From Moneyball to Midtjylland - 5 ways the Danish team is revolutionizing football using stats
From Moneyball to Midtjylland - 5 ways the Danish team is revolutionizing football using stats
Formed just 16 years ago, FC Midtjylland were a club on the rise since a 2010 promotion to the Danish Superliga. But their fortunes were really transformed in 2014 when Matthew Benham took out a majority shareholding. The 47-year‑old is also the owner of Brentford and made his millions — using mathematical models to predict football results. What has happened since he pumped nearly €7 million into the club in 2014, however, has been incredible! But what is that they do which makes them such a unique team?
Formed just 16 years ago, FC Midtjylland were a club on the rise since a 2010 promotion to the Danish Superliga. But their fortunes were really transformed in 2014 when Matthew Benham took out a majority shareholding. The 47-year‑old is also the owner of Brentford and made his millions — using mathematical models to predict football results. What has happened since he pumped nearly €7 million into the club in 2014, however, has been incredible! But what is that they do which makes them such a unique team?
The 'set-piece lounge'
Once every month, the team and coaches get together in the club’s set-piece lounge where statistics, and videos clips are explored to devise new routines.
Guess what, it actually works! They average almost a goal per game from set-pieces with Atlético Madrid the only team in Europe with a better dead ball strike rate in 2015.
It’s no stroke of luck either as Midtjylland scored four goals from set-pieces in a single game on four different occasions last season!
A specialist kicking coach
No, no and no, this isn't Rugby. However, that hasn't stopped Midtjylland from availing the services of Bartek Sylwestrzak, a specialist kicking coach, who works with the best players at the club from the youth team right up to the senior players.
Sylwestrzak says that “players with a good hitting technique significantly influence the outcome of games through direct free kicks, open play shooting, indirect set piece delivery or crossing. They are often seen as the most valuable offensive assets.”
Given the number of times you see a professional footballer failing to beat the first man from a corner, that makes a lot of sense doesn't it?
Scouting the modern way
There is something romantic about the concept of a scout traveling around the world in search of the 'next big thing'. That’s not just in football but in a lot of sports.
However, Midtjylland find this exercise largely pointless and believe that much more information can be absorbed from watching video and studying analytics than going to see a couple of matches.
Instead, the club use their scouts to analyse if a player will fit into their squad from a personality or psychological point of view.
Discovering talent from unexpected avenues
When looking for new talent, the club’s approach is to ignore national boundaries and they have built an analytics model that ranks every club in Europe as if they competed in the same league.
So while your gut may tell you that there’s a big gap between the Premier League and Championship, the reality is that the gap between the top six in England and the rest is much bigger than the gap between the bottom half of of the Premier League and the Championship.
It’s the reason they signed Tim Sparv (formerly on Southampton’s books) in September 2014 from German second division club Greuther Fürth with Chairman Ramus Ankerson telling De Correspondent: “Our model says that last season, Greuther Fürth were good enough to play in the English Premier League.”
Seeing is not believing
The club has pioneered the approach of using mathematical models to improve and to understand that what you see is not always reflective of what’s happening.
During half-time breaks, their data analysts text the coaches statistics which works out what the score should be in relation to, not only the chances created, but the quality of those chances.
However, as sporting director Claus Steinlein told The Guardian, the coaches realize that football — being such a low-scoring game — is impacted more by luck, bad-refereeing, etc than other sports and so the team that should be winning often finds they’re not.
This, in turn, has a major impact on the message given to players at the break.