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Aston Villa endured a busy, gruelling week over the past seven days, attempting to overcome a 3-1 deficit in the Champions League against PSG before…

The Association of Professional Football Analysts (APFA) is excited to launch a brand-new WhatsApp Community group, an invite-only, free space designed for aspiring and active…

Arsenal’s attacking build up versus Real Madrid’s defensive press: Arsenal started the game with their usual style in their own third, playing out with a…

Well…yet another London derby that didn’t disappoint. Unlike last night, this is a fixture that normally throws up high scorelines, such as Chelsea’s 4-3 win…

It’s officially the start of a new era in English football, as Thomas Tuchel took charge for his first match as manager of the Three…

A new era begins this month for England. Thomas Tuchel was appointed as manager of the national team back in 2024, and he’s now preparing…

The lineup of Chelsea XI and Arsenal XI Arsenal XI 4-1-2-3 Chelsea XI 4-2-3-1 The second-leg clash at the Emirates Stadium saw Enzo Marasca and…

Liverpool and Newcastle go head-to-head in the Carabao Cup final today (Sunday), with the Magpies heavy underdogs as they face the Premier League leaders. Eddie…

The Association of Professional Football Analysis is delighted to bring back our most popular event from 2023. Hailed as a refreshing change from the usual…

Football’s first course dedicated to individual player development, and how analysis ties into this process at the highest level is now live.

Scout Edge Analytics is redefining how aspiring football analysts break into the industry. Through their affordable, accessible, and insightful networking events, Patryk and Dylan are…

Understanding the difference between player behaviour and the intention behind the behaviour. Describe the WHAT and explain the WHY. Often in modern analysis we simply describe the…

If you have decided to embark on the journey to work as a performance analyst in football, chances are, you are already aware that securing…

The APFA has been quiet in Q1 of 2024 while we continue to build out infrastructure and process in the background. We expect a much…

Ahead of Jobs in Analysis 2023 on December 7th, meet your hosts Chris Gill & Liam Hensworth.

Jobs in Analysis 2023 delivers a number of presentations and discussions centred around all things related to employment as an analyst in football. You can re-watch all our recordings from the event by clicking here.

The APFA partners with leading global football recruitment agency – Football Careers!

Football’s first course dedicated to individual player development, and how analysis ties into this process at the highest level is now live.

A play on tactics, time, timing, and tempo Sand punctiliously trickles down the hourglass, as the moving part of time advances. It is the symmetry of the…

There can be little doubt that the use of video analysis in professional sports has increased exponentially over the last 10 years. In fact, these days, you’d be hard pushed to find a professional club that doesn’t have a performance analysis department.

This week we hosted another tactical webinar with former Ghana head coach and current Borussia Dortmund talent coach, Otto Addo. He discussed the processes around tactical preparation at the recent 2022 World Cup and the work behind the scenes with his coaching staff. In addition, Otto shared his perspectives around elite talent development at Dortmund and provide ideas that coaches and analysts can use with their own players and teams.

A guest contribution written by David Garcia (@IJaSport) I finally figured out Relationism vs. Positionism. I have to admit it has taken me many months.…

Last Friday we hosted another tactical webinar with professional coach and analyst Aly Ismail. Using his experience with the Egypt national team, Aly shared his insights and provide ideas around more effective and consistent processes in the area of attacking throw-ins. In addition to the presentation, Aly also answered questions on ways that coaches can implement these ideas effectively with their own team.

Last Friday we will be hosted another tactical webinar with coach and analyst Stevie Grieve. Using his experience at the professional level and current work at SJK Akatemia (Ykkonen) in Finland, Stevie shared insights around how coaches can integrate match analysis with their game models and provide ideas around more effective and consistent processes that coaches can implement throughout the season.

A guest contribution written by Jake Kolliari (Twitter: @_JKDS_) Imagine yourself as the manager of a Premier League football club, and you are asked to…

A guest contribution written by @lebzygold           It is quite evident that the sports world is becoming increasingly intertwined. Last year,…

A guest contribution written by Jeffery Dalyop (@jeffrey_dalyop_) “Why couldn’t you beat a richer club? I’ve never seen a bag of money score a goal.’’…

We hosted a unique double header of tactical discussions and coach education. Our first guest was former Italy and Juventus analyst and assistant coach, Antonio Gagliardi. Antonio was on Roberto Mancini’s Euro 2020 winning staff with Italy and discussed match preparation and scouting in tournament competitions, as well as his experiences in data and connecting coaching to analysis. Following the interview with Antonio, we were then joined by Soccer Resilience Founder, Dr. Brad Miller. Brad presented ways and ideas in which coaches could help build resilience with elite level players and teams.

We hosted a unique double header of tactical discussions and coach education. Our first guest was former Italy and Juventus analyst and assistant coach, Antonio Gagliardi. Antonio was on Roberto Mancini’s Euro 2020 winning staff with Italy and discussed match preparation and scouting in tournament competitions, as well as his experiences in data and connecting coaching to analysis. Following the interview with Antonio, we were then joined by Soccer Resilience Founder, Dr. Brad Miller. Brad presented ways and ideas in which coaches could help build resilience with elite level players and teams.

We hosted a unique double header of tactical discussions and coach education. Our first guest was former Italy and Juventus analyst and assistant coach, Antonio Gagliardi. Antonio was on Roberto Mancini’s Euro 2020 winning staff with Italy and discussed match preparation and scouting in tournament competitions, as well as his experiences in data and connecting coaching to analysis. Following the interview with Antonio, we were then joined by Soccer Resilience Founder, Dr. Brad Miller. Brad presented ways and ideas in which coaches could help build resilience with elite level players and teams.

We were recently joined by Substitution Coach, Sammy Lander to discuss the innovative role of empowering those coming off the bench players, improving awareness of individual roles, and ways that coaches can perhaps get more energy from the bench. In the 2019/20 season, Sammy became the first game’s first specialist substitute coach with AFC Wimbledon and shared his experiences and insights during this live interview.

Since the days of Catenaccio and Arrigo Sacchi’s Milan, Italian football has built a formidable reputation as the world leaders in tactical systems and implementation. But what does this look like from an analysis perspective today? We were excited to be joined by an analyst who has worked with Jose Mourinho, Antonio Conte and Luciano Spalletti: Alessandro Davite.

With so much growth around data and game models in recent years, managing the process alongside culture and recruitment can become a challenge. We were recently joined by head coach at Morehead State University, Chris Fox, who shared how he manages and maximizes all the facets around performance at the Division I college level.

We were recently joined by current Finland Futsal National Team Head, Sergio Gargelli, to discuss how to create principles around the attacking side of the game in futsal. The former coach of Norway, Vietnam, and China, discussed many aspects including rotations, overloads, chance creation and player profiling.

Download easily editable CV/Resume templates designed to catch the attention of employers.

We asked key decision makers at clubs what people can do to make themselves more employable and find a job in football analysis

Join Jon Mackenzie and Oliver Gage and Hear invaluable insights and advice about how to get noticed by professional football clubs to gain employment in the industry, or boost your social media profile with more compelling content. Jon and Oliver explore the differences between public and professional football analysis.

Improving awareness and decision making are at the top of many coach’s objectives in the modern game. Last Friday, we were fortunate to be joined by one of the leading practitioners in this area in Kevin McGreskin. With experience at the youth and senior professional levels, Kevin has developed a specific methodology to increase scanning and improve game awareness, to provide players with the tools to make better decisions.

After taking a course in performance analysis, Joe Hickman found himself a dream role in MLS.

San Diego Wave just hired a new analyst, and it’s someone well known to the APFA! Bennet Luethje took a non-traditional path to finding a…

Today the APFA removed two unpaid internships added to our free to use jobs board shortly after they were posted. We recently posted an in-depth…

Join Jon Mackenzie and Oliver Gage and Hear invaluable insights and advice about how to get noticed by professional football clubs to gain employment in the industry, or boost your social media profile with more compelling content. Jon and Oliver explore the differences between public and professional football analysis.

Lee Scott began writing about football online for himself, but it has turned into a full-time role for him at Velez. The APFA spoke to…

Join Jon Mackenzie and Oliver Gage and Hear invaluable insights and advice about how to get noticed by professional football clubs to gain employment in the industry, or boost your social media profile with more compelling content. Jon and Oliver explore the differences between public and professional football analysis.

The differences between professional analysis that takes place at clubs and public analysis that takes place online or in the media can seem vast. But…

Join Jon Mackenzie and Oliver Gage and Hear invaluable insights and advice about how to get noticed by professional football clubs to gain employment in the industry, or boost your social media profile with more compelling content. Jon and Oliver explore the differences between public and professional football analysis.

Unpaid internships have been a controversial topic within football analysis for years. Since very recently, it was common for Premier League & Championship clubs to…

The Association of Professional Football Analysis is delighted to announce the takeover of hosting duties for the content, courses and jobs board from Rob Carroll…

The World Cup knockout rounds wrapped up in arguably the greatest final (possibly match full-stop?) we could have asked for. Whether it was Messi getting…

Carl Edwards is one of our ambassadors. With a background in coaching, his career has led him from New Zealand to Rotherham via the MLS.…

In the embryonic days of the Premier League, little in the way of sophisticated statistics, Sports Science or even nutritional knowledge was to be found.…

I am a big believer in ‘if it can be automated, it should be’. Nothing pains me more than to see people constantly doing manual…

The Harvard Business Review reported that analysts spend over 80% of their time simply discovering or preparing data. A lack of strategy or architecture is…

In the latest series of Tableau for Sport video’s I wanted to created a summary dashboard for an entire season. I used some of the…

In early 2021 I hope to launch a brand new course – SQL for Sports. SQL (pronounced sequel) is one of the most widely used…

New to Tableau and Sports Data Viz? This is an intro video to show you the basics of Tableau and how to connect to your…

Want to plot events on a pitch in Tableau? This video explains how to create a shot map.

Learn how to plot the average actions of a plyer on a pitch using Tableau.

Often you don’t just want to count numbers but also calculate %’s. IN Tableau that is achieved using a Table Calculation.

This video builds a full dashboard allowing you compares players across a number of metrics. Great for a player comparison overview.

This video explores Plotting Pass and End locations on a pitch.

This video follows on from the previous creating a pass map. Here we build a pass matrix table and integrate the two in a dashboard.

Surprisingly, creating a table in Tableau is not as intuitive (they want you to create visuals). Here is a simple step by step guide, and…

I often get asked about how to collect XY data of your own. Here are a couple of open source tools to help you.

This video explorers how to create an event timeline. This case we plot expected goals across a single match.

This video details how to create pitch zones on top of a pitch background using Tableau. You can download my workbook on Tableau Public here… How…

This quick video shows how you can create your own color banding in Tableau.

When I was 16 there were two things I distinctly disliked; PE lessons and maths lessons. Therefore, it is odd that for around eight years…

This video builds on the previous video about zones on a pitch. Here we explore this Tableau drawing tool; https://iamdavehart.github.io/tableau-drawing-tool/# Created by Dave Hart.This tool…

Look at the picture below. It’s from the Tour de France in 2007. What do you see? If you are not a cycling fan you…

You often need to merge or join additional datasets before you can analyse your data. This video shows you some simple ways to do this…

The “My Best Work” series will give analysts, and those working in connected areas, an opportunity to showcase their best work. Our guest today is…

Creating a Summary Table

5 Questions about Tableau 1. What is Tableau? Tableau is a visual analytics platform that promises to help you see and understand data. Tableau is…

They are designed to prepare learners for an entry-level role in under six months. The certificates don’t have any prerequisites. The certificates can offer stepping…

Big thanks to Ninad Barbadikar for his tutorial which you can find here. This is the calculation that makes it possible; IF INDEX()%2=0 THEN INDEX()-1…

Metrica Sports is one of those rare examples where an idea hatched by three mates in a pub actually led somewhere great. This month I…

The aim here was to create this chart in one sheet rather than having to replicate it 20 times, once for each team. Data and…

In 2003 a book was published which completely changed analysis. That book is Moneyball, or, Moneyball: The Art of Winning and Unfair Game to give…

Something I’ve mentioned quite a lot in my Tableau for Sports series of videos is how the data is laid out and why that is…

We are currently in the early stages of the knockout rounds of the World Cup, with all the drama and storylines you’d expect from the…

Instagram-friendly philosophy will have us believe that the steps from turning your hobby into a viable career path are deceptively simple. While increasing numbers of…

The recent MLS Cup final was hailed by many as one of the best games in the league’s history. A late Gereth Bale header to…

Sophie Bone, First Team Performance Analyst for London City Lionesses, shares her story with the APFA. She’s one of the few female analysts working in…

Involving players in the analysis process is becoming more common in the modern game. The days of a Head Coach, authoritarian figure standing at the…

Video quality has a huge impact on your analysis and feedback to players. A shaky or blurred image can not only lead to missing key…

Jesse Marsch is one of the world’s best Coaches and known for his ability to motivate players to buy in to his high pressing style.…

Joey Lombardi is a highly regarded Technical Director and Coach who’s built a reputation for his analysis-centered and evidence-informed approach to player development. Joey has…

Video is now a non-negotiable tool in the the modern coaching process. Whether it’s post-game review, live feedback or opposition analysis, more and more teams…

Istvan Beregi is a professional Match Analyst at the Hungarian Football Federation and has a degree in Psychology. He also writes for world-famous analysis website…

As part of the launch of the New Excel for Analysts Course, John Lythe (Excel Tricks for Sport) has put together the following free resource…

Like it or loathe it Excel has not been around for over 30 years and is one of the most widely used software’s in the…

EIS Skills for Performance The English Institute of Sport (EIS) is looking for the next generation of support staff to join the team that has…

I am writing this post more to save me time but also I have answered this, I want to be a Performance Analyst question, in…

Although I’m full-time in what I do, I spend a lot of time working with amateur teams and organisations, trying to put systems in place…

Manchester City are hosting a Performance Hack on the 29-31 July at their Academy. Man City were behind an a big data initiative before with…

After one of the Euro 2016 games at the weekend I wondered aloud on twitter the following; Would really love to know how many managers…

To avoid criticism say nothing, do nothing, be nothing – Aristotle I picked this book up a couple of weeks back and can’t recommend it…

A few years back I got a call from the manager of the team I was working with. We had reached the business end of…

Scientists have found that geese flying in formation can travel around 78% further in a session than geese flying solo. In 2008 there was no…