David Sumpter @Soccermatics Twitter profile

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David Sumpter

1 month

Wordalisations: automated explanations of data. It is my great pleasure to announce that @twelve_football have created an open-source educational version of our Twelve GPT product. Now you can learn how to create football and other wordalisations!

Introducing Wordalisations: automated explanations of data

With the release of TwelveGPT Open Source, I explain why Wordalisations are going to be an important use of Large Language models in the…

link.medium.com

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

2 years

Do you want to learn football analytics? 🤔 You have come to the right place! ✅ My course 'Soccermatics: mathematical modelling of football' is available now. AND IT IS FREE.🤗

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

2 years

Look in the bottom right corner of this graph. 👀 The two teams with the lowest xG/shot against and highest xG/shot for are owned by professional gamblers who made their fortunes using expected goals. Football analytics really does work...

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

2 years

Expected Threat (xT) is one of the most important (but least well-understood) statistics in football. ⚽️⚽️ It was used by Liverpool (they call it Goals Added) to do some of their best scouting. 📈 And now, YOU can learn all about it...🧵

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

2 years

Arsenal are very good this season. Here is a thread with the numbers which explain why... (Yes, of course being 1st in the league is also an important number😉) Before today they have outperformed their opponents on xG in every match.

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

2 years

A thread on Liverpool using numbers. Six games is great for using expected goals and expected threat to find out what is going on. First of all they have 'won' all six on xG.

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

8 months

Hammarby are doing something of a first in football analytics. The club has set up metrics for their style of play, which will be communicated throughout the season with fans, the board and players alike.

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

4 years

The complete guide course to football analytics is now available for free. Covering everything from getting started in python, through expected goals, simulating matches and evaluating players, to tracking data and expected possession value. Enjoy!

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

2 years

The Future of Life Institute is a problem. Being in same age-group (lower end maybe😃)/cultural background (8-bit programming📼⌨️) as these men, makes me feel uncomfortable and embarrassed for them. Here they (Musk, Hassabis, Tegmark, Bostrom etc.) are in 2017.

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

2 years

How should we do mathematical modelling? With more and more strange ideas flying about AI (It can read minds! it is truly intelligent and might take over the world!) we need to refocus. This is what I do in this paper with Linnea Gyllingberg and @Abebab .

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

3 years

Almost twenty thousand fans welcome @Hammarbyfotboll women’s team on to the pitch.

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

4 years

Mathematical modelling in football course starts 31st of August. Free to all EU citizens. Full syllabus and details how to register here:

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

3 years

You might not be interested in football or maths, but you HAVE to watch @maramperninety here. A 20-year-old Muslim woman, she is one of the absolute best at combining these two (otherwise) male-dominated areas. She talks so eloquently about her journey.

Maram AlBaharna: Visualising and clustering passes

Maram AlBaharna talks to Catherine and David about her work on visualising data and clustering data.This will be the last FoT until the beginning of September.

www.youtube.com

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

3 years

If we are going to be able to scout players using data, we have to use an understanding of the game. I explain how to do this using Professor Paco Seirul·lo’s zonal method.

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

3 years

It never ceases to amaze me how close goal distributions are to Poisson. This is distribution of number of goals in a match since 2005 in the Premier League. Bars are histogram. Line is Poisson distribution. 0-0 draws are the only outlier.

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

6 years

News from me. I am now working as data scientist at @Hammarbyfotboll football club. I will be active at all levels of the club: from working with players to communicating with fans. Bringing top quality analytics to #bajen

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

3 years

The value of disruptive runs. Or... why Firmino is such a valuable player for Liverpool. New work by @jernejfl using tracking data to evaluate off-the-ball movement. @SkillCorner @twelve_football

The value of disruptive runs. Or, why Firmino is such a valuable player for Liverpool

The key problem when scouting football players is knowing how they contribute to their team’s performance. A powerful answer to this…

link.medium.com

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

2 years

They are best in league at getting the ball in to the final third and in to the box per match.

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

4 years

Here is my list, based on some research I made during my course, who should get credit for first application of things in football analytics. Expected goals, Expected Threat, Pitch Control etc.....

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

4 years

The Masterclass is Ready! Mathematical Modelling Course in Football videos now in a start to finish playlist. With amazing lectures by @EightyFivePoint , @the_spearman , @suds_g , @lucpappalard , @JanVanHaaren and @petermckeever .

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

2 years

The first video lecture in 'Soccermatics: mathematical modelling of football' is here! 🤗 Learn how to make fantastic pitch visualisations. 💡

Lesson 1: Visualising football

Lesson 1 of Mathematical Modelling of Football.See: https://soccermatics.readthedocs.io/en/latest/lesson1/VisualisingFootball.html

www.youtube.com

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

6 years

The genius of Barcelona players. Xavi takes in information very fast. Iniesta creates unique solutions using the info. Dotted line is population average.

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

9 months

An innovation in latest release of @twelve_football TwelveGPT is a transfer model. Here is how players perform as they move between leagues in terms of passing quality. Players coming from La Liga can hold the same level of passing after a move to the Premier League. But...

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

2 years

Want to learn how to build a neural network model that uses @statsbomb 360 data to create an expected goals model which accounts for player positions when shot is taken? @aleksander_and has created a step by step implementation of exactly that!

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

3 years

Applications now open for Mathematical Modelling of Football. This course is taught by me in Sep-Oct for 8 weeks (10-15 hours work per week). Deadline for application is 15th April. Application here: Course website 2021:

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

10 months

When a football player peaks in performance depends very strongly on what you want from them. Model fit on event data from seven seasons of Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga, Ligue 1 and Series A.

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

2 years

It takes attention from the real research that has been done in this area, by Gebru, Mitchell, Bender, O'Neil and many others who have worked on good data practices, the costs associated with AI and the real dangers involved.

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

10 months

When scouting players we want measurements to be repeatable over seasons: that a player can do what they did previous season in the coming season. Finishing does not have that property, even over a season. Each dot below compares the finishing of a player between two seasons...

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

7 months

We (myself and @KozlovaNicole at @twelve_football ) have modeled how players perform in different metrics when they move between leagues. Here is the overall ranking of leagues, looking at how (on average) metrics change when players transfer. Red is worse, green better.

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

5 months

Great project. Look forward to seeing more from this.

SkalskiP

@skalskip92

5 months

almost fully functional version of my football AI project today, I added player tracking using ByteTrack and projection of players onto the map code coming soon:

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

8 months

Det finns en klubb som jag jobbar med som kommer alltid ligger närmast min 💚 Tack att jag fick vara med ikväll, träffa så många av er och prata ”nyckeltal”

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

7 years

Arsenal just sold their 2nd best player to Liverpool. More defensive impact that Xhaka, twice the xG of Giroud and passing that rivals Özil!

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

2 years

And they completely dominated the game.

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

2 years

Their most dangerous combination is Ben White to Saka, closely followed by Odegaard to Saka. Jesus is receiving the ball well from everyone. Plot shows expected threat (value added by passes) between pairs of players.

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

2 years

Lesson 2 of 'Soccermatics: the course' is live! ⚽️ ✅Learn how to make an expected goals model. ✅Does possession influence match outcome? ✅Test whether your favourite football myth is true. Get started with this video:

Lesson 2: Statistical models of football

This is introduction lecture to the second part of the course in mathematical modelling of football. Follow on course webpage here: https://soccermatics.read...

www.youtube.com

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

5 years

How Swedes were fooled by one of the biggest scientific bluffs of our time... Think that people can be classified as colours? Think again. Over New Year I translated and edited Dan Katz investigation in the 'Surrounded by Idiots'.

How Swedes were fooled by one of the biggest scientific bluffs of our time.

Every idea needs a Medium

link.medium.com

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

5 years

This is exactly why we set up #FoT . Liverpool FC's William Spearman ( @the_spearman ) gives a masterclass in pitch control and how tracking data can be used on the field of play.

Liverpool FC data scientist William Spearman's masterclass in pitch...

Pitch control is the probability that a player could control the ball assuming it is at that location.William Spearman explains:- The principles behind pitch...

www.youtube.com

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

2 years

The Soccermatics course: ✅All teaching materials free forever ✅Covers all coding, machine learning, maths and data science skills ✅Given in Student, Professional and Enthusiast versions ✅ Includes graded individual & project work. Take a look:

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

1 year

What is the best way to learn football analytics? Out on the pitch, of course! I have just come back from a course with the Polish federation for analysts, where we started exactly there.

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

2 years

And Odegaard is alsovery important. He is involved in pass chains that create an average of 1.12xG per match! These are his passes with an xT value of over 0.05. Most of them directly forward in to the box.

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

1 year

The first question for football teams wanting to use analytics is choosing what to measure...

The art of finding the right number

Whenever we see a TV program or film about statistics in sport there is nearly always a scene where we are shown a wall of numbers…

soccermatics.medium.com

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

4 years

It is live! How to build an expected goals model. First part of my step by step guide using @wyscout freely available football event data. Everything you need to understand and build your own model in Python.

How to Build An Expected Goals Model 1: Data and Model

David Sumpter goes through the steps needed to create an expected goals model. This lecture covers:- Why Expected Goals are Important- Plotting 2D histogram ...

www.youtube.com

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

2 years

As I always say ... you have to wait at least five matches to trust expected goals to give a picture of how good a team really is.

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

2 years

Their strength is in converting final third entries in to box entries (this is where Jesus is key).

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

3 years

Mathematical modelling of football course is up and running again. All the material (lectures, tutorials etc.) is available here: You can't register now but you can follow the progress. And you are welcome next year!

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

7 years

Should you write about real goals or expected goals? A guide for journalists.

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

2 years

Arsenal deserve to be where they are in the league (xG before todays match). It is going to be an exciting season for the Gunners!

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

2 years

@santvm7 @wr_ghty You won’t. But it could mean that things aren’t as bad as they look according to the table.

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

4 years

I have written a book about Ten Equations that can change your life for the better. Out 1st of October with @AllenLaneBooks , but you can get a head start here: What Are The Ten Equations?

What are the Ten Equations?

Maths is often seen as hard.

soccermatics.medium.com

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

5 years

Hammarby dominated the match from start to finish. 2.55 against 0.75 in expected goals. Worthy winners of the Stockholm Derby.

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

4 years

How analytics makes football more fun.

How analytics makes football more fun

My 18-year-old daughter, Elise, has never been that interested in football. I sent her off to summer camps as a kid to try to get her…

link.medium.com

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

4 years

Dear Jurgen Klopp @LFC . I have been watching your team play and compared it to some value models. It is straightforward. Balls out wide to TAA (by Thiago for example, shown below) do have value. (1/n)

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

5 years

Advice for anyone who wants to become a football data scientist. All the most important information from last night's broadcast. via @YouTube

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

5 months

Is the model wrong or is it everyone else? Phil Foden is obviously a great player. But TwelveGPT puts a lot of this season's excitement about him down to some good finishing.

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

2 years

Very proud to announce my first article for @TheAthletic . A look at how to beat the odds in the World Cup.

How to approach betting the 2022 World Cup from a mathematics professor

Mathematics professor and author David Sumpter lays out two methods to consider when betting on the 2022 World Cup.

www.nytimes.com

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

5 years

If the league was decided by simulating it 10,000 times using xG then today Manchester City would have won by 8.9 points while sending Brighton down. Wolves would have qualified for the Champions League at Anfield. Meanwhile, Cardiff just secured survival against Man United.

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

5 years

"I've never been in a team that dominated a match like this", said Tankovic afterwards, "we rolled over them." Top down look at how Hammarby's press produces goals. Data from @signality . Pitch control by @JaviOnData . Work as part of Fran Peralta's masters thesis.

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

4 years

It is on! If you would like to learn football analytics and get University credits then this is the course for you. FREE TO EU/EEA CITIZENS. #FoT

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

2 years

Of course, the league position and the results are important statistics too! But overall, Liverpool are (together with Arsenal and Manchester City) one of the strongest three teams in terms of underlying numbers. (Figure not updated for today's results)

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

2 years

Today was no exception. Spurs total includes a 0.75xG penalty!

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

5 years

After seven games played there is one team that stands out in the quality and quantity of chances created in Allsvenskan. The darker the shading the higher the average xG. The darkest green in #bajen .

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

4 years

Want something to do to take your mind off things? I have put up all my lectures for Statistical Machine Learning. The course is built by the excellent machine learning group in Uppsala. Google Colab notebooks and pen and paper exercises throughout.

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

2 years

Lesson 3 of Soccermatics: mathematical modelling of football is available now! Learn how to make player radars and rank players. What to include, how to correct for possession and to get the right context.

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

4 years

This evening the Friends of Tracking Youtube channel will be announcing an exciting new collaboration with @SkillCorner . Free tracking data of the best teams in the world, freely available to all! Watch this space #FoT .

Friends of Tracking

Friends of Tracking will be back during April to June 2021. David Sumpter and Catherine Pfaff will, together with the other Friends (see below), meet guests working in football analytics. Live every...

www.youtube.com

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

2 years

And those box entries result in shots. (The Bournemouth result influences these results somewhat but the numbers still look good).

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

4 years

Friends of Tracking is back! Creating a pass flow graph in R by @MishraAbhiA . Really clear presentation.

Creating a pass flow graph in R

In this tutorial, Abhishek Amol Mishra guides us through, from a beginner's perspective, making a full pass-flow graph in R. You can download RStudio here (h...

www.youtube.com

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

2 years

But the single most dangerous pairing is TAA to Salah. This matrix shows expected threat of passes between players.

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

10 months

New for me for 2024. This year I will work half-time for @twelve_football . I have always had Twelve as a 'hobby', but now interest amongst clubs has really taken off.🚀 We will build the most comprehensive tool for data analysis - TwelveGPT: football in words and visuals.🤖⚽️

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

7 years

I just published “How an algorithm can measure defence and press in football.”

How an algorithm can measure defence and press in football.

One of the biggest challenges to any system for player evaluation is measuring defensive contributions. Defence isn’t just a matter of…

soccermatics.medium.com

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

5 years

The most exciting league in the world and this morning we are top of it. Feels very good to go in to work today. What a team!

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

5 years

I have the best job in the world, talking space creation with the best attacking team in Sweden. And better than that I get to tag @leobengtsson10 . Good discussion. Thanks boys.

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

5 years

Using experted goals with players. Here is a video i made with @axelpershagen explaining how we work at Hammarby. In english from 1:00.

Bajensiffror - Vad är expected goals?

Matematikprofessorn David Sumpter som jobbar med datanalys åt Hammarby Fotboll berättar om sitt arbete i klubben. Här är det första avsnittet i serien. Där tar vi upp det som flest kanske pratar om...

htv.solidtango.com

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

3 years

Another individual skill radar. Saka is effective because he does things quickly. He ranks highly in making rapid passes (top 15%), producing value in xT (top 10%) and dribbling at high speed (top 20%). Most of all, he can pass the ball effectively when play is moving fast.

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

5 years

The next Friends of Tracking Youtube live talk on Thursday will look at "Open resources for getting started in football data science". I'll start a list in the thread below. Feel free to add to help me prepare the talk.

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

2 years

Little of what football commentators say seems motivated by facts. One narrative is Salah is playing wider this season. Below is xT for 3 PL games, compared to same opponents last season. Make up your own mind🤔 It would be so easy to show things like this on TV.🤩

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

5 years

Ni är bästa fans i hela världen💚

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

5 years

How Bojanic, Tankovic, Kacaniklic and Djurdjic open up defences. No wonder we caught the interest of Ibrahimovic. Green are areas where pass success probability is higher, red are less probable.

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

2 years

Want to learn how the maths and coding needed to build a betting model for the World Cup? I have got you covered! I have created a step by step guide to The Betting Equation from my book The Ten Equations That Rule The World.

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

5 years

Kacaniklic goal against Elfsborg. Amazing team-buildup and control of opponent's space. Especially Tankovic (22) first involvement and then run for the assist. The finish was all Alex, though!

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

5 years

Sometimes the numbers just make sense!

Zlatan Ibrahimović

@Ibra_official

5 years

@Hammarbyfotboll

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

2 years

Idag tog jag gula bussen till jobbet🚌🚌

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

4 years

First lecture in modelling football course, tomorrow 10:15 European time. #FoT .

Lecture 1: Mathematical Modelling of Football

Introduction lecture to course in mathematical modelling of football. Full details of course can be found here: https://uppsala.instructure.com/courses/28112...

www.youtube.com

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

3 years

Is Pedri equal to Kante plus Jorginho? A bit of a cheeky title, but it is interesting to look at how tracking data can be used to show why Pedri was so good in La Liga last season.

Is Pedri equal to Kante plus Jorginho? Or, measuring midfield pressure.

It is difficult not to love Chelsea and France player N’golo Kante. He is unassuming, hard working and modest: always looking to help the…

soccermatics.medium.com

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

3 years

Explaining Expected Threat Nice to see everyone getting in to a method we have been using at @twelve_football and made publicly available for the last 4 years 😎 But even more important to remember that it came from @srudd_ok over a decade ago 😱😎😎

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

8 years

The Human Histogram. Demonstrating probability distributions using the power of crowds.

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

4 years

This 360 thing from @StatsBomb could be a real game changer for several reasons...

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

5 years

Richard Magyar. A hero in so many ways and also the statistically best player today.

Twelve Player Rankings

The data crunching football expert.

analytics.twelve.football

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

2 years

How do you turn your football analytics in to a beautiful app? I explain it all step-by-step in this video: Thanks to @streamlit for your amazing product and @jernejfl at @twelve_football for creating beautiful visuals.

Lesson 10: Using Streamlit to Create a Football Analytics Webpage

This video is part of the Soccermatics course. https://soccermatics.readthedocs.io/en/latest/

www.youtube.com

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

2 years

How should we measure the performance of a machine learning model? 😕 When I was teaching ML for the first time last year, I was surprised to find there was no agreed upon single number which measures model performance. 🤯 So I decided to look at the question myself... 🧵

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

6 years

I just talked to an AI bot about football. How cool is that! 🤖🤖🤖

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

2 years

I was so busy after finishing the Soccermatics free football analytics course I never got round to sharing all the different parts we created. I think I stopped at expected threat, but I will recap. Here is the concept explained:

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

2 years

Pitch control is one of the most important ways of understanding movement of football players. In this video I give an overview of the concept.

Lesson 6: Pitch control

Video for lesson 6 of Soccermatics course.https://soccermatics.readthedocs.io/en/latest/lesson6/PitchControl.html

www.youtube.com

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

4 years

I never dreamed that one day I'd make it in to 'Roy of the Rovers', but life takes some strange turns.

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

6 years

Mitt ny arbetsplats!

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

5 years

Paulinho was per minute one of the absolute best players in Allsvenskan last season. Here is why... (1/5)

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

4 years

The lectures for the 2nd week of the Modelling Football course are up now. We develop expected goals and other statistical models of football.

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

2 years

I made this as an 'exercise' for my course. Wanted to think about how KPIs can help at this stage in the season to give some perspective.

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

3 years

Yesterday really was freedom day for me. I got my second dose of vaccine. But most importantly I got this... Not a freedom I asked for, but one I am happy to receive.

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

7 years

Turns out that @theresa_may was only slightly more influential than @LordBuckethead during election Twitter.

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

8 years

Where Chelsea regained possession (line thickness=num actions) @ChelseaStats . Oscar showing Kante how its done!

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David Sumpter

@Soccermatics

3 years

Using analytics to create patterns of play for @BarcaInnoHub . I look at how Manchester City implement the "5-second-rule" using pitch control. It is all about where you are before you lose the ball.

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