Great article and very deserved, Jesse! You are one of the biggest contributors to the field. I'm very grateful to have been given the chance to collaborate with you.

The Belgian lab shaping modern soccer’s data revolution A small corner of one of the world’s oldest universities has moved the sport forward, and made the argument for research institutions writ large

I wrote about @jessejdavis.bsky.social, an American computer science professor running an influential soccer analytics research team at an ancient university in Belgium.

Much of the leading data analysis is still being done outside soccer. Why?

@theguardian.com

www.theguardian.com/football/202...

Thanks, @janvanhaaren.be, @jessejdavis.bsky.social, Ulf Brefeld, and @azimmerdm.bsky.social for laying the groundwork for making it such a successful event in its first 11 editions.

The CfP for the Workshop on Machine Learning and Data Mining for Sports Analytics (MLSA) is out; go check it out!

I am honored to contribute to the continuation of MLSA's legacy by helping organize this 12th edition alongside @probberechts.bsky.social, Maaike Van Roy and @azimmerdm.bsky.social.

📣 Excited to share that the Workshop on Machine Learning and Data Mining for Sports Analytics (MLSA) will be held again this September as part of @ecmlpkdd.org! w/ @hugoriosneto.bsky.social,
@azimmerdm.bsky.social and Maaike Van Roy

dtai.cs.kuleuven.be/events/MLSA25

Big Data, Tiny Teams Introducing streamlit-soccer and some thoughts on team tools

I built 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗺𝗹𝗶𝘁-𝘀𝗼𝗰𝗰𝗲𝗿, a custom React component for Streamlit for working with soccer tracking data.

And a blog post on 𝗕𝗶𝗴 𝗗𝗮𝘁𝗮, 𝗧𝗶𝗻𝘆 𝗧𝗲𝗮𝗺𝘀

Continuing the tradition, I have compiled an end-of-year overview of the soccer analytics content that I liked the most in the past year. The 2024 edition includes pointers to over 160 resources, including research papers, blog posts, articles, podcasts, and books.

janvanhaaren.be/posts/soccer...

Unexpected Origins and the Fermi Paradox Can foundational soccer ideas achieve escape velocity?

A football formulation of the fermi paradox – in blog post! Where are the new ideas?

Substituting Similarity Summary statistics are problematic for comparing players

New (first) post on the Central Winger substack. With thoughts on Player Similarity, problems with current approaches, and a path forward.

Made one for soccer analytics dorks go.bsky.app/Hu8kEtH