Elite Football Probability Added Data Edge
The rise of the data geeks has seen sports worldwide chasing the best number crunchers.
For instance, I've blogged before on altmetrics [2019], an Indian statsdog [2013] and more cricmetrics [2010].
There's many a health warning. One sample jibe; 'the guy in Moneyball won nothing'.
Yet in football the clamour seems because the analysis edge can bring greater success.
Right now, a pair of unfancied teams are enjoying terrific EPL rides.
Brentford and Brighton built up by stats guys from the betting trade.
This well is not freshly divined.
Thirty years ago I myself had a conversation with a former England Manager, then coaching a large storied club side, wanting to run a "database" tracking performance of potential signings.
Currently atop the domestic (& euro) summit halfway through, Liverpool are once again being lauded for their approach to data.
On winning the league for the first time in three decades back in 2020, one key stat was credited with player performance management.
Their stats lead, Ian Graham and a physics Ph.D no less, joked about its less than snappy title.
Goal Probability Added.
This assessed, for after each touch by a player, whether their team were more or less likely to then score a goal.
It worked for them. Multiple Champions League finals including one trophy. As well as stellar Premier League campaigns that, despite yielding the single title, were widely seen as exemplary given the petrostate funding of their main rivals under the guidance of the generational coach of our (any?) time.
Can it work for us?
It's a retrospective device. You need to know whether or not a goal is scored.
As in Sales, did the deal come home?
Notwithstanding the myriad influences around anything the salesperson enacts, you can consider certain types of transaction too.
If when deployed, they help make a signature more likely, then they ought become part of your process.
To be played out on every deal.
For a touch of levity, I recall with a shudder the times I think I lost deals as a cubrep. I once ate all the biscuits during their demo. Kept on calling someone Andy when most definitely an Andrew. And queried the choice of one prospect's new motor. Ouch.
But thankfully remembering, there's all those wonderful times you happen across doing something that absolutely nailed the deal.
There's topline generics.
The collateral in their colours, not ours. The live validated run-through. Uniquely enabling the chief exec's strategic thrust.
Yet as in the football case, you too can be on the look out for the pass that sends an entire opposition defence out the game, leaving a clear run on goal for us.
Tracking these can be the difference between sustainable success and scrambling around for scraps at year-end.
Do you know your Sale Probability Addeds?