Ryan O'Hanlon
@rwohan
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Writer, ESPN; author, NET GAINS: INSIDE THE BEAUTIFUL GAME’S ANALYTICS REVOLUTION (out now, link below)
Los Angeles
Joined July 2009
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My book, NET GAINS, is out today! It's about why the "data revolution" in the world's most popular game trails far behind sports like basketball and baseball, how that's changing, and how far it might all eventually go. Buy it wherever you buy your books:
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Real Madrid look terrible. I'm moving them up to no. 1 in my Champions League power rankings.
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If you amortize the result, Chelsea only lost 0.00003 to 0.00001.
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This is the worst I’ve ever seen a team play with nine men *and* the worst I’ve ever seen a team play against nine men.
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I wrote about Darwin Núñez, who is A) bad at kicking a soccer ball, and B) one of the best soccer players in the world:
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Congratulations to the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, which has no connection to the Saudi Arabian government, for achieving their first Champions League qualification.
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Remember Jonah Hill in MONEYBALL? That was, basically, Ian Graham at Liverpool. I talked to him about using data to build one of the best soccer teams in the world -- and what comes next:
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Contrary to popular belief, Cristiano — not oil — is the main source of the PIF’s wealth.
Cristiano Ronaldo: “My decision to join Saudi clubs was 100% crucial to bring in new top players. It’s a fact”. 🇸🇦
“When I joined Juventus, Serie A was dead and then after I signed… it was revived. Wherever Cristiano goes he generates higher interest”.
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He’s a goals-only center forward with eight non-penalty goals this season.
Chelsea have made Dusan Vlahovic their No. 1 target for the summer and have made an €80 million offer for the striker, sources have told
@LaurensJulien
💰
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I wrote about Bukayo Saka, who seems like he's made the leap:
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Diving face-first into the lowest bar imaginable.
Erik ten Hag on Antony’s return: “I have no idea. Of course he is disappointed, but he is okay”. 🔴🇧🇷
#MUFC
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Liverpool's last four league games (per
@StatsPerform
):
-Expected goals: 9.28
-Goals: 5
-Expected goals against: 4.75
-Goals against: 6
That'll do it.
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Think you see this across all sports. It’s easier for the average fan to relate to the coach, so the sport gets filtered through that lens. Scheme, tactics are what win games. In reality, games are won by players playing well. Titles are won by the teams with the best players.
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Not sure if I should be happy or disturbed that there is at least one living human being who got front-row tickets to see Real Madrid play at the Bernabeu in the Champions League and thought to himself, "Yes, I'm going to wear my Quinnen Williams jersey to the game".
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I’m considering this as confirmation that Sadio Mane purposefully kicked the ball as Sissoko’s hand in the 2019 Champions League final:
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If they fit together — no clear six among the trio, but still possibly enough ball-winning on the whole — the Gravenberch/AMac/Szoboszlai midfield could be scary, for a long time.
Liverpool have agreed a 40m euros fee with Bayern Munich for Ryan Gravenberch. Player flying to Merseyside for medical.
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Evan Ferguson’s middle name is “Joe”. Not “Joseph”. Someone with the middle name “Joe” is going to win the Ballon d’Or.
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Lots of Liverpool injuries + great Arsenal performance + worst Liverpool performance this season =
Arsenal 3 (2.3)-(0.5) 1 Liverpool
I took out the big offside chance from Havertz here
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I wrote about Christian Pulisic, who is scoring and assisting goals at a higher rate than Vinicius Junior, Robert Lewandwoski, Julian Alvarez, Bukayo Saka, and Victor Osimhen:
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Premier League teams are on pace to score about 200 extra goals this season, compared to the average of the previous 15 seasons. What the hell is going on?
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"RELEASE: PGA Tour signs a record, fair-value $3 billion shirt sponsorship deal with legendary Premier League club Newcastle United"
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I wrote about why Liverpool don't need to sign a defensive midfielder:
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My big takeaway from BECKHAM is ... that David and Victoria really love each other and have a fantastic relationship?
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I wrote about Liverpool's presumptive new coach:
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After winning the World Cup, Lionel Messi is now faced with the same dilemma that so many great athletes must confront as their careers wind down: profit-sharing with a trillion-dollar corporation or direct funding from a trillion-dollar sovereign wealth fund?
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I think the USWNT lost because the entire team failed to immediately voice universal approval for the Green New Deal.
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I wrote about Folarin Balogun, who might be better than even the most wildly optimistic USMNT fans expect:
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I though Inter were fantastic. Pep and City, meanwhile, figured out the key to winning the Champions League final: allow your opponent to create a ton of chances.
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Could convince me that’s a decent result for everyone:
-Liverpool stay ahead of City and now should get healthy.
-City get points from their hardest remaining fixture.
-Arsenal jump to first.
-Neutrals: 10 games left, one point between first and third.
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Score doesn’t show it, but that was one of the most lopsided soccer games I’ve ever seen.
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Ways to win the Champions League, ranked:
1) Be Real Madrid
2) Get a good draw
3) Kick ball in goal
4) Have good players
5) Have a good coach
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If Klinsmann can massively improve his tactical acumen, finally figure out how to identify which of his players are actually good, and learn how to make it so his players don't hate him and/or each other, I think he could still be a decent manager.
Stock manager sacked statement: "We wish to place on record our thanks..."
South Korean FA: "Klinsmann has failed to display managerial capability and leadership in areas ranging from tactics, personnel management (and) attitude."
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me, when it is my fault:
PSG president Al-Khelaifi: “Mbappé has said that he will not leave for free. If he changed his mind, it is NOT my fault”. ⚠️🇫🇷
#PSG
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I have now officially scored a goal against a player who has scored a goal against Lionel Messi.
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Arsenal collapsed. Also: if Arsenal didn’t collapse, Man City probably still would’ve won the league.
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Should the Premier League step in and adjust the point totals of any teams that get to play against Frank Lampard three times this season? They need to preserve the integrity of the competition.
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Solid weekend for Liverpool. Gained a goal of goal difference on Arsenal.
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On my first day as English Football’s Independent Regulator, I promise to impose a strict limit on the number of center backs each team is allowed to play in a given match.
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A coach told me that he used to think that analytics were useless in football. Then he told me that he's never been more wrong about anything in his life. Read about it here:
A coach told me earlier today that analytics was just a way for people who never would have gotten jobs in football to get jobs in football. To understand that is to understand why they get so defensive whenever anyone questions analytics.
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Newcastle are missing 10 first-team players (and now 11 with Nick Pope going off):
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Gonna let it marinate for a day before I do anything stupid, but I’m seriously considering unleashing a “Jude Bellingham is better than Xherdan Shaqiri” take on the world.
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I RANKED all 96 teams in Europe's Big Five leagues by how many points they're winning per dollar spent on wages:
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Congrats to Thomas Tuchel, who took a team that was winning 2.1 points per game and improved them to a team that was winning 2.1 points per game en route to a Bundesliga title.
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Mikel Arteta’s Brilliant Tactical Tweak May Have Saved Arsenal’s Season (His Players Started Kicking the Ball Into the Goal Again)
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Very interested to see how they deal with reffing in Europe. Newcastle are currently running the Legion of Boom/90s Knicks defense in the PL: be extra physical every time, knowing the refs aren’t going to call every foul. CL games won’t be reffed in the same way.
Newcastle the grenade lurking in the Champions League draw today. In weakest pot because of lack of recent European experience. Could set up a difficult group for whoever gets them.
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We're already way past the question of "Can data help you win soccer games?" Now we're onto: "Can data help you win *too many* soccer games?" I wrote about how, for the former owners of Toulouse and the current owners of AC Milan, the answer was"yes".
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This stat is especially useless in a season where there hasn't been a unified number of games played since August.
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In a first, I wrote a column that led a stranger to accuse me of being on the payroll of the Saudi government. (They were right; I am.) It‘s about Mo Salah, money, memories, and trying to win:
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I ranked all 20 Premier League managers. The criteria? How confident I would be that they would improve the 10th-richest team in the league:
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I had questions about how well Sergio Busquets would do in MLS. Just five minutes against Cruz Azul confirmed that I am an idiot.
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I don't think United are a purposefully evil or amoral or corrupt organization. But when you have the money they have and then don't put in any effort with, well anything, you're going to absorb lots of corruption and evil and amorality.
this is, I think, instructive about what's going on at United right now
no one did the simplest google search on this guy, no one did the slightest checks with former players, because there's just no structured oversight of anything the football team does
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If you're ever feeling like the people running your favorite soccer club are doing an especially bad job, just remind yourself that Joan Laporta and Barcelona still exist.
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Liverpool have the easiest schedule, Manchester City have the hardest, and Arsenal are the only one not favored to win every remaining match. I broke down the final 30 games of the title race:
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I wrote about all of the players signed during the Erik ten Hag era at Manchester United:
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I wrote about Wrexham, the soccer team:
-Why are they top of the league?
-How good are they?
-What are the chances they get promoted again next year?
-Can anyone copy anything they're doing?
-Will they ever reach the Premier League?
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You: [go to a roast dinner with your family, unconcerned about being the main man]
Me:
James Maddison: ‘When I go for a roast dinner with my family, I like to be the main man’
@RichJolly
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I wrote about Klopp and Pep, Liverpool and Manchester City, and the rivalry that changed soccer forever:
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I came up with a zany way to identify the most impactful players in the Premier League: look at the teams who have improved and declined from last season and then see which players are playing more or less often than they did last year.
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It's the one-year anniversary (wtf?) of NET GAINS, a book I wrote about, among other things, how little we actually know about how the world's most popular sport works. Thanks to everyone who bought a copy and spread the word. Buy your own here:
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Let's say you're hired to be a sporting director at a major European club, but the team only has the budget for you to access one (1) basic statistic. Which one should you choose?
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I wrote about the irreplaceable coach who Liverpool have to replace:
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Miguel Almiron and Dan Burn have—and I cannot stress this enough—both scored goals in the Champions League against Paris Saint-Germain.
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I wrote about the universally beloved Gregg Berhalter and what the next three years might look like for the USMNT:
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In their four matches at the World Cup, the USWNT created:
-84 percent of the shots
-93 percent of the shots on target
-86 percent of the expected goals
-75 percent of the actual goals
Good times.
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Current point-total projections from
@sportingindex
:
-Manchester City: 83
-Arsenal: 82
-Liverpool: 80
We officially have a three-team title race.
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More of this.
"The probability of Ederson saving it is very low, Lukaku does almost the textbook thing you're supposed to do."
@MikeGrella10
on Romelu Lukaku's chance to equalize for Inter. 🗣️
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Rather than some team-wide lack of mental strength, Dortmund’s biggest issue is that they gave up goals on their first two shots conceded and then had no 1v1 players to break down the rare low block you see in the Bundesliga.
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you: the efficient-market hypothesis is BS, the free market isn't free
me: the two best soccer players in the world are now the two highest paid players in MLS
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AFC’s recent dip is almost all variance, in different forms: Villa and WHU losses were games they played well enough to win, LFC away is the second-hardest game on the schedule, and Fulham was just a poor performance b/c you can’t play well every game. Need luck to win, though.
After two unexpected league defeats in a row, Arsenal's chance of winning the Premier League has fallen from 26.8% on Xmas Eve to 5.9%.
All Opta supercomputer projections can be found on the link below...
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I wrote about Arsenal’s big summer — and why it’s way riskier than the transfer fees for Declan Rice and Kai Havertz might suggest:
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If you loved the Christopher Nolan film OPPENHEIMER, then boy do I have the soccer book with a brief section that's tangentially related to the Manhattan Project for you:
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Gareth Southgate draws a down-pointing arrow and scribbles into his notebook, “Thought he should’ve passed that.”
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I didn’t realize you were allowed to un-sheath a Medieval sword and swing it at an opponent’s legs during the run of play, but VAR has had a look and is satisfied with a yellow card to Antony.
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Now that the check is gone, it’s time to come clean. Despite this account’s apparent obsession with numbers and the so-called “book” written by its namesake, this feed is actually run by former Sunderland and VVV-Venmo midfielder Lee Cattermole. It’s been me (Lee) all along.
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Turns out Jadon Sancho is still good enough to be the best player on the field in a Champions League semifinal.
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I came up with a way to assess the performance of every American soccer player. Behold, the current top 50:
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How do you build a Champions League winner? I wrote about how the last 10 finalists did it: when they signed their players, how much they paid for each position, where they got them from:
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The Everton narrative has been so strange. Yes, they've been in a relegation fight, but the team is obviously so much better than that. And not in an "underperforming xG" way (though that is true, too). They've literally won and drawn games at a level closer to sixth than 17th.
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I tried to get Holy Cross to recruit Erling Haaland, but no one in the athletic department would listen to me.
Lampard reveals: “I was pushing big to have Erling Haaland at Chelsea. I'm not sure what the appetite was at the club”. 🔵
#CFC
“The competition was big because he was an outstanding player. The buyout clause was reasonable. I don't know how close it was… but I wanted him”.
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Darwin Núñez is the best thing on TV for the second year in a row.
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I wrote about why the Championship playoff is a close-to-perfect sporting event and what other leagues could learn from it:
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The two major recent changes being made to the way soccer works are going to do the following:
-raise doubt about the validity of the 3-4 celebratory moments every game
-increase game time in an era where players are already being pushed beyond the breaking point
Very cool.
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