Another short one this week! Plenty of fun things to discuss, though:
The rundown:
(in no particular order)
- 1.
U.S. Soccer is looking for a data analytics intern for next summer as part of their third annual summer internship program. The position is limited to people who are from or attend school in Atlanta, with the internship being fully in-person at the USSF facility in Fayetteville. The pay rate is $20 an hour, and getting to work with the incredible people at the national teams is a one-of-a-kind opportunity.
- 2.
The Colorado Rapids are hiring a video analyst intern for the second team, and for an internship, the job posting is pretty awesome. The position seems to be highly intertwined with the technical director and technical staff, and the responsibilities promise "creating specific video and data reports for high potential players and assist in creating player development plans for players." The pay is also $19.84 an hour! (a victory in the battle against the plague of unpaid internships in soccer)
- 3.
Ashwin Raman published an article in ESPN on tactical trends emerging in the Premier League this season. It's an excellent deep dive into the changes that have occurred at each position over the last few years, and ends with a banger of a concluding line that I won't spoil for you. Though most will likely be familiar with the re-re-re-emergence of the big man up top, Raman explores goalkeeping changes, large spaces in midfield, and more.
- 4.
A little self-plug: I put together 5,700 words on Cavan Sullivan and what he means to American soccer for SCOUTED. It's much more story than it is stats, though there is a tactical and data perspective in the piece. I really loved how it turned out, and can't say enough good things about working with Tom.
- 5.
The BBC published what can only be described as a chart of all time (thanks to James Yorke for sharing this beauty with the world). It's truly a masterclass in making nonsensical axes, bars, and labels. I know what they were going for, but it's a truly disastrous attempt. A+.
- 6.
MLS's stats page has always been a bit of a dumpster fire, but it seems like every day there's a new shocker. On Bluesky, Matt Doyle found that MLS lists Rafa Navarro's goal tallies separately (he switched clubs), meaning that he doesn't rank in the golden boot race, according the league's tables, despite being one of the top goal scorers this season. This, coupled with the league's perpetual obsession with including secondary assists in the total assists count, makes the stat page one of the worst places to find data for the league, simply because so little of it makes sense. The fan experience for data-interested audiences could be so much better šļø.
- 7.
Opta Analyst shared a chart on LinkedIn showing Premier League wins according to possession proportion across the last 20 years. The graph shows a clear trend: possession has remained largely dominant over the past two decades, but every five years or so, lower-possession tactics make a resurgence and even the playing field. Last season, the split was almost 50/50 between possession-winning teams and possession-losing teams in terms of total wins. This season, sub-50% possession teams are winning games more often than their opponents for the first time since 2005/06. Here's the in-depth look.
- 8.
We got some more penalty kick research in the form of a paper in Journal of Psychology of Sport and Exercise titled "Anticipating the movement of football (soccer) goalkeepers." The paper finds that takers can anticipate goal movements above chance up to 400 ms, and that playing experience leads to statistically significant increases in goalkeeper prediction. The data was collected by showing participants videos of goalkeepers diving rather than performing the surveys in person, but the results still provide concrete evidence of previously hypothesized factors involved in penalty taking and guessing.
- 9.
Barcelona unveiled "More than a hack 2027", an event that invites analysts to compete for a chance to present at Talent Arena 2027. The first phase of the competition involves estimating team possession from automated Metrica tracking data, with the second phase (top 20 teams) being more of a free-reign research contest. Registration is open until November 10th.