Blog

  • Revealed: Odilon Kossounou

    Revealed: Odilon Kossounou

    The 2nd reveal of my shadowlist is Odilon Kossounou. I put him on my shadowlist the moment he went to Brugge. When you compare his 2019 chart to 21/22 he improved a bit even though he plays in a much stronger league, but you can also see how much the 2019 chart predicted 21/22 Original…

  • Revealed: Jérémy Doku

    Revealed: Jérémy Doku

    Jérémy Doku is the first player born this century that did well in our FBM data capture model. What I just found out, is that this data isn’t even in Wyscout! High finishing & passing game probability. RV for Rennes = €16,983,588. So they paid a bit too much. FBM shadowlist. Original Tweet 

  • Why live scouting is the most important … but also why live scouts need data

    Why live scouting is the most important … but also why live scouts need data

    We had ‘computers’ before we had digital computers, a statement that may initially sound strange but is rooted in historical fact. Long before the advent of digital computing devices, the term ‘computers’ referred to individuals—often women—tasked with performing complex mathematical calculations. These ‘female computers’ were highly intelligent and skilled women who worked on intricate mathematical…

  • Accumulation of risk

    How is it possible that big-name clubs suddenly experience a bad season, or even face relegation? In part, this can be attributed to bad luck. However, poor seasons typically result from the accumulation of risks. There are many different types of risks, and clubs need to be mindful of all of them. Yet, most clubs…

  • The personality of Sven Mislintat (type 4, SSLC)

    Thanks to the insights of David of www.directoroffootball.com we determined that Sven Mislintat has a type #4 brain, the SSLC type. GPT agrees with us: Sven Mislintat exhibits characteristics that are associated with Type 4. He is an idealist who holds strong personal principles, seeks recognition for unique contributions, is passionate about individual expression, socially…

  • Grading players

    Grading players comes with a myriad of pitfalls. To begin with: talent is a right skewed distribution like this: What this means is that in professional football the probability of finding a player scoring a 10 is much smaller than finding a player scoring a 1 or a 2. Yt, if you look into the…

  • Did you watch that player?

    Did you watch that player?

    Fans, if they disagree with FBM stats, often ask me: “Did you actually watch this player?” The short answer is: “No!” That is not my job. My job is to make an assessment of how likely it is that a player is going to contribute to the team. Yet, if you are not a good…

  • Team dynamics based on brain types

    Team dynamics based on brain types

    Some teams are friends teams while other teams are fighters. There are many reasons for this difference, but in large part it has to do with the personality of the players in the team. Cybernetic Big Five Theory (CB5T) is the neuroscientific way to map this. When you do so, you find that there are…

  • FBM Finishing Points

    FBM Finishing Points

    FBM Finishing Points is a predictor of match results. Preliminary results show that FBM Finishing Points predict the correct outcome of a match in 60% of the cases (n=27, p<0.1). In 54% of the cases FBM Finishing Points is a better explanation of the end result than xG and in 50% of the cases FBM…

  • How does FBM replacement values compare to TransferMarkt?

    How does FBM replacement values compare to TransferMarkt?

    Although FBM replacement values are not meant to predict future transfer fees, it was noticed by many people that often the FBM replacement values of a player were much closer to the actual transfer fee than the valuation listed on TransferMarkt. For that reason we counted in how many cases FBM transfer values were closer…