⚽ Join the Data Science team at Opta! 🧮 Looking for an experienced Data Scientist who is passionate about applying AI and machine learning to solve complex problems in sports 📍In Europe, flexible to remote or office-based work ❓Drop me a message if you have any questions! tinyurl.com/3pdety28

𝐒𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐀𝐅𝐂𝐎𝐍 𝐓𝐞𝐬𝐭 Sunderland's survival blueprint is working well. But they will lose twice as many players to the Africa Cup of Nations as any other Premier League team. It promises to test Régis Le Bris. theanalyst.com/articles/sun...

New data science job opportunities in our team! ⚽📐

𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐂𝐮𝐩 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟔: Pre-Draw Predictions 📈 Ahead of the FIFA World Cup 2026 draw on Friday 5 December, the Opta supercomputer has produced its early predictions for this summer’s tournament in North America. Here are the results.

We now have 155 women's and 411 men's leagues ranked on @optaanalyst.optajoe.com! You can choose from 3 simple aggregations of the team-level Opta Power Rankings to order the leagues... (1/2)

After beating Chelsea at the weekend, the mighty Sunderland are back inside the top 50 of the Opta Power Rankings. It's their first time inside the top 50 since 1st February 2011 before they lost 4-2 at home, also to Chelsea...

Champions League update! 🔹 Arsenal still on top! PSG joins the fight for first after an away win at Barca. 🔹 Qarabağ with 2 wins! Now 75% likely to make the next round. 🔸 Both Dutch teams in bottom 6 teams — heading towards elimination. 🔸 Athletic Club with 2 losses heading towards an early exit.

Interesting insights from the Opta Supercomputer himself

Great to see the WSL added to @optaanalyst.optajoe.com, with detailed stats alongside fixture and season level predictions. theanalyst.com/competition/...

Szoboszlai's high workrate against Arsenal was highlighted on MoTD www.reddit.com/r/soccer/com... For this 23 second interval, we labelled 2 off-ball runs with our new Playing Styles framework A 82.3m cross option run (max speed 34.48 kph) and a 76.8m tracking back to position run (max 30.96 kph)

A deep dive into the Donnarumma vs Ederson debate, how much worse GD's passing really is, and what it all means for the role of Premier League goalkeepers. Pep has revolutionised the role once, but is he following a trend this time around? theanalyst.com/articles/gia...

New year, new coefficients simulation! ⚠️This year is the first time I've seen where the Big 4 might actually be challenged, as 🇫🇷 France _could_ overtake 🇩🇪 Germany. Being Top 4 gives you 4 direct UCL spots, which are now at risk for Germany, after some poor seasons in Europe.

Finally, here's our Conference League predictions. Again an English team favourites to win the League Stage — just like Chelsea was last year. Top 24 achievable for all, even lowest rated teams Shelbourne/Aberdeen with a ±20% chance!

In the Europa League, English teams are once again favoured to make an impression. Here's how we estimate each teams' likelihood of Top 8 and Top 24 in the League Stage.

A new #ChampionsLeague season is upon us! Here's each team's likelihood of qualifying for Top 8 or 24, according to our predictions:

It's only been 1 gameweek, but Mbeumo is continuing his incredible off-ball work rate at United. So far he's completed the most runs in behind the opposition (whilst his team has possession), a metric which he topped last season at Brentford.

What an innings from Jordan Cox. He went from scoring 8 runs off his first 8 deliveries, to scoring 78 from his next 21.

An incredible first international 100 from Dewald Brevis, from just 41 deliveries!

England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 v Sweden 🇸🇪 penalty shootout at #WEURO2025 🥇 worst total xGoT (1.23) of a shootout with >12 pens 🥇 worst conversion rate (0.38 goals per pen) of a shootout with >12 pens (last 381 men's and women's shootouts, Opta)

So close to a new world record from Wiaan Mulder! Just the 220 runs in boundaries

An interesting graphic considering his absence for much of last season. Timber offered a lot in defence but in attack Arsenal missed Ben White on the overlap.

𝐖𝐡𝐨 𝐖𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐖𝐢𝐧 𝐔𝐄𝐅𝐀 𝐖𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐧’𝐬 𝐄𝐮𝐫𝐨 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟓? 🏆 Women’s Euro 2025 is about to take centre stage in Europe, but who are the favourites to lift the trophy come the end of July? We look at the Opta supercomputer’s pre-tournament predictions: theanalyst.com/articles/uef...

With reported interest from Bayern Munich and summer transfer speculation brewing, Arsenal face a decision on Gabriel Martinelli. Their attack needs a refresh, but does that mean moving on from the talented Brazilian? ✍️ @orbinho.bsky.social theanalyst.com/articles/gab...

alternative: 𝗕𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗸𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗣𝗹𝗮𝘆𝗲𝗿 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗼𝗻 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟰/𝟮𝟱 eligibility: ✅ <=21 y.o. at start of season ✅ 1500+ minutes ✅ first 1500+ minute season in a top tier league

On 9-5-2011 we had FK Bodø/Glimt ranked 2212 in the world. They had taken 2 points from the first 5 games in the Norwegian 2nd tier and were sat in the relegation zone. Today they are ranked 68 and Europa League Semi-Finalists. An incredible turnaround.

At 14 years old I was doing this on Brain Lara Cricket to be fair, not that impressive 😪

After Lazio's 2-0 loss last night, the battle for the Champions League bonus ticket is just about over. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 England's #5 is guaranteed a CL ticket 🇪🇸 Spain's #5 is 99.8% sure For 🇩🇪 and 🇮🇹 having 8 teams didn't help, but in the end they also didn't perform at the level needed.

[NEW] First blog in a long time! In which I show a pretty straightforward way to derive teams' attacking and defensive strengths from bookmaker odds. This method is not only easy to implement, but also very accurate compared to results-based models. mackayanalytics.nl/2025/04/01/g...

Stats Perform are looking for someone to join the data analysis team to work along side Jonny Whitmore and Jon Manuel. If you're passionate about football data and want to shape how we see the game through engaging visualisations, be sure to apply! ⚽️📈📊 #dataviz t.co/lOaOOtBJAY

Exciting semi-final line-up for the Women's Champions League, consisting of the top 4 teams in the world according to our Power Rankings on @optaanalyst.optajoe.com theanalyst.com/na/2024/08/w...

A great opportunity to work in an amazing team here at Opta! The Data Analyst team has a huge impact with external clients but also via collaborations within the company. They are the first heavy users of the Data Science team's work and provide incredible feedback/guidance throughout our projects

𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐠𝐮𝐞 𝐎𝐧𝐞 𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 With just a few weeks left of the 2024-25 season, we thought it was time to fire up the Opta supercomputer and see what it says about League One, including: ⬆️ The promotion race 📈 The play-off push 📉 The relegation battle theanalyst.com/2025/03/leag...

⭐ 𝐏𝐲𝐒𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭 𝐗 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐬𝐏𝐞𝐫𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐓𝐢𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐭𝐬 𝐹𝑟𝑒𝑒 𝐶𝑜𝑚𝑚𝑢𝑛𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑇𝑖𝑐𝑘𝑒𝑡𝑠 are available for our 𝑃𝑦𝑆𝑝𝑜𝑟𝑡 𝑋 Stats Perform event in London on March 17th! 🎙️ We'll have various talks by Jonny Whitmore & @dannydinsdale.bsky.social, Sebastien Coustou, @tk5.futbol, Manuel Bassek (Floodlight) and more!

⚽ 𝐏𝐲𝐒𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭 𝐗 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐬𝐏𝐞𝐫𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐓𝐢𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐭𝐬 We're excited to announce that 𝐹𝑟𝑒𝑒 𝐶𝑜𝑚𝑚𝑢𝑛𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑇𝑖𝑐𝑘𝑒𝑡𝑠 are now available for our 𝑃𝑦𝑆𝑝𝑜𝑟𝑡 𝑋 𝑆𝑡𝑎𝑡𝑠𝑃𝑒𝑟𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑚 London event on March 17th!

Bonus Champions League ticket update: 🇮🇹 Italy grabs the last lifeline with 3/4 wins, among one a win against a Spanish team. 🇪🇸 Spain still favoured however with 6 teams still playing for now. England can start partying, only a miracle collapse can see them miss out.

We had UP Warriorz down at 1% to win when they required 42 off 18 deliveries. An incredible effort from Sophie Ecclestone to drag them to a super over and eventually victory against RCB. #WPL2025

The race for the UCL bonus ticket as it has progressed so far. While 🇮🇹 Italy messed up in the KO-round of the Champions League, it was always an uphill battle, having 8 teams playing rather than 7 for Spain/England. Hence, 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 England / 🇪🇸 Spain were favourites from the start.

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐦𝐩𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐑𝐚𝐜𝐞: Opta Predictions 📈 Which two teams will win automatic promotion from the Championship to the Premier League in 2024-25? We look at the latest projections via the Opta supercomputer: theanalyst.com/2025/02/cham...

A brilliant final few overs from New Zealand has them ahead of the game at the interval in the ICC Champions Trophy opener. Our win predictions had New Zealand at ~55% going into the final 10 overs, but at the break we have them at ~72%. @optaanalyst.optajoe.com

A first international century for Ben Curran, getting to his milestone off 120 balls. Two clear stages in his innings. He hit 10 boundaries in his first 40 deliveries, but only 2 in his next 80.

Did a little scroll piece on set pieces in the Premier League with @rbenson92.bsky.social theanalyst.com/2025/02/arse...

Knockout stage season is upon us! Here's the countries most likely to get a bonus Champions League ticket for next season. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 England already 3+ points ahead of the rest, and 7/7 teams remaining. They'll likely get the 1st ticket. Other ticket between 🇮🇹 Italy and 🇪🇸 Spain, who both lost 1 team.

So I made this plot back in September. It stated that 10 points would be enough to qualify for Top 24 in 99% of the simulations. Clearly this didn't materialise — Dinamo Zagreb got knocked out with 11 points. Some thoughts 👇

One of the rare occasions I’ve actually enjoyed working on a table theanalyst.com/eu/2025/01/c...

A stunning hundred from Mitchell Owen in the Big Bash final to break the back of the chase within a handful of overs. He also ends up as the BBL 2024/25 top scorer, with 452 runs at a strike rate of over 200. The leg side took a battering. #BBL14

🇳🇱 vs 🇵🇹 🇳🇱 Netherlands (4W, 1L) have at least 4 teams advancing + Twente still with good odds. 🇵🇹 Portugal (4L), however, still have 4 teams with serious risk of elimination. Their bad performances also has cost a lot of potential bonus points. Result: 🇳🇱 now solid favourite to maintain 6th!

Just the 1 game remaining in the Europa League! 🔹Only Lazio is certain of Top 8 🔹Play-off reached by AZ, Union SG, Viktoria Plzen, Bodø/Glimt and probably PAOK 🔸Porto, Fenerbahçe, Roma, Besiktas at serious risk of elimination (among others).

Most likely Champions League KO round matchups: Juventus - PSV Celtic - Real Madrid Bayern Munich - Club Brugge Benfica - Borussia Dortmund Feyenoord - Monaco Brest - PSG Lille - Sporting Atalanta/Aston Villa - Man City/Stuttgart Note: all of these individually only around 10-15% of happening.

Only 1 game to go in the Champions League! 🔹Arsenal as good as guaranteed of Top 8 🔹Feyenoord, Real Madrid, Celtic, PSV qualify for Top 24 🔸City with 36% of being eliminated 🔸PSG still with 14% of elimination — direct matchup against Stuttgart in the final round