Now, FC Midtjylland, an upstart who has already disappointed Danish football in its 21-year history, is about to realize how its database and statistics are playing in the Champions League after qualifying for the festival’s organization level for the first time.
Being involved in an organization that includes the six-time Liverpool champions, prominent Dutch team Ajax and rising Italian club Atalanta are concerned about Midtjylland, whose vision of football can be easily described as experience.
“For us, ” said Captain Erik Sviatchenko, “it is under the surface. “
In 2014, Matthew Benham, a former professional player who owns a company that uses mathematical models to await the final results of sporting matches, took a majority stake in Midtjylland, a club in central Denmark formed 15 years earlier following the merger between two rivals. Equipment.
The arrival of Benham, who already owned second-tier English Brentford, meant that Midtjylland had access, through his corporate Smartodds, to a database of players from all groups and leagues in Europe, and even beyond. , measures such as the probabilities created and the quality of the crosses, helped Midtjylland identify customers who might have been undervalued because their underlying statistics indicated that they were higher than they appeared.
“For example, let’s take a player from the third department in Germany,” Sviatchenko told The Associated Press. “All the stats they have, you put them in the formula and you see that this player could cope at the Point of the Bundesliga.
“At the moment, he only plays in the 3rd division, but we can also accept this guy because we know his potential is greater than other clubs will see, and he may not be as beloved as a Bundesliga player. “
An example? Luca Pfeiffer, a striker with Wurzburger Kickers in Germany’s third division last season, joined Midtjylland this month for 1. 5 million euros ($1. 75 million).
For Svend Graversen, midtjylland’s sporting director, the club’s technique is to “take the knowledge of Smartodds and mix it with our eyes (of headhunters) who know which players can have compatibility in Midtjylland”.
“The one of both worlds” is as Graversen described it.
The investigation doesn’t end there. The functionality of the team is judged on the basis of players who meet certain underlying signs such as the effects themselves.
Click on the profile of star midfielder Pione Sisto on the official Midtjylland website, for example. In addition to gaining typical knowledge such as played matches, scored goals, red and yellow cards and their height and weight, we can also see their expected goals for the season, the good luck rate of their long passes and the percentage of assists on right or left, back or forward.
Midtjylland players are running so close shots that according to club analysts they are a potentially massive difference factor, that the team scored 49% of their targets last season from this source, according to Sviatchenko.
“We have playbooks as seen in football,” Sviatchenko said.
Analysts even provide in-game stats to coaches so they can be used in team discussions at halftime.
“You may have a feeling on the field, or at half-time, that doesn’t fit the facts,” said Sviatchenko, who added that the club has a “justice” rating table where you can see where a team would be in the ratings in their stats.
The effects of this analytical crusade by Benham have been astonishing. At the end of his first full season as owner in 2015, Midtjylland won the Danish league for the first time. He did so in 2018, and this year in a season interrupted by the coronavirus pandemic.
There have been impressive effects in Europe over the years: a 2–1 win over Manchester United in the last 32 Europa League matches in 2016, but achieving the lucrative level of Champions League organization had surpassed Midtjylland until this summer, when the team beat the champions. Bulgaria (Ludogorets), Switzerland (Young Boys) and Czech Republic (Slavia Prague) in the qualifying phase.
A house game against Atalanta, at the 12,000-seat MCH Arena in Midtjylland, awaits you on Wednesday in the first round of matches and then, the following week, anfield.
Graversen said the club’s statistical modeling is no longer just Midtjylland for its rivals in Denmark, but also now for groups with which it will soon have to compete on the continent. He verified the names Ajax, Lazio and Salzburg.
“We created our own league to verify the higher goals,” Graversen said. “We can measure those goals and assess whether we are on the right track. “
Midtjylland, the result of the merger between Ikast FS and Herning Fremad, will be the fifth Danish team to play in the organizing phase of the champions league, and the first since FC Copenhagen in 2016-17.
Sviachenko said his team has not yet been fully followed in the Danish country. “In general, other people are skeptical of Midtjylland because they think it’s a new club,” he said, “and there’s no romantic feeling of a football club. “however, it is certain that I would replace him if he qualified for the playoff phase.
If that were to happen, Midtjylland’s reliance on statistics would be felt like a game changer.
“There’s a lot of knowledge available, but I think the biggest challenge is how to divide them and use them the way you play. And that’s the hardest part,” Graversen said.
“We’re still there. At Michaeljylland, we still have a lot of paintings to do, but I’m sure football in general will take this statistical technique even further. “
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Steve Douglas is in https://twitter. com/sdouglas80
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