So here's your opportunity to play a role in the interview. If you're interested, please submit your questions in the comments field below. I will then be sure to pick the ones I feel best add to the existing questions I've already written up, and will provide full attributing to the source during the interview and my writeup at Forbes. Please be sure to leave some way for me to contact you (twitter, email, etc.) if it's not already included in the profile with which you use to leave the comment. As always, be respectful and keep it G-rated. Judging by the content of the second edition of the book, the authors are more than happy to debate its finer points when approached in a respectful tone.
I look forward to hearing what you might like asked of the two authors!
I'm not sure if it relates to Soccernomics at all, but I'd like to find out their views on claims that Manchester City have "bought" the Premier League title, when their spending is compared to clubs like Manchester United. Are Manchester United simply further ahead in the "big spending" cycle, with their investment having come years earlier to enable them to be internally sustainable now with the millions of fans they've garnered, or do Manchester United fans have a right to be upset at the manner in which City have gone about their business?
ReplyDeleteI am wondering if Simon sees a consolidation ahead for football brands?
ReplyDeleteIf you think of football as a digital entertainment product, is it going to be more like music where you can have lots of bands lots of opportunity and change, or is it going to be more like product brands where 3-4 football brands are going to dominate the market financially (and thus on the pitch).
Thanks for this opportunity—I owe a lot to Simon and Stefan as I landed my first job after explaining why Norway loved soccer so much. Anyways, my question:
ReplyDeleteHow are new technologies transforming soccer's "knowledge networks" today and in the future?
I'm talking about innovations that help people around the world engage with soccer to facilitate a digital form of the knowledge networks the authors discuss. This could be anything from communicating about scores via mobile phones (how dramatically different would the City-United final EPL day have been had thousands of fans not been able to get scores from other stadia during the games?) to using YouTube to study team tactics from across the world. Would be great to hear the author's thoughts on knowledge networks in today's global and digital information economy. -@samhirvasdev
I'd like to see if Simon would like to address criticism that Damien Comolli didn't in fact employ any discernible analytics approach during his time at Liverpool.
ReplyDeleteIn the third section of the book, there was significant discussion about how the game will develop in places such as Australia, Turkey, Iran, China, etc. One factor they didn't discuss - which I'd like to have seen mentioned - is how they think football/soccer will compete with the 'traditional' popular sports in those countries? Is there a precedent that they could illustrate statistically of a country's popular sport being overtaken by football/soccer?
ReplyDeleteThis question is not so much related to Soccernomics but more of a personal question to Mr. Kuper.
ReplyDeleteI was brought up in a sort of reverse situation to Mr. Kuper in the fact that I was born in the Netherlands, and am Dutch, but have lived in England since the age of 6. I loved Ajax, the Dutch, the War in which Mr. Kuper gives a good insight into the history of Dutch football. My national allegiance lies with the Netherlands. I'm interested to know which national side Mr. Kuper backs and how he thinks both will do at the Euros?
Thanks for the opportunity.
Hi Simon and Stefan,
ReplyDeleteYour book have been a great inspiration and fascinating journey for me to look at football from a different angle. In particular how 'Moneyball' is being use more and more often these days in the world of football. In fact I know big clubs already have their own specialised statistic analyst teams embedded as a part of player's progress report.
My question is, have you or football 'found' any underlying statistics that determines player's capabilities? Recent example of Liverpool and Comolli have shown that the statistics they chose to use in determining the signing of their player have failed and I have argued in the past that statistics is not useles in football, rather the inability of us to grasp or find the 'magic' factors is and until that is found, the room to argue about usefulness of it will exist.
So, what are the trends or the baseline factors that football statistics are increasingly turning towards to determine a player's worth?
Do you play football manager, and how good are you at it?
ReplyDeleteThanks you for all of your suggested questions! They're all very good. I will work tomorrow evening to integrate them into my overall interview.
ReplyDeleteHi Zach, not sure if it's too late as it's Friday morning, but at the end of "The Football/Soccer Men", Simon talks about the information they pulled about penalty kicks and how Holland was about to use them before Spain scored that last minute goal.
ReplyDeleteI was curious to hear some more followup to the story. Has their research continued and have they used the results to help other teams win penalty shootouts in other games?
thanks!
Sam