John Muller is author of the “Space Space Space” newsletter; a weekly publication musing about data and tactical analysis within football. For quite some time now I have followed John's work and there are few better qualified to give a breakdown on the modern state of data and tactical analysis within football. Listen to this episode to hear more about;

• How a move to South America and watching Pep's Barcelona fueled a desire to study tactics?

• Moving from law into football

• Why we are in a new era of data analytics within football?

• Preview of the upcoming Champions League Final

• Why there is no single path to understanding football?

• What is the next frontier of data analytics?

John's Twitter; https://twitter.com/johnspacemuller?lang=en

“Space Space Space” Newsletter; https://spacespacespaceletter.com/archive/

FiveThirtyEight article: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/soccer-is-learning-to-see-the-whole-game/

Timestamps;

00:00 - 05:50 - Intro

05:51 - 09:30 - How to analyse a game?

09:31 - 14:15 - Event & Tracking data

14:16 - 21:34 - Data analytics within football

21:35 - 28:56 - Elbow backs

28:57 - 32:51 - Categorising midfielders

32:52 - 41:00 - Man City v Chelsea

41:01 - 49:21 - Validity of data

49:22 - 52:19 - “Learn as much as possible & share what you can”