Moneyball In $occer: Part 1

One of my all time favorite movies is Moneyball. For those of you who don’t know what the movie is, Moneyball portrays the 2002 season of the Oakland Athletics of Major League Baseball. General Manager, Billy Beane was left incredibly dissapointed after the Athletics disastrous 2001 season, and wanted to transform the Athletics into a competitive team. The main constraint with Beane’s desire was that his budget for the season was that his budget for the season was a mere 41 million dollars. (for context, the average player salary in 2002 was 2.385 million dollars.) Because Beanes budget was so small, he had to be conscious about the players that he signed.

Enter Sabermetrics, or more commonly known as Moneyball. In terms of Baseball, Sabermetrics is defined as “The empirical analysis of baseball, especially baseball statistics that measure in game activity.” (Wikipedia) The Key Performance indicators used were typically broken down into 3 sections, Batting Measurements (total hits divided by at bats is the most common statistic), Pitching Measurements(Earned run average (ERA) in nine innings) and Advanced Methods(value over replacement player (VORP) and Wins over Replacement(WAR)). These various statistics are typically used in predicting things like statistical leaders, end of season awards winners, and future trade values.

The Moneyball recruitment method is not only found in Baseball, it has been popularized recently in Football as well. Oakland Athletics owner John Fisher is also the owner of Major League Soccer side, San Jose Earthquakes. Being a massive soccer fan, Billy Beane began to develop a system to analyze soccer players and to develop a system that would allow for the Quakes to stay underneath the Salary cap. Unfortunately, this Beane designed system was never implemented at the Quakes, but the principles of Moneyball have been implemented in various stages of Football.

In its essence, Moneyball is using statistical and data analytics to find athletes who are performing well, but who are statistically undervalued and projected to hit their peak performance or transfer value in the near future. The Moneyball recruitment method is a gamble, because you can’t be 100 percent certain that a players statistical profile will pan out to be correct. However, there are three teams in modern football that have been able to crack the code on Moneyball; English Premier League Sides Brentford FC and Brighton and Hove Albion, and Danish Super Leaague club FC Midtjylland. This article will be split into three parts, one detailling the recruitment at each of the mentioned clubs.

Key Figures: Matthew Benham (Owner) Phil Giles (Director of Football) Lee Dykes (Technical Director) Thomas Frank (Head Coach)

Brentford first decided to change their approach to recruitment when their owner Matthew Benham took over the club in June of 2012, when the Bees were playing in the third tier of English Football, EFL League One. Benham gained his wealth as the founder of the company Smartodds, which operates as a statistical research company for professional gamblers. Due to his professional career being heavily involved in statistical and data analysis to help people win, Benham evidently saw the importance of using it to advance his work, so it made sense to do it in his sporting investments. In order for Brentford to meet the ambitious goals that Benham established for the club, they needed to be smart with their recruitment. Before the 2021 season, Brentford hadn’t been in the top flight of English Football in many decades. Because they had spent so much time in the lower levels of Football, being financially smart in terms of player recruitment became a necessity.

Brentford’s current recruitment process is spearheaded by a committee of Matthew Benham, Director of Football Phil Giles, Technical Director Lee Dykes and Head Coach Thomas Frank. In an interview given to Training Ground Guru (Article) Brentford Technical Director Lee Dykes details the seven stages of recruitment that Brentford use to find successful players who work for them.

Brentford has a player pool of 85,000 players from all around the world. Dykes believes that although there are 11 players on the pitch at any given time, players who play the same position might play that position differently. For example, Jack Grealish will play left wing completely differently from the way Ronaldo plays left wing, with Ronaldo playing a more striker winger combination rather than a proper left winger.

One of the things that is most important when having a player pool that large is quantifying the data in order to narrow down potential targets. Having as many data points to pull from allows for recruitment teams to make as firm of decisions as possible. In 2024, data drives decision making.

In football recruitment, process of elimination is incredibly important in order to drive decision making. Especially in lower league football, spending large sums of money on players who statistically show to be one thing, but in reality they dont pan out to expectations can be financially disastrous. Statistically speaking, narrowing down from a player pool of 85 thousand, to a pool of 4 people per position allows for the recruitment team to dive into deeper statistical analysis to identify potential transfer targets.

In the transfer market, there is only a limited number of players available and an even more finite amount of funds for a club to spend. It is incredibly important that clubs prioritize these funds to go to the transfers of players they know will perform well. If a club like Brentford were to go out and spend recklessly on a player that they knew wouldn’t necessarily pan out, it could spell financial disaster. Especially because Brentford is outside of the top six “super” clubs, they only have a finite amount of money available to spend, so it is important that they get their recruitment right.

Once the recruitment team have decided what positions they want to prioritize, they narrow down who they want to prioritize. In order for Dykes and the recruitment team to get to the point of finding these priority players, hours of statistical and analytical research have happened. This data is used to find these priorities, and who will statistically perform well.

It is important for the members of the technical staff to be consulted in the transfer process, because they are the people who will be on the grass with the new player everyday. Although a player might be a good fit statistically, it is also important for these individuals to be a good fit for the culture of the club. When the consensus is made between the Owner, Director of Football, Technical Director and Head Coach that a player is the right fit for the club, they will approach a player to make a signing.

One of the things that has worked out for Brentford is the concept of buying low and selling high. They find players who work well statistically who are playing in undervalued leagues. The perfect example of this is goalkeeper, David Raya. When Raya was purchased from Blackburn Rovers, he was purchased for a market value of 3.35 million euros. During his time at Brentford, up to when he went on loan at Arsenal, his market value has skyrocketed to 30 million euros, and now nearing the conclusion of his loan at Arsenal, his market value is peaking 35 million euros.

If Arsenal desires to make Raya’s loan a permanent transfer, they will be prepared to offer a hefty transfer fee to Brentford. With how well Raya has been performing for Arsenal, Brentford can expect to receive at least 10 times what they paid for Raya.

Considering the fact that Raya has only had just under 7 million euros in transfer fees paid for him during his career, Brentford’s ROI on Raya will be incredible. Brentford will be able to reinvest the money they potentially receive from Raya’s outgoing transfer to other, more expensive targets. There are countless other players that Brentford have signed from lower league football, and have turned around and sold players for profit. Ollie Watkins was signed from Exeter City for a fee of 7.22 million euros, and was sold to West Ham for 34 million euros just under three years later. They have turned themselves into a developmental machine. With their strategic loan moves and partnership with FC Midtjylland, allowing for their players to develop in Denmark, and vice versa.

To conclude, Brentford FC is an incredibly ambitious football club, who have taken the challenges that come with being outside of the top 6 Premier League clubs with stride. In collaboration with their ownership, they have seen the importance of analytics, and using them to their advantage. They have cracked the recruitment code that other clubs haven’t quite been able to figure out yet, and have had great success flipping players for profit. I think that they will continue their success for a long time coming, and will continue turning players around for profit. I project that they will continue rising up the pyramid of prevalence, and cement themselves as one of the largest developmental names in European Football.