hmm, do I riff on this in a thread or a blog

(16) Averages out at about 2 per 90 minutes played, another reminder of football being a sport where big impactful things rarely happen (equally, "[he] averag[es] more possession regains in the final third (1.1 per 90) than any other player in the Premier League to play at least 600 minutes")

omg

'Garbage time' happens far less often in football than NFL/NBA, but on balance it'd still *probably* be useful for fans (or, at least, FBref-inclined fans)

If there was xG for escaping a press, Villa would've been way outperforming it in the first half. Not that the 'riding their luck' bubble has burst for them much of late

Are there any long-reads about the making of Madame Web?

Applies to some tools, but this is where fine design makes a difference. Code is cheap to prompt, but the real bottleneck to good products is thinking through 99,999 design decisions and considering every edge case. DIY-ing your own tools will teach you how hard beautiful, thoughtful design is

THE HATER BOWL

neat www.nytimes.com/athletic/692...

ok, the last two trailers for Avengers Doomsday being Cap/Steve Rogers as Dad and Thor as Dad is kinda funny. a return of the elders, pulled back into the fray in an attempt to save things for the next generation

Today is #UFCC MATCHDAY #5413 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Arsenal F.C. (challenger) 🆚 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Aston Villa F.C. 🏆 (champion) #ARSAVL #EPL ⏰ 20:15 GMT/ 21:15 CET 🏟 Emirates Stadium (London) __ Next possible challengers: 🛡 Nottingham Forest F.C. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 🔄 AFC Bournemouth 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

Late to The Diplomat S3 - I could watch Keri Russell and Rufus Sewell yapping for 10 seasons

Saw a reel of someone holding a lav mic and then saying 'it should be *worn*', and when they were wearing it the video was really dull. I think watching someone talk at you feels weird. And/or formal, like the news. Kinda like grwm videos being 'narration plus action'

Both these two points together kinda solidifies the analogy of 'coding power tools' for me. Also works as an analogy of what people of different experience levels get out of them

As if the Falcons beating the Rams wasn't enough, it keeps open the chance of the NFC South finishing with a three-way tie of 8-9 teams If the Bucs beat the Panthers (to land both teams on 8-9), they win the division *unless* the Falcons also win, landing them on 8-9, which gives it to the Panthers

AFCON 2025 just keeps on delivering because what do you mean Ayoub El Kaabi just pulled off a bicycle kick goal off a set piece (He was initially ruled offside but VAR ruled he was on and it was a good goal)

For the second time in three games, Ayoub El Kaabi has scored an overhead kick. After his incredible goal in the Africa Cup of Nations' opening game, he has done it again — this time against Zambia.

Need a name for this, so it can go alongside "Carton d'Or" (most fouls without a yellow card) in the list of statistical oddity awards

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...

Our finding: cohort turnover (🟦+🟥) is stronger than individual change (🟨): i.e writers don't change their topics much mid-career. This aligns with previous studies by @tedunderwood.me, @stephenvaisey.com, @oliviermorin.bsky.social, @wenyishang.bsky.social, @kkiley.bsky.social & F.Moretti. But… (6/8)

Building on this bc I think there's something I've not cracked, 'platforms' seem to have just won in terms of the things people use as hubs (vs, in the case of audio podcasting, home-screen/desktop-as-hub). People tack on 'and clips for social' to the YT point, but I kinda think it's the same thing

We Didn't Start the Fire. With Bardot's passing three people mentioned in the song remain alive

Manchester United's defensive organisation guided them to the victory against Newcastle, but they suffered in the second half to clinch the three points. Analysis of Manchester United's defensive organisation in the first half, and why they conceded chances later on. www.nytimes.com/athletic/692...

I see the discourse has turned to video podcasts. Generally speaking, for many shows, I'm actually fine with the rise of the video pod. But my main hobbyhorse is this: YouTube hasn't taken off because audiences want to watch podcasts, it's taken off because that's where audiences already are.

We have a bunch of new friends here on @bsky.app, so it's a great time to share our (updated) American soccer conversation starter pack! Add and share and help grow our wonderful community here on the platform.

Thoughts? 🏆 #UndisputedWorldChampion

Claude/Anthropic just sent an email saying that, as a holiday gift, they were giving double the normal usage limits between the 25th and 31st. Tbf, there is definitely *an* audience for that

[Billy Beane voice] How can you not be romantic about data visualisation

How Erling Haaland is taking advantage of a key Man City move. www.nytimes.com/athletic/691...

🎅🎧 We’ve recorded a bonus Women’s Football Weekly podcast which you can listen to here or live on 5 Live on Christmas day. I become quiz master for Ellen, Jen & Ben 👀 & Charlotte Healy & Tanya Oxtoby come on to discuss the WSL 2. Have a great Christmas 🎄 www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Can we measure the ability to block dangerous passes in soccer? ⛔️⚽️ We recently presented our latest research paper "Quantifying Off-Ball Defensive Impact through Cover Shadows" at the Hudl Performance Insights 2025 Conference: 📺 youtu.be/kf6far1Zst8?... 📝 static.hudl.com/craft/perfor...

AFCON is in session 👀 And what a better way to start the tournament than with an overhead GOLAZO by #Morocco attacker Ayoub El Kaabi 🤩

There are far too many interesting football analytics papers that I want to read. From the 1980s. And from before that, if they were actually accessible. This is the blog I've rewritten the most, and is still so short of doing the subject justice. www.getgoalsideanalytics.com/analytics-hi...

Premier League coverage keeps saying "Villa keep scoring bangers and maybe they'll just keep doing it" and they are, in fact, still doing it

niche complaint about bluesky is that it seems like very, very nested conversations appear in my feed quite often. Either a quote post of a quote post of a reply to a quote post, or just showing someone I follow stringing two replies in a row deep in a thread

⚽ 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

pretty neat that we're just gonna get tablets that can fold up and fit in your pocket www.youtube.com/watch?v=trsH...

It’s quite detailed in terms of explaining his approach to coaching and I found it very interesting. Within three years of it being published City had won every domestic honour as well as the Cup Winners Cup and Big Mal had turned down the Juve job.

Found this very interesting. It reminded me of a book I read recently, ‘Soccer For Thinkers’ by Malcolm Allison published in 1967. Here are a few pages on stamina and speed. He had the squad working with top athletes like Derek Ibbotson and clearly recording its impact.

I wound up using 'pre-Opta era' as a descriptor, not out of particular deference to them, but just because it became clear to me - reading as many of these older papers as I could manage to get access to - that needing to self-collect your own data is a huge obstacle

Like, I just need to post this paper title: "Analysis of actions ending with shots at goal in the Women’s European Football Championship (England 2005)" (2007). That's at the 'very recent' end of the things I'm talking about, and it predates the WSL by several years

There are far too many interesting football analytics papers that I want to read. From the 1980s. And from before that, if they were actually accessible. This is the blog I've rewritten the most, and is still so short of doing the subject justice. www.getgoalsideanalytics.com/analytics-hi...

it will have footnotes

Hoping to get a blog over the line this evening

Feel like the Athletic's sports Connections game has gotten more difficult/Only Connect-y lately

🧵 Thread: I recently looked into the concept of escaping pressure 👇 1️⃣ 3rd player, up-back combos are the most efficient at escaping pressure 🔷 I defined a press-escaping situation as a pass that found a free player (not pressured in 3 seconds), after 2 consecutive ball carriers were pressurized

I think I disagree with the notion that you've gotta be conventionally attractive to make short-form worthwhile; also, relatedly, I think the conventions of short-form vertical as a medium are only just settling down

Another example for my "My mental model for guessing the future path of genAI was wrong, through assuming major companies would consider it a risk to put out bad products" file

I'm doing a live Ask Me Anything on Reddit tomorrow at 16:00 GMT all about women’s football. You can ask me about standout players, how teams have got on or even what it's like working in journalism. Send your Qs in via this link 👇 www.reddit.com/r/FAWSL/s/DE...