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Moneyball, Sabermetrics, and SV Zulte Waregem

davidmcain

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davidmcain

davidmcain

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moneyball

http://www.thesefootballtimes.net/#!fc-midtjylland-small-club-big-ambition/c1x5

https://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/blogs/pitchside-europe/how-moneyball-tactics-put-brentford-in-contention-for-the-premier-league---but-doomed-their-manager-181333187.html

http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2015/feb/22/brentford-mathematical-modelling-denmark

For those unfamiliar with Moneyball, it was the recruitment strategy introduced by the Oakland A’s in Major League Baseball by General Manager Billy Beane. It focused on the analytical, evidence-based, sabermetric approach to assembling a competitive baseball team, despite Oakland's disadvantaged revenue situation. Rather than focusing on the historically recognised statistics such as Batting Average, it took into account less used statistics such as On Base Average and Slugging Percentage.

Matthew Benham is the owner of both Brentford FC in England and FC Midtjylland in Denmark. His ownership has seen drastically improved fortumes for both clubs and has focused on using statistical data to help gain an advantage over their wealthier opponents.

Benham has made a controversial decision in recent weeks to dismiss Manager Mark Warburton from Brentford and replace the current system with a ‘European-style’ hierarchy regardless of whether Brentford continue to overachieve and even win promotion.

My goal at the moment is to replicate this model and the principles in place and see if it’s possible to find success with Belgian club Zulte Waregem. Having read the articles above, I found a few key quotes to work from.

- “I liked the idea of having a European club anyway, primarily for the non-EU angle. England is far more restrictive about non-EU players than any other country in Europe and speaking to Greg Dyke [ex-Brentford chairman and current FA chairman] it is going to get far more restrictive. There’s no way Messi could have come over to England as a kid.

- Sustainability is what every football club aspires to achieve and reaching the European stage will give Midtjylland just that. “Once you get to a high level then everything comes sustainable, so any club that regularly gets into the Champions League can make a profit every year and re-invest that in facilities, stadium and new players. But until you get to that level you’ve got to fund a loss, which is fine.

- "We do quite a few things differently but the two main things are the statistical analysis and the way we approach talent development,"

- We use the data to find undervalued players in undervalued markets and we also do a lot in terms of development. More than 50 percent of our starting XI players are from the academy,

- Ankersen won’t reveal everything about the club’s use of data, but does say that Midtjylland pay particular attention to what he calls “dangerous situations” in games. Interestingly, they are a client of E4talent, which tracks shots in the “danger zone” – an area that stretches from the start of the six-yard box to the edge of the penalty area – from which 77% of Premier League goals are scored

- Set pieces are another focus. Midtjylland have scored 15 goals from set pieces from 17 games, an average of 0.88 per game, the second highest in Europe. Only Atlético Madrid, with an average of 1.04 a game, are more prolific. The highest in the Premier League are Arsenal with 15 in 26 games, an average of 0.57

- Midtjylland’s success is also partly down to their excellent youth academy, which Ankersen helped get off the ground a decade ago: usually five or six starters in their games are home-grown. The emergence of the Danish under-21 international Pione Sisto, who has been linked with many top sides in Europe, is another factor. But using mathematical modelling as well as traditional scouting has helped the club acquire players they believe are undervalued, including Kris Olsson from Arsenal, Marco Ureña from Kuban Krasnodar and Jim Larsen from Club Brugge

So there are a few key areas to focus on here. Player Recruitment, Statistical Analysis, Youth Development, Investment in Infrastructure, and Set Pieces.

I have loaded a database of 28,000 players which consists of Players of National Reputation from Europe, Africa, Caribbean, Oceania, and Central America. The idea here was to have a reasonable database of players around Europe who may be undervalued, as well as a wide net of players in the aforementioned undervalued markets. I will search primarily for players under the age of 22, but I will sign older players as well if necessary and affordable.

In terms of Statistical Analysis I will take into account the statistic above stating 79% of goals being scored in front of the goal between the 6 and 18 yard boxes and base my attack and defense around preventing and creating these opportunites. Another interesting statistic I stumbled upon stated that 2% of shots from outside the box result in a goal. These will be looked out for and those prone to long shots may be on the first train out.

Unfortunately at this stage I have fairly poor facilities at the club. So youth development may prove a little difficult, however with one of my primary goals being Infrastructure development this will hopefully change in the future and we will see a few local players finding their way through to the first team. I have a loose rule in place where I will be happy to sell players for double their worth to help build the bank balance and help improve our setup.

Finally, with Set Pieces being a key component of the approach, this will be heavily focussed on as well. It is one of the few areas which can be easily measured on a purely statistical level so is a good starting point. Needless to say, a few big men could be needed, and a couple of set piece maestros.

That all said, I’m still on day one so its time to put the wheels in motion. I will be updating this thread regularly so feel free to join the discussion. Any feedback is appreciated.

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Raniel3

Raniel3

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Interesting idea, but there are some negative points I'd like to add:

1. While in FM you might be able to read your team statistics about where goals are coming from and so, but you are not able to specifically search for players that fulfill these statistics (I am not even sure if there are real life statistics about where single players score from, except for Messi & Co. maybe). As this is a fundamental element for the Moneyball approach, you're idea becomes difficult right here. You are left to look for players who have the attributes to POTENTIALLY fulfull your statistical needs, but that's kind of what we all do.

2. Statistics without context are useless. You showed 2 completely different statistics: 1. 79% of all goals are scored in front of the goal. That means 21% percent are not scored in front of the goal. 2. Now you say "2% of all shots from outside the box result in a goal". What we would need instead is a statistic that tells us how much % of all shots INSIDE the box result in a goal. Then you would need to estimate how difficult it is too create shots inside the box and how easy too just shoot from outside. Then again you would have to compare the probalities with the total amount of potential shots you could create and see what would get you more goals: shooting 50 times from outside the box or 15 times from inside? Then after all of that you would notice that it completely depends on your players and average statistics are useless for football, because it does make a hell of a difference if you have Steven Gerrard shooting from outside or my 80-year old grandfather.

3. FM with it's star system makes it muuuuch easier to successfully find undervalued talents from minor countries. In real life it's incredibly hard to correctly make a guess about a player from Burkina-Fasos Premier League, because the competition in that league is so low and the football being played is so much different. In FM the stars are much more reliant in these cases. So this would really favour your idea

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Mosfine

Mosfine

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So you're just saying that you're gonna use the data the game's offering to choose who you buy and who you sell?

Which is what everyone's doing?

Or are you gonna do something different, like having fog of war and relying only on players stats and not attributes?

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Wesley6

Wesley6

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I personally don't think moneyball translates into football, let alone football manager, as the sport is not broken down into individual moments/plays like baseball is. I don't really see a footballing equivalent of a player's on base % for example.

Having said that if I was going to try this, I would probably holiday a season in so you have a season's player statistics to work with. Then you could start looking at relevant statistics, for example shortlisting strikers who won a high percentage of headers. You could then filter this down to players who got a high percentage of headers on target. Combine this with a winger who had a high percentage of completed crosses and you might be onto something. However the problem arises in that even the best players can suck if you have the wrong tactics and conversely a poorer player can shine if you have a good tactical setup which might make all these statistics irrelevant. Additionally a player who for example has a high percentage of successful crosses probably has high attributes in all the right areas and so will be pretty valuable.

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herne79

herne79

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So you're just saying that you're gonna use the data the game's offering to choose who you buy and who you sell?

Which is what everyone's doing?

Or are you gonna do something different, like having fog of war and relying only on players stats and not attributes?

Of course the OP is going to use the game's data, that's all any of us can use as that is all that is available to us.

I think the part you are missing is how the OP plans to use that data, and particular parts of it, to help him/her shape and develop the club being managed based on a particular real life example.

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Jambo98

Jambo98

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Be interested to see how this goes. There have been a few attempts in past years to use a bit of moneyball style approach (finding hidden value mostly) in FM, but the reality is that it does not easily translate.

The use of statistics to derive things in football can also have negative effects of course. It is, afterall, exactly where "route one" football came from.......

The work Bill James did was massive, but it took decades to be adapted by a major league team. Beane was the first to trust it, and others followed.

The challenge in translating it to football, as a few have mentioned, is partly that football is much more dynamic. Most baseball situations are repetative - A right handed batter will face a right handed pitcher around 400 times in a season. That is 400 very similar situations (there are still a lot of variables - Pitch selection, time of day, field dimensions, defensive allignment). In football, its very rarely that repetative. There are 21 other players on the pitch all dynamic and active. The action is continious rather than "play by play"

There are certainly ways to use statistical analysis in football - Man City have been doing so for a decade or so and have a massive division dedicated to it. Well worth googling a bit.

Good luck, there was a discussion around this a few months back which i will try and find incase any of the stuff there is useful to you :)

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davidmcain

davidmcain

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Thanks all for your feedback and constructive comments. Some very good points raised indeed.

Wesley6, I agree that it would have been a great idea to holiday the first season and use the data from season one to help find my targets. I have however tried to keep signings to a minimum and avoid paying fees, I have made two signings and a loan at this stage, this will be further detailed below. I should be able to work out some KPI’s for each role by the end of preseason when we can a clearly defined style of play drawn up.

Jambo98, you are spot on in terms of the football this may lead to. I had a couple of bigger strikers in my side to start with, and a poor backline which will be a trio. So I should have quite a bit of size so it would be wise to use this to my advantage. Might look a bit Stoke Cityish, but if it works…. And as you mentioned, Football is indeed a lot more dynamic, but we can attempt to use Set Pieces to great advantage. That is a clearly defined moment and probably the main area we will target on the pitch, as well as being fairly easy to measure in terms of our performance.

Edgar555, fantastic link. Read it from start to finish. This is more or less what I’m trying to do, albeit on a smaller stage. I guess the main deifference would be that I’m trying to somewhat replicate the philosophy of Midtjylland, and even after conquering Belgium (hopefully…) I will still be a minnow on the European stage.

THE FIRST WEEK

The longest week of the season, if you want to prepare for success is the first week. Training schedules must be set for every player (I’ve just realised I have done my team training for the first week…), a tactic devised, meetings and press conferences. I think its taken me about 4 hours to get through the week so I will highlight a few areas that have seen some action.

First of all we had the meeting with the boss and we were given a budget of precisely 0 for transfers. The wage bill was 87k with scope to raise this to 90k. A safe midtable position was the expectation so I investigated further. Continental Football would give us another 6k a week to play with but in Belgium this would require a top four finish. With Club Brugge, Standard and Anderlecht clearly more talented, I chose to leave the budgets as they were. No philosophies were in place either, I would later meet the boss again and have him agree to Developing Youth Players, and Focusing on Set Pieces. The kicker from this was that he improved the Youth Coaching immediately afterwards and we are a little closer to developing our own players in the future. We have 4.2M in the bank too by the way.

The media have us pegged for 7th place and that seems reasonable, although we have a UEFA Cup run to deal with as well so I will need to use the squad wisely. A run here could be useful too, as we will lose 245k a month paying off two loans which expire in July next year. That’s close to 3m, which means our financial approach will be crucial this year. I asked the board for an Affiliate to give us some money which was agreed to which will help a little, as well as a feeder club with a successful youth system which will hopefully mirror Midtjyllands agreement with FC Ebedei of Nigeria.

The facilities are pretty average at this stage as well. We play at Regenboogstadium which is rented by us for a nominal fee and holds 10,600 seats, of which 8,500 are seats. We also have Average Training Facilites, Junior Coaching, and Youth Recruitment and Below Average Youth Facilities. Not good enough to achieve our ambitions in any area there. The added investment from the chairman however lifted our Junior Coaching to Good.

The staffing situation isn’t great either. We have coaches who are useful enough but I found we had maxed out our quota and I am reluctant to spend cash on terminations at this stage. I will renew the contracts of my best guys in due course but will just run down the contracts of the others and replace them as they leave. I could however improve my scouting situation. With the goal being to exploit undervalued markets, I dispatched scouts to Central America, Caribbean, Scandinavia, West Africa, and the lower domestic leagues. Hopefully they can find me some rough diamonds to polish. I started with three scouts and added three more, all with good attitudes, low wages, and 13+ ratings in both JPA/JPP.

A couple of hours looking at profiles over and over again drew me to a 352/532 formation. I chose this as we have a lack of good fullbacks, a large amount of good not great centrebacks, and a few big human beings up front. The midfield triumvirate has a DM-MC-MC shape to it, Im using a BWM-D in the holding role to provide an extra layer of cover to the defensive trio. As the opening post stated, we want the ball outside the 6-18 yard box danger zone, so we have four guys tasked with preventing this from happening. The size up front is crucial as well for our corners. With three centre backs in the side we will have in theory five big bodys to use to our advantage here.

The shopping list was four people. Although the key component of our approach will be statistical, I need a couple of players now, just to achieve the goals and philosophies of this exercise.

- Left footed set piece expert

- Right footed set piece expert

- Additional Target Man

- Wing Back cover

So not a lot really when you have a mere 3k to play with. I offered out 16 unwanted players, heard back nothing. Looking at the wages in the team our first choice RWB was on 6k a week on loan from Monaco and not a great crosser. And our other loanee, AML James Troisi from Juventus and Australia was on 5k and doesn’t really fit our system. They were on the next plane back home and we now had 14k to play with. So who came in…

Jarmo Ahjupera is a 30 year old Targetman from Estonia. He is 195cm and 90kg and has been capped 18 times. He signed a 2 year deal for 3k a week, and is valued at 210k. He will form a monster strike force with Chuks Aneke who is 188cm, and 93kg!! Both have great ability in the air and given the right service from set pieces and our wingbacks will be central to us scoring goals.

Maxym Kalinichenko has been capped 47 times by Ukraine, scoring 7 times. He is old, at 35 years of age, but shows good physical attributes and crucial has a FK rating of 19 and is right footed. He also has the useful PPM, curls ball. He signs a one year deal on 3.5k with an additional year if he plays 15+ games. He will be used as our link up man in midfield.

Jan Kovarik joins on loan from Viktoria Plzen in the Czech Republic. He can play anywhere on the Left flank and will be our Left wing back. He has 18 crossing, and 15 for both FK’s and Corners. His delivery will be crucial for us. He is on 2.3k a week, and we have an option to buy for 450k, despite hm being valued at around 900k. At 26 years of age I’m unsure whether he will be a stopgap or permanent fixture. Certainly he should gain in value this year, and if we can sign him cheap, we may use him to help turn a profit.

This leaves us with just over 2k for wages at the moment. There are contracts to be renewed though so a right wing back option may have to wait. All in all, transfers were successful. 2 loans cancelled and three faces in, all of whom will start. We should be a far better team, and its cost us next to nothing essentially.

Finally, we also had one game in this period. We were’nt great in all honesty. It was three days into preseason, the new faces hadn’t arrived, and I forgot to set up my set piece options. For the record we best Swiss Lower League side Schotz 1-0 away in an average performance. Neither team created a CCC. I was too cautious in the first half, but a switch to Attacking in the second lead to a number of half chances, one of which was converted. The analysis tab was interesting. I allowed just 1 shot in the danger zone which is a good step for us.

That’s it for this update. In the next update, I should have worked my way through the majority of preseason and the UEFA Cup qualifiers. Expect to see some analysis regarding, set pieces, danger zones, amd what we will look for in terms of KPI’s in each position this season.

Thanks for reading!

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davidmcain

davidmcain

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Hi, thanks all for getting involved in the thread. This post will detail the KPI’s for myself and various departments of the team this season, this is going to be a huge part of how the club is run, both financially, and on the field. I will also touch on our first couple of performances, albeit in a little less detail. So here it goes…

KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS (KPI’S)

A KPI is basically a set of data or results which detail how effectively a job is being done. Taking a Statistical approach to managing here at Zulte Waregem, this is crucial to determine who is doing their job correctly. These KPI’s can determine who should stay, who should go, who isn’t effective in their role, and our adherence to the guidelines we’ve set for the season. So basically this will be a rundown of what is expected from each area I can measure.

MANAGER

Be competitive in the UEFA Cup

Achieve a Top Half Finish in the League

Semi Finals of the Belgian Cup

Develop Youth Players

Goals from Set Pieces

So these are the Boards Requirements for my role. The philosophies were suggested by me and these are basically the staples of how FC Midtjylland run their club. Furthermore, there are a couple of KPI’s I have set myself in the pursuit of creating a sustainable club.

Develop Facilities at the club

Spend no more than 50% of transfer income on new players

As there is a long-term vision in place here, these areas are key to the improvement of the club off the pitch. Being a manager is about more than winning 3 points every Sunday. So how can this be achieved? First and foremost we lack the financial clout to just build, build and build. We are losing 2.5M this season paying off two loans, and this is a huge hit to our potential profitability. The UEFA Cup, could be handy in addressing this shortfall, so it is imperative that we qualify for the group stages as this will bring both prize money and gate receipts. We have half a dozen players 20 and under in our first team, and a couple of young talents in the U19s who look fit for the odd game. And transfer wise, I have found key players to increase our set piece output. So the plan is solid enough, if it translates into results, I will acieve all my KPI’s

TRANSFERS

50% of income to be reinvested into the team

Target players from emerging markets and nations

Target undervalued players from the bigger markets

No player to earn in excess of 10% of our wage budget

Sell players if bids are received and a cheaper equally skilled replacement can be found

So the emphasis here is on finding value and making a profit. The changes I made in my previous post emphasised this approach. Losing two loanees, and bringing in one, plus two frees. The team was improved and we lowered the wage budget by 2k a week.

FINANCIAL

Return a profit

Invest in coaching and facilities

Find additional revenue streams

This is the tricky area at the moment. The loan is expensive, and we’re losing a fair amount of money. UEFA Cup could help fix this. I also sourced a parent club to give us an annual fee as well.

COACHING / TRAINING

Measure improvement in players

Match Preparation

Quality of staff

On the backburner at the moment. We have added another quality coach though. Preparation will be focused around set pieces. This is a key for my job security, and thus crucial I get right.

TACTIC / TACTICAL ANALYSIS

Goals from Set Pieces

Shots between 6-18 yard box

Corner and Free Kick Accuracy

We aim to be the Belgian Stoke City with our set pieces, long term we may even look to add a couple of long throw specalists to add to this further. The signings of Kalinichenko and Kovarik emphasise our commitment to making this work. Shot maps will tell us where we are shooting from, and how often. We are playing a 352 with Wingbacks and a Holding Midfielder. The key will be linking the 2 CMs to the two target men upfront, whilst ensuring they don’t shoot from outside the box. Long range shooting is fine from free kicks, as I have the personal to do this but otherwise not.

So these are the policies that define us as a team. If these are followed, we have a blueprint for success and we all keep our jobs. I will detail the KPI’s for each role in my side in the next post I make.

PRESEASON CONTINUED…

As this thread is more about the style of club we intend to be, I will keep this part brief. Two more friendlies were played against opposition from the Third Division B here in Belgium. We beat Union-SG 5-0, and drew 1-1 with Vise. The former was mostly first team players and was a great performance. As well as that we scored twice from corners, Vise saw a second string team put out and we should have probably won. Ironically their goal was from a corner. What was pleasing it that we’re creating chances from set play, and Ive managed to find some nice link up between the Wingback and the big Target Men up front. I was however, not best pleased by the amount of shots from distance.

Off the pitch we added Sparta Rotterdam as a feeder. This could be a real coup as their whole facility setup is better than mine and some of their players may come through my youth intakes. They should also settle easily as both countries speak Dutch.The link will cost us 51k, but this will be offset by the 120k Atletico Madrid will give us. We may also get the odd player on loan from them. So we’ve gained a net 69k a year before a ball is kicked in anger.

Finally I added 1 cap Tunisian Ihab Mbarki to my side. He is 22 years old and cost 22k from ES Tunis in Tunisia. He fills the last vacancy in my squad as my Right Wing Back understudy. He is on 1,700 a week and is valued now at 50k. My scouts feel he has further room to improve, and he will be given ample chance to do so this season.

Thanks for reading. My next post will detail te KPI’s for the individual squad roles, and our first competitive games againt Ireland’s Sligo Rovers!

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jackane24

jackane24

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Ok, decided to do this with a Danish team called (*checks laptop screen*) FC Nordsjaelland.

Playing a possession-based 3-4-1-2, control fluid. Very conservative TIs & be more disciplined.

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As you can see I've brought in a ton of money for the club through selling players which just don't fit into my system.

RoBudUP.png

I've also got a few players who have just signed so I can't get rid of them.

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