Jan Van Haaren

Head of Football Insights & Innovation at Club Brugge.
Research Fellow at KU Leuven. Follow on X or connect via LinkedIn.

Soccer Analytics 2023 Review

Thursday, December 28, 2023

This year at the StatsBomb Conference I learned that my review blog posts no longer need introducing. I was pleasantly surprised to hear from multiple participants in the conference's research-paper competition that my annual blog posts had helped them enter this exciting field and shape their research ideas. When I started this series of blog posts, I had precisely that goal in mind. Needless to say, I hope this overview of the soccer analytics content that I liked the most in 2023 will inspire another generation of soccer analytics enthusiasts in the new year!

Soccer Analytics 2022 Review

Thursday, December 29, 2022

The soccer analytics community continues to thrive, attracting an increasing number of enthusiasts who are interested in the data side of the sport. Although professional clubs are increasingly seeking out talent for data roles in the community, a wealth of exciting soccer analytics research has appeared in the public space in the past year. However, with the growing interest in soccer analytics, it can be challenging to sift through all of the available content, especially for those new to the community. Therefore, I have compiled a list of my favorite research papers, blog posts, and news articles from the past year to help you navigate the abundance of information.

Soccer Analytics 2021 Review

Thursday, December 30, 2021

The soccer analytics community is growing year after year. The potential of soccer data is not only catching the attention of researchers and amateur analysts but is also attracting more and more interest from soccer clubs. While the increased availability of freely available data and tools as well as the global pandemic led to an explosion of soccer analytics content in 2020, soccer clubs have arguably made a record-number of signings for data-related roles in 2021. Nevertheless, a significant number of high-quality blog posts and research papers has appeared in the past year. This blog post provides an overview of the content that I liked the most!

De zin en onzin van Expected Goals

Wednesday, June 30, 2021

De geavanceerde statistiek Expected Goals duikt steeds vaker op in de traditionele voetbalmedia. Zo gebruikte de IJslandse bondscoach Arnar Vidarsson de statistiek onlangs in Villa Sporza, het EK-praatprogramma op Eén, om de prestaties van de Rode Duivels tegen Denemarken te duiden. Hoewel de statistiek reeds een achttal jaar geleden zijn intrede deed, werpt het gebruik ervan nog regelmatig vragen op. Deze bijdrage gaat dieper in op de zin en onzin van Expected Goals bij het analyseren van voetbalwedstrijden.

Soccer Analytics 2020 Review

Wednesday, December 30, 2020

The increased availability of free data, tutorials and tools has led to an explosion of interest in soccer analytics. The number of research papers, blog posts, webinars, podcasts and events has spiked in 2020. Access to granular data has been a privilege for data analysts and data scientists within clubs and companies until recently, but that situation is fortunately slowly changing. The release of several match event and tracking datasets has enabled more academics and amateur analysts to develop their own metrics and to perform more profound analysis. This blog post provides an overview of the content that I liked the most!

When Will the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference Truly Embrace Soccer?

Thursday, March 14, 2019

Two weeks ago I had the pleasure of attending my fourth consecutive MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference. This year I experienced the conference from a slightly different perspective though. After three earlier failed attempts, I finally managed to get a paper to the conference phase of the research-papers competition and secure a poster presentation at the conference together with my SciSports colleague Lotte Bransen and KU Leuven collaborators Pieter Robberechts and Jesse Davis. Nevertheless, I arrived home with mixed feelings for the first time since the 2016 edition although I had enjoyed every second of my stay in Boston. Rather than full of energy and new ideas as I had gotten used to after the three earlier editions, I was left wondering what I had learned from this year's edition. More than ever before, I was stuck with the feeling that the soccer analytics community had in fact made only little progress since last year's conference.