Jesse Davis
@jessejdavis.bsky.social
๐ค 1204
๐ฅ 158
๐ 37
Professor @ KU Leuven researching AI, machine learning, and sports. Co founder of runeasi
pinned post!
Excited to announce a new paper together with
@sigridolthof.bsky.social
entitled "Perspectives on data analytics for gaining a competitive advantage in football: computational approaches to tactics". This is a synthesis article that has 3 key objectives
www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10....
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Perspectives on data analytics for gaining a competitive advantage in football: computational approaches to tactics
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10.1080/24733938.2025.2533784?needAccess=true
3 months ago
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Jesse Davis
Jan Van Haaren
3 days ago
My latest blog post "From Data to Wisdom: Playing Footballโs Information Game at the Right Level" explores how football clubs can move from simply collecting data to making better, evidence-based decisions.
janvanhaaren.be/posts/from-d...
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From Data to Wisdom: Playing Footballโs Information Game at the Right Level โ Jan Van Haaren
From Data to Wisdom: Playing Footballโs Information Game at the Right Level.
https://janvanhaaren.be/posts/from-data-to-wisdom/index.html
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Jesse Davis
Ryan O'Hanlon
25 days ago
I've always wondered (and feared) what might happen if everyone started taking set pieces seriously. The first eight weeks of the Premier League season might be giving us a glimpse into the future, where soccer no longer features much, well, soccer:
www.espn.com/soccer/story...
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Are set plays ruining the Premier League? How throw-ins are boosting Arsenal, but adding boredom
As Premier League teams learn set pieces are a more efficient way to score, open play goals become rarer. Can the game withstand such a shift?
https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/46662849/set-pieces-ruining-premier-league-helping-arsenal-throw-ins
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Jesse Davis
DTAI - KU Leuven
29 days ago
Congratulations to DTAI PhD student Laurens Devos for successfully defending his PhD thesis on "Verification and reasoning for decision tree ensembles":
tinyurl.com/47efmbj5
๐๐๐ฅ๐พ
@wannesm.bsky.social
@jessejdavis.bsky.social
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Jesse Davis
PySport
about 1 month ago
Weโre excited to launch the ๐๐ค๐ข๐ฅ๐ฅ๐๐จ๐ซ๐ง๐๐ซ ๐ ๐๐ฒ๐๐ฉ๐จ๐ซ๐ญ ๐๐ง๐๐ฅ๐ฒ๐ญ๐ข๐๐ฌ ๐๐ฎ๐ฉ - a hackathon-style challenge that will bring together the community to collaborate, compete, and innovate using open-source SkillCorner data. ๐ Sign up
pysport.org/analytics-cup
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Jesse Davis
Pieter Robberechts
about 2 months ago
Before an app launches, it undergoes usability testing. Why shouldn't an advanced sports metric? In our latest blog, we propose 4 criteria: 1๏ธโฃ Trustworthy 2๏ธโฃ Novel 3๏ธโฃ Intuitive 4๏ธโฃ Useful Then, we put VAEP to the test... \w
@jessejdavis.bsky.social
& Maaike Van Roy
dtai.cs.kuleuven.be/sports/blog/...
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How Do We Know a Metric Is Good? A Case Study on VAEP
In sports analytics, the primary goal is to develop indicators that quantify the skills, capabilities, and tendencies of athletes andโฆ
https://dtai.cs.kuleuven.be/sports/blog/how-do-we-know-a-metric-is-good-a-case-study-on-vaep/
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We can use xG to compute post-hoc win-draw-loss probabilities. Our new blogpost shows MCMC's estimates of these probabilities are unstable, computing them exactly is faster than approximating them, and MCMC's runtime strongly depends on its implementation.
dtai.cs.kuleuven.be/sports/blog/...
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Expected goals and the Monte Carlo Trap
On a team level, xG is often used to assess the quality of the goal scoring opportunities that a team creates and concedes. That is, itโฆ
https://dtai.cs.kuleuven.be/sports/blog/expected-goals-and-the-monte-carlo-trap/
2 months ago
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Burger time! With a very fitting flipper thanks to
@janvanhaaren.be
and Giels
2 months ago
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Jesse Davis
Leander **PRE-ORDER THE LONG GAME** Schaerlaeckens
2 months ago
๐จ๐จYou can now pre-order my book, THE LONG GAME, on the United States men's national soccer team and its messy rise from total international irrelevance to, well, TBD!๐จ๐จ I spoke to ~150 players/coaches/etc. and got fresh stories and unprecedented access!
www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/722130...
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The Long Game by Leander Schaerlaeckens: 9780593653876 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books
The gripping account of the U.S. menโs national soccer teamโs winding saga from obscurity to the global stage as they stand on the brink of a seminal World Cup in 2026. For almost half a century,...
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/722130/the-long-game-by-leander-schaerlaeckens/
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At OHL for womenโs champions league qualifiers with the whole family
3 months ago
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Excited to announce a new paper together with
@sigridolthof.bsky.social
entitled "Perspectives on data analytics for gaining a competitive advantage in football: computational approaches to tactics". This is a synthesis article that has 3 key objectives
www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10....
1 / 4
loading . . .
Perspectives on data analytics for gaining a competitive advantage in football: computational approaches to tactics
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10.1080/24733938.2025.2533784?needAccess=true
3 months ago
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Jesse Davis
PySport
3 months ago
๐ท ๐๐ฒ๐๐ฉ๐จ๐ซ๐ญ ๐ ๐๐ฒ๐๐๐ญ๐ ๐๐ข๐ง๐๐ก๐จ๐ฏ๐๐ง ๐๐๐ฅ๐ฅ ๐๐จ๐ซ ๐๐ซ๐จ๐ฉ๐จ๐ฌ๐๐ฅ๐ฌ! ๐ถ On December 9th @PyData Eindhoven and
@pysport.org
will organize ๐๐ฒ๐๐๐ญ๐ ๐๐ข๐ง๐๐ก๐จ๐ฏ๐๐ง ๐๐๐๐! ๐๐จ๐ซ๐ ๐ข๐ง๐๐จ:
lnkd.in/eBGWKs3V
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4 months ago
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Jesse Davis
John Muller
4 months ago
If you loved Sarri's Napoli or De Zerbi's Brighton, you should be watching Mikey Varas's San Diego. I wrote for the Guardian about the risky press-baiting style that makes MLS's newest team its most tactically interesting, statistically extreme and just plain fun.
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San Diego FC are setting risky new records in an eye-catching MLS debut
No team in the world relies on buildup quite like the newly-formed group of โ30 strangersโ with teenagers in key positions
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2025/jul/30/san-diego-fc-mls-tactics-buildup-mikey-varas-tyler-heaps
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Jesse Davis
EurIPS Conference
4 months ago
EurIPS is coming! ๐ฃ Mark your calendar for Dec. 2-7, 2025 in Copenhagen ๐ EurIPS is a community-organized conference where you can present accepted NeurIPS 2025 papers, endorsed by
@neuripsconf.bsky.social
and
@nordicair.bsky.social
and is co-developed by
@ellis.eu
eurips.cc
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Jesse Davis
John Muller
4 months ago
Minnesota United became the most aggressive set-piece team on the planet with old-fashioned tactics backed by new analytics โ and now they canโt stop scoring from it. My first for The Guardian:
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The most aggressive set-piece team in the world plays in Minnesota
Under the guidance of a former Manchester United assistant, Minnesota United are finding MLS success with a surprising tactic
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2025/jul/09/minnesota-united-set-pieces-throw-ins-free-kicks-tactics
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Jesse Davis
Leander **PRE-ORDER THE LONG GAME** Schaerlaeckens
4 months ago
I took my 8-year-old son to his first professional soccer game... at the Club World Cup. It was too much of everything. But we found a moment of humanity in amid the artifice and the avarice. Column
@theguardian.com
www.theguardian.com/football/202...
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In the stands with my son, the Club World Cup was as human as it could possibly be
Unexpectedly cheap tickets gave my boy an overwhelming soccer experience, and me a jolt of faith in a flawed tournament
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2025/jul/10/club-world-cup-attending-chelsea-fluminense-metlife-stadium-neurodivergent-son
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Jesse Davis
Leander **PRE-ORDER THE LONG GAME** Schaerlaeckens
5 months ago
Column on last night's spirited
#USMNT
penalty-shootout win over Costa Rica in the Gold Cup quarterfinals, and what this tournament really represents to the Americans.
@theguardian.com
www.theguardian.com/football/202...
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The US needed more than a trophy from the Gold Cup, and it may just get it
Missing stars and short on sparkle, the USMNT have still found something vital at this Gold Cup: a renewed sense of belief, identity and collective fight
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2025/jun/30/usmnt-gold-cup-belief-identity-confidence-2025
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Jesse Davis
Pieter Robberechts
5 months ago
Our Women's Euro 2025 predictions are out! ๐ฎ Spain ๐ช๐ธ is our model's favorite to win the title, with Germany ๐ฉ๐ช close behind. Meanwhile, Belgium ๐ง๐ช will most likely be eliminated in the group stage. w\
@jessejdavis.bsky.social
dtai.cs.kuleuven.be/sports/blog/...
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Predicting the 2025 Women's European Championship
The UEFA Womenโs Euro 2025 will be held in Switzerland in July. Will Spain capture the title after winning the World Cup in 2023? Or willโฆ
https://dtai.cs.kuleuven.be/sports/blog/predicting-the-2025-women's-european-championship/
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Jesse Davis
Thomas Dietterich
5 months ago
I think we should be building systems that complement people; systems that do well the things that people do poorly; systems that make individuals and organizations more effective and more humane. 3/
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Leander **PRE-ORDER THE LONG GAME** Schaerlaeckens
5 months ago
If you missed it yesterday, I spoke to fans, economists and players unions and wrote long about the overlapping ways in which the Club World Cup represents a collision of all the untenable forces in modern soccer.
add a skeleton here at some point
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Jesse Davis
Pieter Robberechts
5 months ago
I strongly believe biomechanical analysis will be the next big leap in sports analyticsโand not just for the pros. I got a glimpse by testing the
@runeasi.bsky.social
sensor (a
@dtai-kuleuven.bsky.social
spin-off) and wrote about how it helped during my marathon training โ
runeasi.ai/my-marathon-...
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My Marathon Journey with Runeasi by Pieter Robberechts
Discover my marathon journey with Runeasi by Pieter Robberechts, including my race day experience and new personal best of 2:31:59.
https://runeasi.ai/my-marathon-journey-with-runeasi/
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Jesse Davis
Joris Bekkers
5 months ago
๐ ๐๐ฉ๐๐ง-๐๐จ๐ฎ๐ซ๐๐ ๐ ๐จ๐จ๐ญ๐๐๐ฅ๐ฅ ๐๐ง๐๐ฅ๐ฒ๐ญ๐ข๐๐ฌ @ ๐๐ฒ๐๐๐ญ๐ ๐๐จ๐ง๐๐จ๐ง ๐๐๐๐ On Saturday I presented a Graph Neural Network Expected Possession Value model at
@pydatalondon.bsky.social
2025. This ๐๐ซ๐๐ฉ๐ก๐๐๐ model is an ML approach that predicts scoring probability for any moment in the game ๐
tinyurl.com/pydata-ldn25
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This is one meal that makes both kids very happy
5 months ago
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To give an example that funding research can have positive benefits beyond what was intended: we were able to apply some ideas from our sports research to play a small role in a study on Parkinsonโs disease
www.biorxiv.org/content/bior...
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5 months ago
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Iโm honored by
@leanderalphabet.bsky.social
excellent write up of our soccer research! Lots of credit to my wonderful collaborators
@janvanhaaren.be
@wannesm.bsky.social
@probberechts.bsky.social
Maaike Lotte Tom
@lorenzocascioli.bsky.social
@hugoriosneto.bsky.social
Max Arne Tim & so many others
add a skeleton here at some point
5 months ago
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Jesse Davis
futi
6 months ago
Over the next few weeks we'll be publishing articles to help you get to know how futi's stats work. First up: meet our possession value model that turns every touch of the ball into goal probabilities.
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How futi sees football in goal probabilities
Meet the most important model behind our ratings
https://futiapp.substack.com/p/how-futi-sees-football-in-goal-probabilities
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Spain - Belgium
#FlameTime
with a very happy daughter
6 months ago
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Jesse Davis
John Muller
6 months ago
It's the hope that kills you
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Weโve submitted a paper to arxiv thatโs been on hold for 3 months. This seems abnormally long. Has anyone else had this issue? Any suggestions?
6 months ago
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Jesse Davis
Lorenzo Cascioli
7 months ago
๐จThe third and final blog post in our series on possession value models design decisions๐: Can the features chosen to represent the game state inadvertently bias player ratings? w/
@probberechts.bsky.social
@jessejdavis.bsky.social
Lode Van Tente
dtai.cs.kuleuven.be/sports/blog/...
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An experimental analysis of possession state value models: part 3
Conceptually, possession value approaches such as VAEP, PV, OBV, and g+ are all identical: they estimate the chances of scoring (andโฆ
https://dtai.cs.kuleuven.be/sports/blog/an-experimental-analysis-of-possession-state-value-models:-part-3/
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Jesse Davis
Pieter Robberechts
7 months ago
๐ฃ Excited to share that the Workshop on Machine Learning and Data Mining for Sports Analytics (MLSA) will be held again this September as part of
@ecmlpkdd.org
! w/
@hugoriosneto.bsky.social
,
@azimmerdm.bsky.social
and Maaike Van Roy
dtai.cs.kuleuven.be/events/MLSA25
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MLSA 2025
Workshop on Machine Learning and Data Mining for Sports Analytics at ECML/PKDD 2025
https://dtai.cs.kuleuven.be/events/MLSA25
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Jesse Davis
Albrecht Zimmermann
8 months ago
The proceedings of the latest edition of our (
@jessejdavis.bsky.social
,
@janvanhaaren.be
, Ulf Brefeld) workshop are finally out:
link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-86692-0
And the organization for this year's edition's already underway:
dtai.cs.kuleuven.be/events/MLSA25/
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Machine Learning and Data Mining for Sports Analytics
The MLSA 2024 proceedings focus on the application of machine learning and data mining techniques to the domain of sports.
https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-86692-0
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Jesse Davis
Pawel Kapuscinski
8 months ago
We are looking for a Data Analyst to support performance functions of Tottenham Hotspur. Lots of interesting projects ahead, a lot to learn about football and lots of space to develop tech skills (I'll help here). More details on LinkedIn.
www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/41...
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Tottenham Hotspur Football Club hiring Data Analyst in Enfield, England, United Kingdom | LinkedIn
Posted 2:47:46 PM. Founded in 1882, Tottenham Hotspur Football Club is an English Premier League Club, based in NorthโฆSee this and similar jobs on LinkedIn.
https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/4181372849/?trk=feed_main-feed-card_feed-job-posting-content
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Jesse Davis
DTAI - KU Leuven
9 months ago
Congratulations to our DTAI researchers for presenting their work at
#AAAI2025
#AAAI25
Lennert De Smet, Dimos Tsouros, Liesbeth Allein, Jaron Maene, David Depot, Ignace Bleukx.
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Jesse Davis
Pieter Robberechts
9 months ago
This is a great initiative by @PySport! A common theme in the discussion was how many started their projects to learn. For me, contributing to open-source and collaborating with others has been instrumental in becoming a better programmer. Excited to see whatโs next! ๐
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Jesse Davis
Jaron Maene
9 months ago
We all know backpropagation can calculate gradients, but it can do much more than that! Come to my
#AAAI2025
oral tomorrow (11:45, Room 119B) to learn more.
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Jesse Davis
Leander **PRE-ORDER THE LONG GAME** Schaerlaeckens
9 months ago
I wrote about Christian Pulisic, his "Pulisic" docuseries, and what it says about a United States men's national team generation that lacks the promotional zeal of its predecessors.
@us.theguardian.com
www.theguardian.com/football/202...
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Christian Pulisic docuseries exemplifies USMNTโs mostly silent golden generation
The Milan starโs nine-episode turn on Paramount+ is most notable in that it reveals anything about the player at all
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2025/feb/26/christian-pulisic-documentary-usmnt-milan
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Jesse Davis
Joris Bekkers
9 months ago
๐ ๐ฎ๐ง๐ซ๐๐ฏ๐๐ฅ๐ฌ๐ฉ๐จ๐ซ๐ญ๐ฌ==๐.๐.๐ I'm very excited to announce the release of ๐ข๐๐๐๐ฃ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ก๐ version 0.3.0. ๐บ If you follow the Jupyter Notebook tutorial you'll be able to generate a Pressing Intensity video step-by-step using any of the Kloppy supported tracking providers. ๐
tinyurl.com/unravel-pres...
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Jesse Davis
Gradient Sports
9 months ago
Weโve restructured our 2022 Men's World Cup dataset. To streamline analysis and improve usability, we split event data by game and organized metadata and rosters into separate subfolders, each corresponding to a single game. Download for free โฌ๏ธ
www.blog.fc.pff.com/blog/enhance...
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Get Free Access to Our Enhanced 2022 World Cup Dataset! โ PFF FC BLOG
Unlock the secrets of the 2022 FIFA World Cup with our in-depth dataset! Featuring broadcast tracking, event data, and advanced play-by-play performance grades, this resource is perfect for football e...
https://www.blog.fc.pff.com/blog/enhanced-2022-world-cup-dataset
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We are hiring for PhD positions! Iโm looking for people interested in exploring the intersection of learning and reasoning with applications to anomaly detection and sports.
@dtai-kuleuven.bsky.social
@wannesm.bsky.social
www.kuleuven.be/personeel/jo...
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Several PhD Positions in Artificial Intelligence at Computer Science KU Leuven
All positions are in the Machine Learning subgroup of the Section for Declarative Languages and Artificial Intelligence (DTAI), which is part of the Department of Computer Science at KU Leuven. The DT...
https://www.kuleuven.be/personeel/jobsite/jobs/60438292?utm_medium=jobsites&utm_source=AcademicPositions
9 months ago
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It was a pleasure to collaborate with Maaike over the course of her PhD!! I'm thrilled that she'll stay a bit longer! She did amazing work. The thread below details some research that did not even make the thesis, which can you read here:
lirias.kuleuven.be/retrieve/790...
add a skeleton here at some point
9 months ago
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Jesse Davis
Leander **PRE-ORDER THE LONG GAME** Schaerlaeckens
10 months ago
I wanted to know why so many young men are betting on sports. What I learned genuinely shocked me. My story
@us.theguardian.com
www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/j...
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How the quick high of โfast-food gamblingโ ensnared young men
Betting companies are making huge amounts from the confidence of young, male customers who think they can beat the system
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/jan/31/how-the-quick-high-of-fast-food-gambling-ensnared-young-men
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Jesse Davis
PySport
10 months ago
๐น ๐๐ฒ๐๐ฉ๐จ๐ซ๐ญ - ๐๐ฉ๐๐ง-๐๐จ๐ฎ๐ซ๐๐ ๐๐ฉ๐จ๐ซ๐ญ๐ฌ ๐๐ง๐๐ฅ๐ฒ๐ญ๐ข๐๐ฌ ๐๐ฎ๐ซ๐ฏ๐๐ฒ - ๐๐๐๐ ๐น At PySport we would like to learn more about the use of open-source tools within the sports analytics community. Please help us by filling out the ๐๐ฆ๐๐๐๐๐ก ๐๐๐๐-๐๐๐ข๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐ก๐ ๐ด๐๐๐๐ฆ๐ก๐๐๐ ๐๐ข๐๐ฃ๐๐ฆ. ๐
forms.gle/GCGtwek9eEtN...
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PySport - Open-Source Sports Analytics Survey - 2025
Welcome to the PySport Open-Source Sports Analytics Survey 2025! Thank you for participating in this survey. Your insights are invaluable in shaping the future of open-source tools in sports analytics...
https://forms.gle/GCGtwek9eEtNu42v8
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Jesse Davis
Martin Eastwood
10 months ago
It's been a while but I've written a new article for my blog looking at how to calculate Expected Threat (xT) in football / soccer analytics using linear algebra.
pena.lt/y/2025/01/08...
#python
#DataScience
#SoccerAnalytics
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Calculating Expected Threat in Python Using Linear Algebra
This article walks through how to calculate expected threat in Python using linear algebra instead of the original convergence method...
https://pena.lt/y/2025/01/08/calculating-expected-threat-in-python-using-linear-algebra/
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Jan Van Haaren
11 months ago
Continuing the tradition, I have compiled an end-of-year overview of the soccer analytics content that I liked the most in the past year. The 2024 edition includes pointers to over 160 resources, including research papers, blog posts, articles, podcasts, and books.
janvanhaaren.be/posts/soccer...
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Soccer Analytics 2024 Review โ Jan Van Haaren
Collection of the soccer analytics content that I liked the most in 2024!
https://janvanhaaren.be/posts/soccer-analytics-review-2024/index.html
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Jesse Davis
devinpleuler
11 months ago
Big Chances. Gone too soon?
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Let's Bring Back Big Chances
Entropy and a Unified Model of Goal Probability
https://www.centralwinger.com/p/lets-bring-back-big-chances
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So true. We have been working on possession value models since 2016 and we are still discovering new things about them
add a skeleton here at some point
11 months ago
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