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What advanced stats say about Sounders
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If you’ve spent anytime looking at various advanced analytics this year, you’ve probably noticed that the Seattle Sounders are looking an awful lot like a pressing team. Recently, Jamon Moore of American Soccer Analysis wrote about that. Jeremiah discusses what analytics are saying about the Sounders.
Jamon Moore is a contributor on American Soccer Analysis. You can follow him on BlueSky here.
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Transcript
Introduction to Will Bruin and Sounders' MLS Victory
00:00:01
Speaker
Hi, I'm Will Bruin, and I was just recognized as a Seattle Sounders legend. Now I get to do voice reads for the Sounder at Heart podcast network. Here we go. Come on. Hey, O'Shaughnessy.
00:00:13
Speaker
Let's go. What save by Frye. The Seattle Sounders have done it. MLS Cup winning. Here comes Ruiz Dias through the middle to crowd it for Seattle.
00:00:29
Speaker
And now they truly can start the celebrations. It's the Sounders MLS Cup. Nico Lodero leaves absolutely no doubt. The Sounders rule the region.
00:00:43
Speaker
Seattle, Sounders, it's got built.
00:00:52
Speaker
This feels fucking awesome. This is a tiny dog. Nice work on your little yacht yat thing. And Portland can't say shit. know, what was the thought process in terms of who you decided to use and who you didn't?
00:01:06
Speaker
Ever since Southert Hart wrote a commentary that we didn't take over coming seriously. Go, not Seattle!
Sponsorship and Soccer Analytics Discussion
00:01:18
Speaker
This episode of Nos Arietes is sponsored by Full Pull Wines, a Seattle-based wine retailer and proud sponsor of Nos Arietes since 2011. Full Pull was founded in 2009, is based in Seattle, and is owned and operated by longtime Sounder supporters.
00:01:32
Speaker
They offer the best boutique wines of the world to members of their mailing list, with special focus on their home, Pacific Northwest.
00:01:43
Speaker
Welcome back to another episode of Nos Adietes on the Sounder at Heart Podcast Network. I am Jeremiah O'Shann. And today we're doing something a little different. We oftentimes do a segment called How the West Will Be Won on Mondays. And I'm kind of looking at...
00:02:00
Speaker
broadening this out and sort of having just a bigger discussion about soccer in general on Mondays. And to help me with that ah is Jamin Moore from American Soccer Analysis.
00:02:12
Speaker
He is currently, know, he used to be involved in the in the earthquakes coverage. He is now doing more sort of broad analytics coverage.
00:02:23
Speaker
Welcome to the show, Jamin. And um I'm fascinated to get into this. Yeah, glad to be back and wearing a completely different hat than normally talking about the Heritage Cup or whatever it is we come up with with the Sounders and Quakes stuff. But yeah, i I decided to take a step back this year from team coverage, really kind of focus in on analytics coverage. You might have
Understanding Analytics in Soccer
00:02:45
Speaker
read that American Soccer Analysis um now has a partnership with an MLS club, Minnesota United,
00:02:52
Speaker
um And of course, that's the reason that they won yesterday. um But of course, um of course. But someone told them that they don't need the ball at all. And that's how they can they can win games.
00:03:04
Speaker
I am not feeding any tactical ah things to them, I will say. But I was engaged on that. And I'm excited to talk to clubs. i my My favorite thing these days, I started to realize, like, what is it that I'm really passionate about? And and really, it's not.
00:03:20
Speaker
you know covering a club per se. I think you guys do a fantastic job. You're at the top echelon of that. I think we try to keep up as best as we can with that over the past few years. and still some great people at Quake's Epicenter as well. But I do feel that my my passion you know comes out when I get to talk to people about analytics.
00:03:42
Speaker
And really, particularly when I get to talk to coaches, front office people, Um, like that's just super exciting to me. And there are always things where I think they learn something and I learned something and it's a mutual and beneficial conversation every time I've done it.
00:03:59
Speaker
And I want to do more of that. So that's what I'm about these days. And, uh, yeah, looking forward to talking about, uh, the Sounders data profile with you. Yeah. Well, let's, so the thing that piqued my interest specifically was you did, you've been doing these Friday stat dumps.
00:04:15
Speaker
And the thing you did this week, I thought was really interesting because it it sort of got to an area of interest that I've been ah watching around the Sounders. and And essentially what you're talking about is the defensive profile of teams, but specifically how duels and recoveries and tackles and whatever else, how those are all classified and they aren't necessarily...
00:04:40
Speaker
what we might think of. So in the broadest terms, this is, you know, I'll just read your, your introductory tweet or skeet is, I guess, uh, to the, to the discussion. And he says, what the heck is a duel?
00:04:55
Speaker
A lot of emphasis is made by coaches, players, fans, technical analysts about the importance of winning duels, which you have to do balls, second balls. But if you ask people what a duel is, you're likely to get different answers. So,
00:05:06
Speaker
that That's a great introduction to this. What what do you like what do we make of this
Seattle Sounders' Defensive Tactics Analysis
00:05:13
Speaker
Yeah. So, uh, I mean, as you know, like I, I did cover the earthquakes for, for a while and, and probably talk to, well, they've changed coaches so many times. I think I've talked probably five or six different coaches over there and I bet you, and I've had a lot of private conversations with some of, some of these coaches.
00:05:30
Speaker
Um, I bet if I asked them what a dual is, they would give me different answers. Literally what I said in in the ski. Right. And, Um, but one of the things that's interesting is coaches are always about like, you know, go hard into tackles, you know, win win the second balls, win, win those 50 fifties. And, but at the same time, like, i'm I'm not sure that the data providers classify things in the way that coaches think.
00:05:54
Speaker
So one of the struggles of data analysis has always been, okay we do all this analysis. Is it useful? Is it actionable by the coaching staff? Is it actionable by a general manager to be able to do something with it?
00:06:10
Speaker
It's good to know these things. You can say your team is good, your team is bad, somewhere in between. But like how do I turn that into action? So I think it's sometimes when we're not connecting with people, we have to take a step back and go, like what's the language that we're using?
00:06:26
Speaker
And what is it telling them? And I think like if you try to go and show the data as it comes out of the data providers to a coach, they'd be like, I don't know what this means.
00:06:39
Speaker
I know what a tackle is. I know what an interception is. I think like we can all kind of agree on certain basics like that. But what's what's a recovery? Right. I'm not sure anyone really knows what a recovery is.
00:06:51
Speaker
um I think one of our people at American Soccer Analysis a few years back actually looked at recoveries a bit deeper and said, like, I think there's four different types in here of situations that lead to our recovery. Right.
00:07:03
Speaker
Um, and I'm not even sure that how useful this is at the end of the day, because if you, if you look at how any of these, uh, these defensive stats correlate to team success, it's hard to find any correlation, you know, almost at all.
00:07:18
Speaker
So it does, you know, if you're decide like, wait, we're going to win the ball through tackles versus interceptions, like, you know, does that make you a better defensive team? And there's no evidence one way or the other, maybe clearances probably says we're a bit more under pressure than we ought to be.
00:07:33
Speaker
But sometimes you're winning games and you're clearing the ball because the other team is lumping in crosses and, you know, you're just getting a lot of clearances because you're protecting your lead and that there's no danger and that's okay. So a lot of these things require context. And I think that's where sometimes maybe the data stuff and, and, and coaches, know,
00:07:51
Speaker
you know, can kind of get crossed from each other. But also this terminology of a dual, that's not like a singular event. It's like a conglomeration of these different events that are captured in event data.
00:08:05
Speaker
And, you know, you have to like look at all of them to go like, are we winning our duels? Well, what are we talking about here? Right. And some of the things we call 50 are not 50-50. They're 75-25s or 80-20s or 65-35s. They're not 50-50s. And um so it's it's a little bit weird and know kind of how the data is classified, but also the way we talk about it and the terminology even we use doesn't really mean what we say.
00:08:33
Speaker
So like trying to sort through all that and come up with a way of kind of cutting through the clutter into something that actually means something and is actionable I think is one of the things that makes data analysis interesting to me.
00:08:48
Speaker
Yeah, that that is super interesting. And I guess without getting, we could probably have a whole conversation just about that stuff. Yeah. But from a pulling out, what's your perception? or the what would you How would you classify the Sounders as a defensive team?
00:09:03
Speaker
ah i've been started I've been sort of convincing myself that maybe they're actually like a pressing team right now. But I don't know. What what do what do you think the data is telling us? The data is saying that, yeah, the sounders are a bit more pressy than I think people think they are, which is maybe good because that means you probably can kind of sneak up in different situations and maybe catch people who don't necessarily think you're doing that. But
Tactical Approaches: Pressing and Risks
00:09:29
Speaker
in terms of high turnover type attacks, and what we mean by that is take the attacking 40% of the pitcher's
00:09:37
Speaker
how many balls are you winning higher up the pitch as compared to in the midfield or deep in your defensive end? Because those are the ones that are most valuable to be able to turn into ah something before the, the, the other defense gets settled, right? So if you can win the ball high, everyone knows it's a shorter distance to the goal.
00:09:56
Speaker
This is an easy thing to understand, right? And not only that, but the other team is probably scrambling. I mean, you know, when, when keepers kick the ball straight out to messy and he can just kick the ball right back over your head and score like he did, you know, on Saturday, uh, there you go. There's that's a high turnover and it had immediate value and don't kick the ball to messy.
00:10:16
Speaker
Um, but, uh, most teams would say, yeah, we want to win the ball high. We want to win the ball high and we want to, to try to penetrate before that. And i think, you know, the sounders while not necessarily in the top the top part of the Part of the league are are higher than than most teams. And that probably speaks to a little bit of the success that you've been able to have in the position of the table that you're in right now is largely because you are able to win the ball a bit higher than other teams are.
00:10:44
Speaker
Yeah, you know, the Sounders, you know, one of the other stats that I've started to notice, and I don't know how widespread this is, but Sebastian bre Bush, who is one of your colleagues, ah does a ah week or a ah game by game start a stat dump.
00:11:00
Speaker
And he's one of the the areas, two of the areas that he he tracks that I'm fascinated by are both field tilt and line of confrontation. And specifically about the line of confrontation,
00:11:13
Speaker
by best I can tell the sounds are like fourth or fifth highest line of confrontation. Uh, does that, what is that really telling us? do you think Yeah, what it tell what it tells us is that, first off, um I think like a lot of teams, right, you're going to try to compress your your block a bit more. So your back line is going to be a bit higher. Your front line is going to be a bit higher.
00:11:36
Speaker
You are probably looking to get out into pressing trigger situations that um you know Schmetzer thinks are going to work in a particular um game against a particular opponent, maybe be looking...
00:11:47
Speaker
at a particular player two that they think they can take advantage of that might uh might give up the ball in a different in different situations and whatever you set those pressing triggers at right you're going to try to get out to that but let's say that a press doesn't get triggered so where are you kind of starting that line of confrontation well if you're a little bit higher then of course your back line is going to also be a bit higher. But what that leaves you susceptible to, as you probably saw in the second half yesterday with Minnesota United, is when you face that pace, like it's going to put you in a situation of having to scramble and get back. So um you know I think like you know there's the pluses and the minuses to that.
00:12:27
Speaker
the The more you can you can kind of compress and and stay compact, the harder you are to play through. But if you face a team that has the ability to play one, two or get out over the top quickly and get the ball into space, you know, you're probably going to scramble a bit. And and I think like yesterday was a good example of a game that showed a bit of both the positive and the negative of that kind of line.
00:12:52
Speaker
Thank you for listening
Independent Podcast Sponsorship Needs
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Speaker
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Minnesota United and Other MLS Teams' Strategies
00:14:42
Speaker
proud sponsor of the Sounder at Heart Podcast Network.
00:14:47
Speaker
And so I guess you you bring up Minnesota United and what, what are they doing? That is so, cause you look at their, their analytics and, or yeah, the, or the data around them. And this is a team who has, who's on pace to have not just historically low possession, but historically low by a wide margin ah compared to anyone else in the, in the databases. Right.
00:15:13
Speaker
And, but the, and it And it seems like they they don't quite sit in a – it's unfair to say they're just a bunker and counter team because I don't think that really does what they're doing justice.
00:15:26
Speaker
But how would you sort of describe their defensive approach and sort of how they're making this system work where they have – yesterday they had 200 fewer completed passes than the Sounders.
00:15:36
Speaker
They didn't – it's not like they had a whole bunch of progressive passes. Yeah. What are the, why is it working so well for them to do, to do this, to play this? And how would you describe their style? Yeah, so it's ah it's a great question.
00:15:49
Speaker
the um you know I think with the the what's like interesting about the way that they're doing it is is usually with a back five as well. um And you know that gives a ah situation by which they can kind of decide like how they move players you know in and out of different zones from a defensive side. What was really interesting to watch yesterday, because I set up in the crow's nest for this game,
00:16:11
Speaker
um I wanted to kind of analyze both teams a bit. And what was really interesting to see was how they move together on a set piece. So I think it was, you know, rolled on or or somebody was taken taking a a set piece from about maybe 35 out.
00:16:28
Speaker
I don't know if you caught it, but they like all move together in ah almost like a hop kind of way where they're all like almost hopping together. As soon as that first movement happens on on the back line, they're all moving in synchronicity. And I think...
00:16:44
Speaker
ah where i When I've gone to Sounders games, and I usually go to about maybe three or four a year, um what I see a lot of against the teams that do well against the Sounders is they they are able to kind of move together in blocks and shut down passing lanes and really make it difficult for those progressive passes to get through.
00:17:04
Speaker
And that's something that they they they did well. And I think they defend really well on set pieces. And then they just, honestly, they they kind of find the way to put the ball into space and let you know people like Tani and Bongi get out and you know yeah onto those kinds of balls. And then they they get they get going.
00:17:23
Speaker
and And they don't do it that often. I mean, it's not like... They're just always trying to counterattack. You take a look at their numbers. They're not that high right numbers on the counterattacking side as well. They're kind of in the mid area. But what they do when they do it is effective. They switch the point of attack and move it out wide quickly.
00:17:42
Speaker
um gets the defense having to think about where they want to put their coverage, getting going side to side. Like the more you can get defenders going side to side and particularly even goalkeepers moving side to side to have to you know account for those kinds of things.
00:17:56
Speaker
the better off that attack is going to be. And so I think that's where they're effective is really kind of understanding like how teams like to progress the ball, shutting down those lanes. And then really at the point it makes sense, they get out, you know, into the attack, you know, with the pace that they've got.
00:18:12
Speaker
um And it's, yeah, it's super, it's super effective. Like if you possession adjust, I think you know what I'm talking about, but let me give a little bit more to your audience.
00:18:22
Speaker
based upon the number of possessions that a team has, that you can possession adjust different stats. And you know that you can say, like how many times do they do this per possession that they've got, or per 100 possessions, or something along those lines. And so um Minnesota United you know might look like their average to above average if you don't possession adjust. But when you do possession adjust their stats,
00:18:47
Speaker
They're top in the league in almost any um category, both defensively and offensively in terms of the way that they press, win the ball, and the way that they they get out and and and attack.
00:18:59
Speaker
So that's what they do. Very efficient. is That's another way of saying and very efficient, right? They're ruthlessly efficient in a completely opposite way as I would say Vancouver from a season perspective, obviously not last night.
00:19:11
Speaker
in CCC final, but um from a season perspective, they are ruthlessly efficient, but in a very opposite almost kind of way as Minnesota United. And those are two teams at the top of the West, right? That they're they're both very efficient.
00:19:26
Speaker
San Diego, very progressive. um They're very efficient as well in terms of like when they they utilize progressing the ball forward. um That's what it takes to win, to to be at the top of ah a conference in 2025 MLS.
00:19:42
Speaker
It takes being the most efficient team in some category that matters. And I think those are
Sounders' Consistent Performance and Challenges
00:19:49
Speaker
examples of teams that do that. Philadelphia, I would put in the same situation over in the East. They are super efficient at very specific things, and that efficiency leads leads to success and in most situations for them.
00:20:04
Speaker
and so what What do you think, if anything, do the Sounders actually do well? or is there is part of their problem, or I guess it's a blessing and a curse, that maybe they don't do anything super well, but they do a lot of things pretty well?
00:20:19
Speaker
That's exactly the way I would describe them. like If you look at almost any meaningful number you know in the in in the in the data, you would see that the Sounders are almost always in the top 10, sometimes right around 4, 5, 6, 7.
00:20:36
Speaker
but they're not number one in anything. Right. And so to your point, it's like, yeah, you're, you're right on that border of a kind of a home field advantage team in the conference, because that's who you are. You are the fourth best at a lot of stuff or the fifth best at a lot of stuff. And so I think that kind of describes the Sounders in a nutshell.
00:21:00
Speaker
And is that a, I don't know. Is there one of these things that you feel like is more sustainable? Like the Sounders have been, you know, they've this is their 17th season, I believe in MLS.
00:21:12
Speaker
They have won the Western conference one time. They have finished second, like eight times. Uh, what, is that Is this sort of like the Sounders organization in a nutshell, which is to say they're always competitive. They're always right there at the top.
00:21:29
Speaker
But in any given year, they're they're probably not going to be the the the top team. Their peaks and valleys are just not very different.
00:21:41
Speaker
I think what's really been good about the Sounders is I think Schmetzer has gotten a lot out of the talent that he's been given um with a little bit of like unluckiness at times that players are not at their full potential on a particular season or something like that. So, you know, if we look back more recently into Raul Ruiz and the way things have kind of ended with the Sounders, like,
00:22:08
Speaker
you know what's in that. You know what Raul is capable of. He's getting high XG chances, but they're just not going in the back of the net. um Or, you know, you got Jaapalo, who, you know, elite six in this league, but like...
00:22:25
Speaker
you know kind of not what he maybe has been in the past at the moment. And
Individual Performance and Analytics in Sounders
00:22:30
Speaker
so it just feels like it's been difficult outside of when you won ah CCL, where I felt like that team at that moment had everything going right For maybe, maybe since outside of an MLS Cup, you know, situation, maybe like for the first time that I've been to Sounders games personally, I moved up here about, about four years ago and like everything looked right at that time, but then like different things kind of happened in terms of injuries and things like that. um I remember someone got injured in that game. Was it a Morris World Honor? Somebody got injured.
00:23:10
Speaker
um And like that kind changed the season. job hol That's what it was. And that that kind of changed the season right there. Right. And, um you know, those kinds of things seem to have a bigger effect on the Sounders maybe than than other teams.
00:23:23
Speaker
um My son and I, like I ever said, we're sitting in the crow's nest yesterday. And one of the things we were talking about is how it feels like it takes every player that comes into the organization like a year to acclimate and really kind of like ramp up.
00:23:36
Speaker
Whereas in San Jose, like, you know, um, it was a successful San Jose. What's that? It famously successful. San Jose, a famously successful San Jose. Well, let's take, let's take this year. San Jose.
00:23:50
Speaker
he's Like he's pulling players from the revolution who were doing nothing for the revolution, sticking them in. And suddenly they're making the earthquakes better. Like, I don't feel like that almost ever happens with the Sounders.
00:24:01
Speaker
I feel like it takes like a year for players to get going and then like they get two or three good years and then they kind of decline out from there. Yeah, I mean, Albert Rusnak was an example of this, of ah of a player who took a little while to acclimate Jesus Ferreira sort of in that same boat.
00:24:17
Speaker
ah Yeah, I mean, it's not – I would say that's that's ah that's a broadly fair statement. Are there any players with the Sounders that you feel like are maybe analytic darlings or is it ah is it the same story with the individual – when you drill down into the players that it's a lot of players who are pretty good but not elite?
00:24:36
Speaker
Yeah. I would say the latter, but more pretty good, not, not elite, or at least not showing it in terms of results at this time. So if you take a look, you know, like your, your highest know shooting player, for instance, is Albert Rusnak.
00:24:53
Speaker
You know, he's got 43, 43 shots. um And how many goals does he have? Six, seven, seven goals. seven goals, but his XG is 5.14. So yeah, a little bit above, right?
00:25:07
Speaker
um He's 5.63 on the post shot expected goal side. So he's shooting a little bit better than expected there. And that's kind of led to seven goals.
00:25:18
Speaker
But he's also, last year, I don't i think he was under. And so like I want to call him an analytics darling. He might be, but if you look at Rothrock behind him, you look at Masovsky behind him, you look at Delavega behind them.
00:25:31
Speaker
they're all a little bit under where they should be. And so I, I feel like you don't really have that player who is at this point, just kind of pushing you into that next level of like, Hey, Sounders, where you sit in fourth today, like what's going to, what's going to take to get the Sounders from fourth into, into second, or even be able to catch the Vancouver whitecaps. And if you,
00:25:54
Speaker
pressed me, I'm not sure who I would say it's going to make that happen right now, other than, you know, somebody gets hot at the right time. But like, i'm I'm not sure that there's that one player that you have that's going to be like, yeah, they're going to lead this team and and get this team to first place in the West.
00:26:12
Speaker
Not to undercut your argument, I will point out that Rusnek had 10 goals on 7.4 XG, and he had seven non-penalty goals on 4.3 non-penalty XG last year. Got it. Okay, so he just doesn't do well when I go to games. I think that's the problem. Right, exactly. think that's probably the problem. Yeah, I wasn't digging deep there, but it just didn't feel to me like he had a strongest season as...
00:26:37
Speaker
I think he's capable of, and maybe he had at times in, in, in real salt lakes. Yeah. I mean, I would say, w I mean, I would argue last year was probably his best professional season.
00:26:49
Speaker
Um,
Future of Soccer Analytics and AI's Role
00:26:50
Speaker
but we don't have to, we have to debate that.
00:26:55
Speaker
Uh, what, um, where do you see this? I mean, i don't know. Who do you like this year? Where, where do you think, where do you think this is going? where what is like Actually, let me just – I'm going scratch that entire thing.
00:27:08
Speaker
What do you make of the Sounders analytics department? ah They have been one of the pioneers in the space. They tend to do well in the ASA grades at the end of the year in terms of like the effort or the the resources that they're putting into it and the trust that they sort of put into their analytics department.
00:27:29
Speaker
Is that your perception that they still are one of the top analytics teams? I think, yes. um I don't know Tyler. I did know Ravi a little. Tyler Cox is who you're speaking about. Tyler Cox, yeah. I have not met Tyler. Would love to. Tyler, if you're listening to this, love to meet you sometime.
00:27:48
Speaker
I'm up in the area, so hopefully we we could work that out. um I will say that I do think that being at the forefront like it's like a first mover advantage because you've been doing it longer than anyone, you know, maybe with the exception of Toronto or maybe about the same time as Toronto, like the Sounders and, and, you know, Toronto were the, were the pioneers here.
00:28:13
Speaker
And, um, from that perspective, it gave you kind of a first mover advantage that I think you still enjoy to some level. I also do feel that Robbie had that,
00:28:24
Speaker
had that um connection wish with Brian Schmetzer that where you could tell that Schmetzer valued what what he was getting from Ravi. I remember you know hearing in different press conferences Schmetzer talk about utilizing the size of the box, the assist zones, if you will.
00:28:42
Speaker
you know Manchester City valued those ah also and Ravi valued those. And he's right, like that that is a very valuable piece of real estate um from which to score goals. so And also, um you know, things like set pieces. I remember ah hearing specifically about how, you know, Ravi gave them some insight about how to take advantage of the timbers in a particular game and um and be able to take to, you know, take advantage set piece. I think at seven...
00:29:12
Speaker
shots off of set pieces in that game. And, ah you know, like there's three great saves that prevented any of them from going in. But, you know, Brian was kind of effusive about how much um the data had kind of helped them figure out a way to be able to create those set piece situations.
00:29:28
Speaker
So yeah, that kind of first mover advantage, I think, continues with the club under Tyler. I know he's a very accomplished ah you know person. I think where i would be concerned is that other teams have now really upped that investment and they have big staffs.
00:29:44
Speaker
um happen to know Chicago's got a large team now. um And you know ah in San Jose, for instance, there's three people there. I know Philadelphia's got three people. There's a lot of clubs that have three, four, five people now. That's not unusual anymore.
00:30:02
Speaker
um It was unusual even two, three years ago, but it's no longer unusual. So I do think that there's there. If you don't continue to invest in that particular space that you go from being a leader to being an also ran or a laggard.
00:30:15
Speaker
um If that investment doesn't continue at the at the pace that the league requires. And so when you talk about analytics personnel,
00:30:28
Speaker
is that What do they do? what like what you know like So Tyler, for instance, is the head of analytics for the Sounders. I know they have some people on their video team that are doing a lot of sort of analytical work well What are the jobs of like when you have three, five different analysts, what are what are they all like? How are they classified usually?
00:30:50
Speaker
Yeah, great question. So almost every staff is going to have, you know, like a real data science expert. And, you know, that's where historically kind of the the the money has been made is by people who can really kind of take the data and mine it for insights that might be unique, um something that the club can value that gives them an advantage, um whether that's in the department of ah you know preparation for an opponent or whether that's more
00:31:22
Speaker
ah related to finding the best players available in the market. um So usually you've got at least one real data science wizard. um The other types of people though that you're going to get are you're going to be looking for people who can produce sometimes the reports that are going to be useful for the staff.
00:31:42
Speaker
um visualization type experts, people who can really kind of explain, take complex things and explain it easy for coaching staffs to understand or front office people, you know, making player acquisitions to understand.
00:31:56
Speaker
You're also going to have people who are specialists in data structures, and being able to take the data from a provider, whether that's a stats perform slash opta or stats bomb or wise scout or, you know, whoever skill corner these days, um, where, wherever your data providers are and being able to like, take that and get it into a format that everyone else can utilize and take advantage of.
00:32:19
Speaker
So if I had three people, like I'd have one data person, I'd have one visualization, visualization person, and I have one, you know, top-notch data scientist type. I think like if I was going to start a club today and they gave me a staff of three, that's how I would staff it.
00:32:36
Speaker
And are we at the point where the the bottleneck is more about coaches applying the information that they're getting from the analysts or are we still at a point where we need more people gathering the the information?
00:32:54
Speaker
It's a good question. And I think a lot of that comes down to club culture. So if your culture is one that your um your your coaching staff, they see the value of data, then great. you know Even in in some clubs where the coaching staff doesn't, like the general manager front office area does, and they're going to use that for player acquisition, decision-making type things. Mm-hmm.
00:33:19
Speaker
um In some cultures, it's it's more of one or the other. In some cultures, you know sometimes it's just they're checking a box and no one's listening to them. um And so it just kind of depends on a number of factors. But I think like where the real opportunity is going to be for the future is that everything is moving much faster now with AI. Yeah.
00:33:42
Speaker
um And maybe it's not the AI that people listening necessarily see on a day-to-day basis when people talk about like... you know, copyright stealing and creating these weird, you know, fake images and things like that.
00:33:55
Speaker
um And such, we're talking about like the ability to kind of like improve business processes or i improve the speed at which you can take ideas and put them into action.
00:34:08
Speaker
So I, you know, me as a data analyst who has some coding ability, my abilities are magnified quite a bit by utilizing AI to help me be able to,
00:34:20
Speaker
um create code faster. So for instance, I wanted to analyze counterattacks. um Where do I start? Right. I know, I know there's data here. I don't know like necessarily, you know, what I'm going to need in order to be able to do that. Well, I can utilize AI to help me kind of figure out what the right data is, excuse me, what the right data is.
00:34:40
Speaker
And how do utilize that in order to be able to to analyze that faster? Well, if I'd done it on my own, could I have gotten there? Absolutely. I have the skills and ability to be able to figure it out and come up with you know some pretty good analysis, but it might've taken me a week.
00:34:55
Speaker
With AI, I can probably get there in a day to two days. And you know i think like in the future, like clubs that really kind of understand like how to be able to take that and turn that into a competitive advantage, there will be a new first mover.
00:35:10
Speaker
It'll be whomever really kind of gets it from a perspective of how AI is going to be able to help that club be able to get to the next level. And um that kind of visionary person, i think, will emerge in the league, just like we saw you know people like Robbie and Devin emerge you know in terms of the Sounders in Toronto back in the day.
00:35:30
Speaker
I think the next is going to be someone who really understands like how to take AI and make it into a competitive advantage for clubs. Well, Jamin, that's probably a good place to to put a cork in this.
00:35:42
Speaker
I'm sure we will have more to talk about ah later dates, but thank you for doing this and and giving us a little bit more education on sort of the state of of data analytics in in soccer and some insight into the Sounders and how they're sort of ah where they're where they're ranking in these various areas.
00:36:00
Speaker
where Where should people be following you at this point if they want to they want to get more of this on their own? Well, like you, I have really kind of made the move over to Blue Sky. um So yeah, they can follow me at jamonm.bsky.social.
00:36:18
Speaker
And yeah, I do i put out um some but stuff throughout the week um here or there on MLS Analytics. But on Fridays, what caught your eye this this time around is the Friday stat dump. I try to do that every week where I just take...
00:36:33
Speaker
some stat that maybe you know what it is, maybe you don't. Um, but I tried to kind of explain the reasoning of why it might be valuable and, uh, put it out there and let people noodle over it and, uh, let me know what they think in terms of, uh, whether it was something that was interesting to them or not.
00:36:51
Speaker
Awesome. well Well, thank you so much for doing this, Jamin. Uh, and we're going to get out of here. You're listening to no study at this on the center of our podcast network. I am Jeremiah Shan and we'll catch next time.
00:37:28
Speaker
I expect an LAFC who is motivated ah to prove themselves at home, to prove to their fans that that they're capable of winning in this league. And it's up to us to really brew in the party.