspace.
Since Tierney is overlapping, the pivot LCM (Xhaka) is expected to act as a fulcrum and stay back to protect the space left behind by the dynamic Scotsman. This leaves a single CM (Partey) left to control the entire midfield. So the RB (Bellerin) is not expected to overlap wide
Yves Bissouma is literally too perfect for us not to sign him. He is almost impeccable with the ball in terms of retention. His passing is safe, progressive, and will get better. This means that our build-up is going to be more reliable with him and if you know
anything about Arteta's Arsenal, you know the build-up phase is extremely important to how we play. Reliability in that phase is essential and some of the few goals we have conceded came from mistakes in our build-up.
Bissouma's mobility and ease of dribbling allows him access
to expansive options even when he's under pressure. With confidence on his side, he can be almost as good as Partey at evading pressure and finding the spare man quicker than a Granit Xhaka. Having two impeccable 1st phase midfielders like this is a massive advantage.