A guest contribution written by @lebzygold
It is quite evident that the sports world is becoming increasingly intertwined. Last year, I wrote an article about the increased prevalence of top-level footballers running down their contracts and becoming free agents as has long since been the case in the NFL, NBA and MLB. However, that article focused on the burgeoning player empowerment era and the off-field evolution of association football, whereas this particular piece aims to look at the tactical and analytical elements of three of America’s biggest sports leagues — the NFL, NBA and MLB — and how association football may adopt some of these elements on the pitch (spoiler: it has already begun to do so).
For the purpose of simplicity, I shall be referring to association football as “football” and referring to American football purely as American football or in terms of the NFL — my apologies, Americans.
As my love for America’s major sports leagues has begun to rival the affection I have for football, the cross-pollination of these multi-billion dollar sports has become tremendously fascinating to me. The similarities are plentiful and a lot closer than people may realise. It was almost inevitable that, as information became easier to access and analyse, proactive strategists would acknowledge certain aspects of other sports and apply them to their own fields. For instance, Atlético de Madrid fitness coach Óscar Ortega has applied his rugby coaching experience to his methods at the football club in order to help the players understand where to apply pressure on the ball and make tackles.
In this article, I will attempt to show how football has (consciously or subconsciously) adapted many aspects of baseball, basketball and American football and applied them in order to evolve the sport.
Making the right play
Running specific, tailored plays has never really been a widely accepted idea in football. More often than not, outside of general positional guidelines within different sections of the pitch, footballers are given carte blanche to make movements and decisions that they best believe will result in positive situations. This is what makes coaches like Pep Guardiola so special, because the principles of juego de posición that he applies to his teams have very specific instructions regarding where a player should be both in relation to the ball and his teammates. However, even then, players are often entrusted with the decisions required to exploit the favourable conditions created by this style of play.
Interestingly, we’ve recently seen instances of specific, designed plays being used by teams, particularly when their opponents are caught off guard. Sparta Rotterdam, A.F.C. Bournemouth and Paris Saint-Germain have all recently engineered the same play from kick-off, catching their opponents unaware and scoring quick goals.
All three of these goals are essentially the same play and exploit the same weaknesses in the respective opponents. The goalscorers all manage to get into the space that’s typically left behind the defence from a kick-off and subsequently create a high-quality chance and score the all-important first goal of the game. Two of the best players in world football in Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappé were able to execute this move perfectly, but the other goals show that a team doesn’t necessarily need elite, World Cup-winning players to perform actions such as these.
Set-pieces remain the closest plays to American football-style plays that are extensively choreographed in football today. This also includes the different variations of defensive set-piece tactics applied by teams and how these various strategies have evolved over the years. Spielverlagerung published a fascinating article detailing different offensive and defensive set-piece tactics deployed by a number of teams and how effective they might be. These include zonal marking schemes, man marking schemes, mixed marking schemes, player alignment and the number of players committed to certain zones.
Considering the detail with which coaches have approached set-pieces, there is significant potential to apply this level of detail to open play too. This is a considerably niche idea for football and, as such, it would certainly take several years for the concept of such plays to be universally adopted and successfully applied by coaches.
Routes Reimagined
Effective route running is perhaps the most important part of a successful NFL offence. Even the best passing quarterbacks need talented receivers who can get open and receive the ball whilst minimising the risk of an incompletion or, worse, an interception. There are numerous routes that can be run in order to beat certain defensive coverages in the form of various zone and man coverages. As such, the offensive coordinator must be able to design and select plays that exploit the opposition’s defensive weaknesses and, more pertinently to this particular point, the receiver may need to adjust his route on the fly in order to get open whilst still running a route familiar with his quarterback. It is often the quarterback himself who will “call an audible” himself to quickly change a play depending on how the opposition defence has set-up.
We may look at a wide receiver like Tyreek Hill and draw comparisons to fast, agile wingers. Hill is tremendously quick and is subsequently a potent deep-ball threat due to his ability to create separation. A pacey winger like Marcus Rashford may be taught to run specific routes that can be coordinated with excellent passers such as Christian Eriksen and Bruno Fernandes. Tyreek Hill has shown time and time again how much more dangerous a quarterback becomes when he has the option to launch the ball towards a dynamic receiver behind the opposition defence. An elite passer like Patrick Mahomes became virtually unstoppable when he had time in the pocket to find Hill, and this may become the case with elite playmakers in football (soccer — sorry again, Americans). Tyreek Hill has since moved to the Miami Dolphins, but much of his reputation was built off of his relationship with Patrick Mahomes in Kansas City, and the value of that relationship was reflected by wins and Super Bowl success.
Another example of elite route running comes in the form of Travis Kelce. The Kansas City Chiefs’ tight end is one of the most productive players to have ever graced the position in the NFL. Standing at 6’5”, 250 lbs, Kelce can use his large frame to overpower opponents attempting to bring him down, whilst also being as fleet-flooted and agile as some receivers in the league. This combination of strength and elegance terrifies opposition coaches and defenders as it is exceedingly difficult to gameplan against him, even when they know he’s likely to receive the ball from his quarterback.
In the above video, Travis Kelce runs a flat route that includes a change of direction that allows him to completely lose his marker. This is a prime example of the dancing feet Kelce possesses in his big body, before ultimately using said body to power his way over the goal line for a touchdown.
Kelce can be compared to larger, stronger strikers who may not possess the natural speed of wingers, but are intelligent off the ball and can use their bodies to their advantage. These may include the likes of Dušan Vlahović, Robert Lewandowski and Harry Kane, all of whom are clinical strikers who manage to create separation from defenders despite lacking explosive speed. Occasionally, we see certain strikers deploy signature movements off the ball in order to find space. Their teammates grow accustomed to these moves and make the necessary passes as a result. One player who often relied on a particular off-ball move was Robin van Persie.
For all three goals shown above, Robin van Persie uses his signature move to create separation from his marker, subsequently using the space to take high-quality shots resulting in goals. When marked tightly, he moves in one direction to draw the defender away from his initial zone. Once the defender has moved, he quickly shifts back to his original position, now having created an extra yard of space to receive the ball and take a shot from a valuable area. Possessing both the high IQ to make such moves and the finishing ability to take his chances, this “route” used by the Dutchman would often torture opposition defenders as they wouldn’t be able to predict where he’d likely receive a pass.
This is only scratching the surface of the potential that footballers possess off the ball, regardless of physical capabilities and athleticism. In 2021, Bayern Munich manager Julian Nagelsmann said, “American football is much more technologically advanced than football. The quarterback has an earpiece to hear his coach, we absolutely need that. Football must stop hiding behind tradition and revolutionise itself”. That may be a particularly drastic change and the logistics of it are contentious to say the least, but it does show some of the ideas that prominent football minds might have and the direction in which the sport may be heading.
Take Your Pick
One of the most useful actions in basketball is the screen (or pick). A screen is most commonly set in a “pick and roll” situation in order to force the defence to make a decision, allowing the offence to exploit any openings that appear as a result. A pick and roll usually uses two players — a guard and a big — with the guard handling the basketball and the big man setting the screen, disrupting the player defending the ball handler, before rolling to the basket or, occasionally, “popping” out behind the ball handler to shoot a perimeter shot, hence the move also being referred to as a “pick and pop”.
Are you still with me? Kinda? Good.
Out of a pick and roll, the ball handler can choose to pass, shoot or drive, with the latter being the most popular choice due to the driving lane that is often created by the screen.
In the above video, the Dallas Mavericks’ Luka Dončić receives a screen from his center in order to escape all-NBA defender Matisse Thybulle and find space in which to drive and finish. It is, in theory, a simple play, but it does require a strong screen to be set by the big man, and the ball handler must possess the control to drive at speed and the strength and touch to finish over a large rim protector. This action requires both skill and high basketball IQ, therefore you likely won’t see just anybody attempting a pick and roll action. The move is often reserved for a team’s most reliable decision makers who can read a defence and make necessary adjustments.
Setting an effective screen is the most important part of a successful pick and roll play as it puts the point-of-attack defender in a dilemma as he attempts to avoid a defensive breakdown. Both offensively and defensively, the different approaches to a pick and roll make for an exhaustive list, but this provides a basic idea of how the play is effective.
So, how does this apply to football?
Theoretically, screening shouldn’t be a useful tool in football because it would most likely be ruled as obstruction by the referee. That said, the rules of the sport are often stretched and manipulated by intelligent players, therefore it comes as no surprise that we’ve seen instances of screening in football. The action isn’t commonly used, hence there hasn’t been much outrage towards the instances in which it has been used.
On occasion, we’ve seen players discreetly setting screens in order to create extra space for their teammates in possession. This may be to create a shooting opportunity, or simply because a particular area of the pitch is too crowded to manoeuvre within.
As we can see above, Kevin De Bruyne sets a screen in front of the Crystal Palace player pursuing Jack Grealish as the Englishman dribbles into the left half-space towards the opposition backline. De Bruyne’s screen may simply look like the player is running in the direction of the play to provide support; however, upon review, it’s clear that the Belgian star steps in front of the defensive player to prevent him from reaching Grealish and potentially dispossessing him. This is evidently an effective move if it can be done discreetly enough to avoid being deemed a foul.
Mohamed Salah’s goal against Arsenal early in the 2017/18 season saw another example of a discreet screen being set in order to help an offensive player being pursued by an opposition defender. Salah sprints away on a counter-attack whilst being pursued by Francis Coquelin and Héctor Bellerín, with the latter possessing a great amount of pace. Sadio Mané notices the duo gaining ground on Salah and smartly runs across the defenders to affect their path and give Salah time to slot the ball past the goalkeeper without defensive pressure. At first glance, it just seems as though Mané is running in a regular path, but a deeper analysis of the situation shows that the Senegalese forward intentionally steps in front of Coquelin and Bellerín and slows them down, making the goalscoring opportunity far easier for Mo Salah.
As mentioned prior, the concept of setting a screen in football is a controversial one. Should the move become more widespread, it would likely be cracked down upon by match officials. However, players and coaches are always looking for ways to gain an advantage on the pitch, particularly within the fine margins of top level football. Necessity is the mother of invention, therefore creativity is required to find new solutions to problems, and football is evidently full of innovators.
LAW OF UNIVERSAL GRAVITATION
“Gravity” is a popular term used amongst modern NBA fans. It is most often used to describe a player or specific play that draws increased defensive attention, subsequently creating space for another player off the ball. The individual player who is arguably most synonymous with the term is the Golden State Warriors’ Stephen Curry. The transcendent guard is one of the greatest players in NBA history despite standing at just 6’2” — a small stature in the NBA’s land of giants. What makes Stephen Curry so special is his ability to handle the basketball and shoot from great distances with tremendous speed and accuracy, as well as his willingness to constantly move without the ball. This draws the attention of multiple defenders whether or not he has possession of the ball, consequently creating space for his teammates.
Even without the basketball in his hands, Curry is often the most dangerous man on the court and defences react accordingly. This can even result in a player as great as 4-time NBA scoring champion Kevin Durant receiving the ball without defensive pressure.
In football, some players attract this form of attention. We think of the likes of Lionel Messi and Neymar Jr. garnering extreme defensive attention and opening up the pitch for their teammates in advanced areas. However, this calibre of player is rare and coaches often have to gain these advantages through different means. One of the most effective methods for creating space for an individual player is via an “overload”.
An overload is created when a large number of players occupy a relatively small zone on the pitch when their team is in possession. This forces the opposition to commit more defenders to this zone, subsequently narrowing their defensive shape. As such, a wide player usually has extra space on one of the flanks and can isolate an opponent in a 1v1 situation, hence this situation is ideal for wingers with strong dribbling abilities.
Overloads can be created in the middle of the field or in wide areas, but the objective generally remains the same. Teams seek to attract opposition defenders to narrow zones and allow talented wingers or attacking wing-backs to exploit the isolation advantage created.
In basketball, isolation situations are also desirable for teams in possession, particularly if said team has a player who can create off the dribble as is often the case with the top guards in the NBA. Let’s examine a situation in which Stephen Curry isolates an opposition defender and creates a situation that is extremely difficult to defend.
Stephen Curry is being guarded by a defensively astute wing before his teammate, Draymond Green, forces a switch via a screen. Green’s screen evidently isn’t an attempt to execute a pick and roll move — he simply wants to force the switch to allow Curry to isolate Jakob Poeltl, the Spurs’ center. Curry has a clear opportunity to use his superior speed, agility, as well as his quick and accurate shooting to make a move on Poeltl, choosing to step back to create space and shooting a rainbow three-pointer over the Austrian’s outstretched hand.
An effective isolation play isn’t possible for every player as they may not possess the requisite skills, but a player as talented as Stephen Curry relishes these situations and often makes the most of them.
Regardless of the sport, isolating opposition defenders is a useful way to engineer qualitative advantages for the team in possession. It’s interesting how different sports attempt to create these advantages, but the objectives are largely the same, as are the principles behind the plays.
MONEYBALL VS. MOREYBALL
Data analytics have become increasingly important in modern football. Football clubs have invested millions of euros into departments dedicated towards data analytics who collect and analyse copious amounts of data in order to optimise off-field financial potential, on-field performance and player recruitment, among many other aspects of the sport. It has often been suggested that many football clubs are adopting a “moneyball” approach to their operations in order to optimise their often limited resources.
In layman’s terms, moneyball involves using data to find what is presently undervalued in the market as a result of the traditional approach of scouting and research using conventional methods such as the “eye-test”. As such, organisations can find players who offer more production than their market value may suggest and acquire these players at a relatively low cost. This has, in part, led to the wider adoption of metrics such as expected goals (xG) when analysing a player, team or individual match. Expected goals allow scouts and data analysts to look beyond simple metrics such as goals scored when analysing the potential value of a player, as they may be over-performing or under-performing their xG. This can play a major part in indicating whether a player has been unlucky in front of goal and is in a bad run of form or, conversely, whether a player has scored from a number of low-quality chances and is unlikely to maintain that level of goalscoring form.
Moneyball was first adopted in Major League Baseball by the Oakland Athletics, led by general manager Billy Beane. The Oakland Athletics did not possess the financial strength of the likes of the New York Yankees and subsequently weren’t able to attract the most sought-after free agents, therefore Beane began to use data to find non-utilised players who possessed high “on-base percentages” despite not making the dazzling hits that often attracted most league scouts. As such, the Oakland A’s were able to attract undervalued players with high production, despite not being as immediately eye-catching as the league’s premier stars.
Moneyball has since been widely adopted throughout the sporting world. The major sports league that was perhaps most heavily influenced by the emergence of extensive data analytics was the National Basketball Association. The NBA has always had a leg up on other leagues as far as data collection is concerned. For decades, the league has collected data to an extent that far exceeds most other leagues around the world. Despite this, there still often remained a traditional approach to how the game should be played, particularly in terms of scoring. The biggest change to NBA data analytics came via then-general manager of the Houston Rockets, Daryl Morey, and his 3-point revolution.
Daryl Morey was hired as the general manager of the Houston Rockets in 2007 despite not possessing a traditional background in basketball. He never played the sport at any serious level and his educational background involved a degree in computer science from Northwestern University and an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management. However, it was clear that Morey had taken an interest in how data can influence sports, particularly basketball. He worked at Stats, Inc., the company that had employed a pioneer of data analytics in baseball, Bill James, with Morey even adapting James’ “Pythagorean expectation” paper from baseball to basketball in order to predict win-loss percentages for basketball teams.
Daryl Morey has always been an astute analytical mind, but his methods have garnered plenty of skepticism from those who believe “sports can’t be played on spreadsheets”. Despite the backlash and criticism he’s faced, Morey has remained steadfast in his belief of what will likely win basketball games. Following the Houston Rockets’ acquisition of NBA star James Harden in 2012, Morey was finally able to being exercising his vision of “Moreyball” in the NBA.
Under Daryl Morey’s vision and roster construction, the Rockets began to focus on the most efficient ways to score points — three-pointers, layups, dunks and free-throws. With the usage-heavy James Harden pulling the strings on-court, the Houston Rockets began to shatter all manner of three-point shooting records and, if Harden wasn’t shooting a three, he was often standing in front of the charity stripe preparing to take free-throws. In fact, the record for most three-pointers made by a team in a single season in NBA history is 1,323, set by the 2018-19 Houston Rockets. This is followed by 1,256 three-pointers set by — you guessed it — the 2017-18 Houston Rockets. The latter led the NBA in wins with 65 and came within one game of defeating the seemingly unstoppable Golden State Warriors in the Western Conference Finals. Morey is even quoted as saying, “it’s pretty dramatic how powerful the three-point shot is. You only have to make a third of your three-point shots to be worth a half of your two [point shots]”. These words encapsulate a Daryl Morey-led offence in basketball.
Boasting one of the most efficient offences in NBA history, Morey showed what is possible through data and, even though his run in Houston didn’t bear an NBA championship, many felt as though, had they come up against any team other than arguably the greatest team in NBA history (who were also a historically great three-point shooting team), they would’ve hung at least one more banner at the Toyota Center. Regardless of the lack of championships, Morey’s free-scoring Rockets team helped shape the current NBA landscape where mid-range shots are only reserved for the most elite marksmen and the vast majority of shots occur beyond the three-point line or within the painted area. “Points per possession” is the name of the game, and efficiency over style has become a common theme league-wide, as clearly exemplified by Kirk Goldsberry’s graphic detailing the change in the most popular shot locations in the NBA.
In football, Pep Guardiola has often been criticised for employing a “robotic” style of football at Manchester City whereby individual expression is often discouraged in favour of structural optimisation. However, football is a results-based industry and Guardiola has found ways to maximise his teams’ chances of winning games and, subsequently, winning trophies. Understanding the most valuable assist zones, which are often exploited by the likes Kevin De Bruyne and his ferocious crosses, is a part of the data-backed approach of Pep Guardiola’s football. We regularly see Manchester City lead the league in expected threat (xT) statistics, showing the regularity with which they advance the ball to dangerous areas, hence the regularity with which they create chances and consequently score goals. However, just as Daryl Morey has been criticised for failing to win an NBA championship, Pep Guardiola has yet to lead Manchester City to Champions League glory. This may vindicate the doubters, but it often fails to include crucial context and ignores the numerous other measures of success that support the effectiveness of this data-led approach.
NBA Hall of Famer and current television personality Charles Barkley once said, “You know I’ve always believed analytics is crap [sic]” when describing Daryl Morey’s Houston Rockets and he has remained steadfast in those beliefs. As a player who once flourished playing in the low post — a style of offence that has since been seen as largely inefficient in today’s NBA — it comes as no surprise that Barkley holds this opinion. It’s worth noting that this is the same Charles Barkley who once suggested that jump shooting teams couldn’t win NBA championships, shortly before the Golden State Warriors began their league-dominating dynasty led by all-time great shooter Stephen Curry.
Football has also faced its own resistance to the emergence of advanced data analytics. In November 2017, popular SkySports pundit Jeff Stelling initially laughed off the idea of expected goals, seemingly not fully understanding its function. He described it as “the most useless stat in the history of football” — a statement with which many agreed at the time. Fast forward a few years and SkySports itself began to use an expected goals model when analysing football games. The metric has since become as regular a part of the game as possession statistics or shots on target. This typifies the transformation of football and the data revolution currently in full effect.
Brentford Football Club have effectively used a moneyball approach to engineer their success in recent years. When Matthew Benham took control of the club in 2012, he began to implement a data-driven approach that had brought him so much wealth and success in the world of gambling, as well as having shown positive results at another one of Benham’s football clubs, FC Midtjylland. Benham has since spearheaded Brentford’s masterful navigation of the transfer market where they regularly have a positive net expenditure by the end of each season. This approach of buying low and selling high thanks to their stringent data analysis has yielded tangible success in recent years. In 2017, Brentford’s co-director of football, Rasmus Ankersen, explained how the club had to ask themselves, “what are the inefficiencies in the system in football, and how can we exploit those?”
This question has essentially driven Brentford’s approach to data analytics which has yielded fantastic results.
In 2021, Brentford secured promotion to the Premier League and with that came the spending power generated by Premier League revenue and an increased ability to spend more in the transfer market. Regardless, Brentford have stayed true to their data-led approach which has been bolstered by greater spending power. Premier League football brings in so much revenue, it would be extremely surprising if more lower league clubs don’t attempt to emulate Brentford’s verifiably successful approach.
As I mentioned prior, sports are often intertwined in a variety of ways. Basketball analyst Ben Taylor of the Thinking Basketball YouTube channel has even spoken about “expected points” in basketball in some of his analyses, where aspects such as shot location and distance from nearest defender are taken into account. Taylor described it as still somewhat of a “noisy” metric, so there’s certainly work to be done with the data to get it to an xG-level of reliability, but it shows the cross-sport methodology and how the adaptation of ideas is possible. Regardless, it’s evident that ideas are being shared in different spheres of the sporting world and these ideas are now shaping the future of the industry.
CONCLUSION
The interconnectedness of sport often replicates the interconnectedness of the world itself. With globalisation and the increased accessibility of information, the cross-pollination of sports was basically inevitable, with ideas now more easily replicated and done so effectively and efficiently. Just as I wrote about the Premier League’s marketing evolution beginning to rival the NFL and NBA, football may continue to evolve tactically to mirror some of the intricacies of America’s most popular sports, and vice-versa.
Sports are always changing and developing to adapt to an ever-evolving world, so these changes are only natural. There once existed a world without an offside law in football or a three-point line in basketball, and even those additions were likely met with significant backlash at the time. New ideas will never be universally popular, but they are often necessary, and we may be entering a period of yet another major change to the beautiful game.
