Mike Goodman is a soccer writer and managing editor of StatsBomb.com, and last week he wrote a good piece entitled, “A case study on using data to prepare to administer the eye test,” reacting to an MLS playoff game in which data and the eye test seemed to differ. Mike is one of the better writers at bringing together data and a tactical eye, and then producing easy-to-understand articles that appeal to a broad audience. Among the topics covered…

• Why and how he wrote that piece
• Bridging the proverbial gap between analytics and the eye test
• How he approaches data when watching a game and when unfamiliar with a team
• Keys to using numbers well in writing
• What he hopes to see from player-tracking data
• His favorite things about living in Latvia

Links Mentioned in this Episode - Follow Mike on Twitter: @TheM_L_G - Original StatsBomb.com article - Steve Zakuani tweets that inspired the article - Explaining post-shot expected goals: OptaPro, StatsBomb - StatsBomb conference panel with Vosse de Boode (Head of Sports Science and Analytics at Ajax) - Jāņi in Latvia