After their loss last night, Real Madrid have dropped outside of the top 10 in the Opta Power Rankings for the first time in over 5 years. theanalyst.com/articles/who...

in the latest Expecting Goals newsletter (free to read!) I broke down the numbers on the Premier League set piece revolution and why I think it marks a major new tactical trend in the Premier League that will be unusually difficult to dislodge www.expectinggoals.com/p/the-set-pi...

In Plot the Ball this week: a look at the state of men’s water polo, the trajectory of Fiji in rugby sevens and a few other interesting things I learned about international sport 🌍. You can read — and subscribe to get the newsletter directly every Monday — here: www.plottheball.com/p/the-week-i...

the most telling part of the Deloitte Money League this year wasn't the top 20 it was the rankings of teams 21-30 it's a new world www.deloitte.com/uk/en/servic...

Wrote about the state of play for football, getting data, and getting insight, in the aftermath of the FBref news www.getgoalsideanalytics.com/square-one/

This week’s edition of the newsletter has just gone out to subscribers. You can read it here — and subscribe to get it directly to your inbox every Monday: www.plottheball.com/p/the-week-i...

Well this is unfortunate www.sports-reference.com/blog/2026/01...

Good time for someone to write about City's issues... Oh wait #BGMCI #Footy-Live

Indiana football compiled a .384 winning percentage in the 25 seasons before this one. No national champion performed worse during the stretch preceding its title, according to a Washington Post analysis.

11 german managers in the bundesliga. a combined zero caps for the german national team between them.

Plot the Ball is back! 📊🏐✉️ Today, I launched a really exciting new project. Over the last few months, I’ve been working on finding a better way to understand the landscape of international team sport. You can read more about it here: www.plottheball.com/p/what-to-ex...

Plot the Ball is back! 📊🏐✉️ Today, I launched a really exciting new project. Over the last few months, I’ve been working on finding a better way to understand the landscape of international team sport. You can read more about it here: www.plottheball.com/p/what-to-ex...

How good is the Olympic ice? Let's ask someone who played on it this weekend Chatted with Florian Wieser about it today and then got some perspective Moritz Seider and Lucas Raymond their Olympics thoughts. My latest at Shap Shots www.shapshotshockey.com/p/how-good-i...

Interview time on the @IrishTimesSport rugby podcast Rory Best, an ex-Ireland captain under Joe Schmidt, is now general manager at Ulster What does a GM actually do, and how have Ulster become Irish rugby's good news story? Listen ⬇️ www.irishtimes.com/podcasts/the...

Carcassone fly-half Gabin Michet receives his club player of December award from a local butcher #ProD2, never change, never change

I wrote this two weeks ago. Seems like it might be relevant today: www.espn.com/soccer/story...

With a bunch of new followers, I wanted to re-introduce myself 👋🏻. Every Saturday, I publish a newsletter called Plot the Ball 📊🏐 — where I use data to tell better stories about sport. To get this week’s edition in your inbox, subscribe here: www.plottheball.com

Check out @sportico.bsky.social's best data viz of the year 📈📉📊🏀🏈⚾️⚽️💵💰 www.sportico.com/business/spo...

If you'd like to read every story I've written in 2025 before the end of 2025, the last one just went up: docs.google.com/document/d/1...

One viz "rule" that I follow almost always is that scatters with the same units on both axes should be square and scatters with different units should be non-square. Squareness here produces whitespace at the bottom which tells you that no team is as bad defensively as CAR/COL are good offensively.

Continuing the tradition, I have compiled an end-of-year overview of the soccer analytics content that I liked the most in 2025. This edition includes pointers to about 200 resources, including research papers, blog posts, news articles, podcasts, and webinars. janvanhaaren.be/posts/soccer...

Excited for another round of “Is Morgan Roger’s finishing 5 times as efficiently as Lione Messi going to continue indefinitely?” today.

City have been much more reliant on counter-attacks to create chances this season. Their xG from counters per game and share of non-penalty xG have both more than doubled compared to a relatively steady baseline. For the first time, Pep's team rank at or near the top of the PL by these metrics.

Primary Assist heatmaps for 2024-2025 season as well as current, based on strength. Pretty cool stuff happening on the powerplay and one of the reasons why xG models (publicly) are so much less accurate for that strength

imagining a future where it's normal to ask soccer players interesting questions and for them to answer them

Used Liverpool’s tendency to “win” games on xG as a topical Trojan horse to debunk the concept of winning on xG, and why xPoints tables often produce league standings that are clearly nonsense www.nytimes.com/athletic/688...

I linked to this yesterday, but it's worth bringing up again. When I first started doing analytics, it was the base assumption that players are, on average, the same. Now I am more interested in what *changes* them. This highlights one cause. www.espn.com/nba/story/_/...

It took half a season but Real Madrid have discovered the secret tactical formula of Trent kick ball far + Kylian dribble fast

Some interesting data trends on Manchester City's season (🧵, some metric explainers at the end) 1/ As of today, this would be the first season where City don't top the PL for possession % and field tilt since 2017/18, and the first where they drop below 60% and 70%, respectively

Here is the updated #NWSL point spirals after the 2025 season. It really shows how quickly Kansas City took the lead without any other team coming close. Remaining teams were pretty tight on points

EXCLUSIVE LukeKnox , Creative Director at ESPN, speaks with TK Sajeev Kumar,Editorial Director of NewspaperDesign, about how his team redefines digital sports storytelling through sharp design, smart data, and mobile-first creativity. newspaperdesign.org/2025/11/27/d...

Outstanding scrum analysis from James Tracy on today's pod. James breaks down how things unravelled for Ireland in detail. Also chat about Nienaber at Leinster, card decisions, and listeners who think we got referee views wrong on Monday. the42.ie/subscribe to sign up!

In the latest edition of Plot the Ball, I've written about Sidney Crosby’s longevity at the top of the NHL — and his deserved place on Canada’s Olympic team at age 38. Also featuring this week: Jorja Miller, Caoimhe Bray, Victor Wembanyama and Drake Maye. www.plottheball.com/p/already-a-...

In the latest edition of Plot the Ball, I've written about Sidney Crosby’s longevity at the top of the NHL — and his deserved place on Canada’s Olympic team at age 38. Also featuring this week: Jorja Miller, Caoimhe Bray, Victor Wembanyama and Drake Maye. www.plottheball.com/p/already-a-...

Still had this data open from the other day so I made you a chart

16 Stats 📊📈📉 Matthew Schaefer looks impossibly good for an 18-year-old defenseman. How strong is his case to make Team Canada? www.nytimes.com/athletic/682...

Covered in this week’s edition of Plot the Ball: 🏏 Nathan Lyon 🏒 Connor Bedard 🏀 Luka Dončić ⚽️ Vicky López ⚾️ Munetaka Murakami You can read and subscribe here! www.plottheball.com/p/entering-t...

Covered in this week’s edition of Plot the Ball: 🏏 Nathan Lyon 🏒 Connor Bedard 🏀 Luka Dončić ⚽️ Vicky López ⚾️ Munetaka Murakami You can read and subscribe here! www.plottheball.com/p/entering-t...

folks are gonna make way way more of this game than was there City finished their chances exceptionally well

Leading Plot the Ball this week: analysis of Arsenal’s consistency of selection, and how it’s vaulted them into the Premier League’s top tier. The newsletter also features notes on Laura Wolvaardt, the Irish rugby team, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Macklin Celebrini: www.plottheball.com/p/consistent...

Putting dead balls into the box is free money

Leading Plot the Ball this week: analysis of Arsenal’s consistency of selection, and how it’s vaulted them into the Premier League’s top tier. The newsletter also features notes on Laura Wolvaardt, the Irish rugby team, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Macklin Celebrini: www.plottheball.com/p/consistent...

a new Expecting Goals newsletter! a brand new team ratings system, Premier League power rankings, and all the details about how it works, why it works this way, and what I plan to do with it next www.expectinggoals.com/p/expecting-...

Broke out the ol' WHO YA GOT for El Clasico: Kylian Mbappe or Lamine Yamal? www.espn.com/soccer/story...

It’s a big weekend of sport — and Reece Walsh is the athlete I’m most excited to see in action. I wrote about the Australia fullback in today's edition of Plot the Ball, which also features notes on Spain, Alana King, Roki Sasaki and Matthew Schaefer. www.plottheball.com/p/reece-wals...

It’s a big weekend of sport — and Reece Walsh is the athlete I’m most excited to see in action. I wrote about the Australia fullback in today's edition of Plot the Ball, which also features notes on Spain, Alana King, Roki Sasaki and Matthew Schaefer. www.plottheball.com/p/reece-wals...

Reminder that Wemby was second in the NBA in steals + blocks last season despite playing just 46 games!

At the same time, it IS a common blind spot among analytics type to ignore aesthetic arguments, when the aesthetics are the whole reason the thing exists. As I often say, we’re making a TV show here and if people don’t like the show enough, we all have to go get real jobs.

sports analytics is effectively a stress test on a game's rules and on its governance analysis will find better ways to win, and then the leagues need to align their rules with what the game ought to be the NFL model of regular rule tweaks in response to stress-testing is the right one

Deandre Ayton and Kuldeep Yadav are the focus of the latest edition of Plot the Ball 📊🏐✉️. Also featured this week: Patrick Mahomes, Real Madrid and Connor Bedard. You can read and subscribe here: www.plottheball.com/p/deandre-ay...