Latest / Luke's English Podcast / Science Of The Times EP14 - Is There a science to football_ - _FootballScience

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Science Of The Times EP14 - Is There a science to football_ - _FootballScience · Luke's English Podcast

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Well, hello everyone. I'm Tim Colson.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: Hi, and I'm Simon Khalid.
• 0:11
  Speaker 3: And welcome to another episode of Science of the Times.
• 0:15
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• 0:18
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• 0:21
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• 0:24
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• 0:28
  Speaker 3: it and hit subscribe because that helps us.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Anyway, Simon, how's your week been?
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: It's been good. Lots of teaching again. Not something you'd
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: know an awful lot about, I think, Tim.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: No, what is teaching?
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: Well, it's been a lot of fun. How about yourself?
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: Oh, it's been good, actually. I've been busy writing. I
• 0:45
  Speaker 3: had a few meetings. Term time's always busy, isn't it?
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: There's always a lot of stuff on.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: Today's a big night for you, though, right?
• 0:52
  Speaker 4: It is.
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: This won't be going out, obviously, until after the game
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: has happened, but it's Spurs-Man U in Bilbao, final of
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: the Europa Cup.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: For me, I don't know. I think it's a shame
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: that both teams can't lose, to be honest.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: Are you confident?
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: I mean, Spurs have had such a disastrous season. I'm not,
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: but Man U's hasn't been much better. So we'll see.
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: But I can't bring, you know, this is the biggest
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: night in Spurs' history for a long time. But I've
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: got something in the diary, which has been there for months,
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: which means I have to go out. And in fact,
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: it involves our guest. He's also a footballer who wants
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: to watch this guest, but I'm taking him to a
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: posh meal. So we're both probably going to have headphones in.
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: But anyway, without further ado, should we get him on?
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, let's get him on.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: So, Robbie, would you like to introduce yourself?
• 1:44
  Speaker 5: Oh, thank you for having me, guys. It's my first
• 1:47
  Speaker 5: time to Oxford. My name is Robbie Wilson. I'm a
• 1:50
  Speaker 5: professor at the University of Queensland. I'm a trained ecologist,
• 1:55
  Speaker 5: but now I'm doing a lot of work in the
• 1:57
  Speaker 5: area of sports.
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: So tell us about how you made that transition. So
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: you kind of, as you say, you started out as
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: an ecologist.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: What were you doing? You were studying animals, weren't you?
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: And how they move, that sort of thing.
• 2:08
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 2:08
  Speaker 5: So to me, the work that I've done has always
• 2:12
  Speaker 5: been a version of sports science. I describe my work
• 2:18
  Speaker 5: as sports science in nature. And what I mean by
• 2:21
  Speaker 5: that is that Anything an animal has to do in
• 2:25
  Speaker 5: nature for it to be successful, it has to do
• 2:29
  Speaker 5: with its body. And whether it's running away from a predator,
• 2:33
  Speaker 5: whether it's catching prey, any of the activities it does,
• 2:38
  Speaker 5: it relies on what the individual can do with its body.
• 2:43
  Speaker 5: And the metrics of success for an animal in nature
• 2:46
  Speaker 5: might be reproductive success, how many babies it leaves behind.
• 2:50
  Speaker 5: But It's identical, and I look at it identically, to
• 2:55
  Speaker 5: what happens in a sporting game. And the success of
• 3:00
  Speaker 5: an individual sportsman or woman is down totally to what
• 3:06
  Speaker 5: they can do with their body, the decisions that they make,
• 3:09
  Speaker 5: and the metrics of success there are just different. They're
• 3:13
  Speaker 5: metrics associated with how many trophies an individual can win,
• 3:18
  Speaker 5: how much money they can attract. So to me, I
• 3:23
  Speaker 5: don't see any great difference.
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: So either life's a game or sport is life and death,
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: one or the other.
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: So Robbie, this all sounds very, you know, makes sense
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: in that you say it that way. But was it
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: designed that way or was it just that you like
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: biology and you like sport?
• 3:42
  Speaker 5: Oh, that's a cynical question, but it's so accurate. So
• 3:46
  Speaker 5: I had two loves and two heroes growing up. the
• 3:51
  Speaker 5: heroes were Sir David Attenborough and someone very, very similar
• 3:57
  Speaker 5: to Sir David Attenborough and that is Diego Maradona. So
• 4:02
  Speaker 5: I wanted to be a zoologist and I wanted to
• 4:05
  Speaker 5: be a professional footballer. And one of those dreams came true.
• 4:10
  Speaker 5: I had it all organised in my head. I was
• 4:12
  Speaker 5: going to be a professional footballer first and then I
• 4:14
  Speaker 5: retired about 30 and then I'd become the zoologist. But
• 4:20
  Speaker 5: The football went aside, I became a zoologist, and then
• 4:24
  Speaker 5: I became interested in what animals do in terms of
• 4:28
  Speaker 5: those games and life or death decisions in nature. And
• 4:31
  Speaker 5: so for me, it was a transition that was quite easy.
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: That's really got me thinking now. Have you got any
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: sporting heroes, Tim? Like growing up, someone.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: You looked up to? Oh, yeah.
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: You know, I always loved the cricket and Botham, probably.
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: Ian Botham was a bit of a sporting hero of mine.
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: Fantastic cricketer and a lifestyle that I would aspire to.
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: I think so. Perhaps his nemesis was my sporting hero
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: growing up. Imran Khan, I think, for me. My two
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: were probably Imran Khan and Martina Navratilova.
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: Because you actually grew up in Pakistan for your early
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: parts of your life, didn't you?
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: Did I?
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: I don't remember that.
• 5:16
  Speaker 5: I remember watching the Pakistan team win the World Cup
• 5:20
  Speaker 5: in Australia. Exactly, yes. Actually, a year later, in 1993,
• 5:27
  Speaker 5: Diego Maradona, just a segue there to my hero, came
• 5:31
  Speaker 5: out of retirement to play for Argentina because... They got
• 5:35
  Speaker 5: destroyed by Colombia and they had to play Australia to
• 5:39
  Speaker 5: make the World Cup. And so Diego and the team
• 5:42
  Speaker 5: came out to Sydney. My last year of undergraduate at
• 5:45
  Speaker 5: the University of Sydney, I found out where they were training.
• 5:49
  Speaker 5: I broke into the training session. I checked the fence.
• 5:54
  Speaker 5: And being obsessed with Diego, I knew what his brother
• 5:58
  Speaker 5: and his wife looked like. And they were there on
• 6:01
  Speaker 5: the hill. watching the Argentinian team train and I sat
• 6:05
  Speaker 5: down next to them. And it took about 20 minutes
• 6:08
  Speaker 5: before the security guards realised, I don't think he looks
• 6:11
  Speaker 5: like an Argentinian. So I got turfed out. But I
• 6:16
  Speaker 5: got to see him play.
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: What a wonderful story.
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: So tell us about some of the sort of scientific
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: questions that you're addressing in football at the moment, in
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: sports science.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: So what is it you're trying to find out? What
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: is it you're trying to learn?
• 6:31
  Speaker 5: So I'm really focusing on two aspects, and that is
• 6:36
  Speaker 5: talent identification and talent development. And so I look at
• 6:41
  Speaker 5: those as quite separate. The talent identification, I'm trying to
• 6:49
  Speaker 5: come up and invent games where I can rate the
• 6:55
  Speaker 5: performance of individual players in a clear quantitative way and
• 7:01
  Speaker 5: fairly compare players, not just using my eye and thinking,
• 7:07
  Speaker 5: I think he looks better than that one, et cetera.
• 7:10
  Speaker 5: I want to develop little games that are reflective of
• 7:14
  Speaker 5: what players have to do in the game itself, 11
• 7:17
  Speaker 5: v 11, and then assess the players in a really
• 7:21
  Speaker 5: regimented way. And also part of that is doing individual
• 7:25
  Speaker 5: tests itself. And so skill tests that are very good
• 7:31
  Speaker 5: at predicting how players are actually going to go in games.
• 7:35
  Speaker 5: So over the years, I've come up with like 30
• 7:38
  Speaker 5: different tests, of which I would say 20 of them
• 7:42
  Speaker 5: have been thrown out because they didn't predict anything. If
• 7:45
  Speaker 5: a player was good at that particular test, it didn't
• 7:47
  Speaker 5: mean they were good in an activity that was important
• 7:50
  Speaker 5: in a game. So those go.
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: So then how do you validate and test the tests?
• 7:56
  Speaker 5: Yeah, so I.
• 7:59
  Speaker 5: The usual process is, you know, it's, you know, when
• 8:02
  Speaker 5: you do science, it's often, it's a bit intuitive at
• 8:06
  Speaker 5: first and you've got an idea and you give it
• 8:08
  Speaker 5: a go. And so that would be the way, because
• 8:11
  Speaker 5: I played soccer, football, sorry. I played football growing up.
• 8:16
  Speaker 5: Then I was aware of what it is that the
• 8:20
  Speaker 5: good players usually have. And so, for example, great players
• 8:26
  Speaker 5: know how to control a football and have got the
• 8:29
  Speaker 5: time to control it well, look up, see what the
• 8:32
  Speaker 5: best opportunity is next, and make an accurate pass. And
• 8:35
  Speaker 5: so if I can come up with a test that
• 8:38
  Speaker 5: can quantify that ability in an individual, and I can
• 8:43
  Speaker 5: quantify it in a way where that an individual that's
• 8:46
  Speaker 5: good in that test on one day is good at
• 8:49
  Speaker 5: it another day, so it's repeatable, and that can tell
• 8:54
  Speaker 5: us something about how well individuals do in games, then
• 8:59
  Speaker 5: that's something that I can go with confidence. That's revealing
• 9:04
  Speaker 5: about the quality of a player. And I like the
• 9:07
  Speaker 5: individual tests because I can roll them out. I do
• 9:12
  Speaker 5: work all around the world, and I can roll exactly
• 9:14
  Speaker 5: the same test out in Brazil, in Europe, in Africa,
• 9:18
  Speaker 5: and compare them.
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: So the individual tests, we'll come on to those in
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: a sec, but you're looking at what's going on in
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: actual games.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: So you're looking at things like ability to dribble, things,
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: ability to pass, you know, get around players, all of
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: that sort of stuff.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: You talked about sort of small games, I think. Are
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: those like rondos? Yeah.
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: I'm very impressed.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: You might need to explain to our reviewers what a
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: rondo is. Yeah.
• 9:46
  Speaker 5: So a rondo is a training, a passing game used
• 9:51
  Speaker 5: in training. And it's used to improve the ability of
• 9:56
  Speaker 5: players to quickly control and pass a ball on. and
• 10:00
  Speaker 5: the simplest form of a rondo a possession game is
• 10:04
  Speaker 5: three three players on the outside and a defender on
• 10:07
  Speaker 5: the inside and they're just keeping the ball and you
• 10:10
  Speaker 5: can have three versus two four versus three five versus
• 10:14
  Speaker 5: four there's any number of different types of um Rondos
• 10:19
  Speaker 5: you can put together.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: And it's about possession.
• 10:21
  Speaker 5: It's specifically about possession. So I might be interested, okay,
• 10:26
  Speaker 5: do I, I want to quantify how good a player
• 10:29
  Speaker 5: is at keeping the ball. And so if I then
• 10:34
  Speaker 5: get a bunch of players in and play lots of
• 10:37
  Speaker 5: different Rondo games all at the same time and film them,
• 10:43
  Speaker 5: then for each individual, I can record how many times
• 10:46
  Speaker 5: they get the ball. whether they successfully pass it on
• 10:50
  Speaker 5: or not and whether they lose it or not. And
• 10:53
  Speaker 5: so I get a metric of possession success. And because
• 10:58
  Speaker 5: I've got lots of games going on at the same time,
• 11:01
  Speaker 5: then they will go for a short period of time.
• 11:04
  Speaker 5: All the players come to a central location. I mix
• 11:06
  Speaker 5: them up again and then distribute them. And that way
• 11:11
  Speaker 5: you don't get an individual that's by chance alone, always
• 11:14
  Speaker 5: playing with the best players or always playing with the
• 11:17
  Speaker 5: worst players. or always playing against the best or worst defender.
• 11:21
  Speaker 5: So it's almost you're comparing each individual against the random,
• 11:26
  Speaker 5: the random, yeah. When I'm designing the individual tests, I
• 11:30
  Speaker 5: go for the sorts of tasks that are important for
• 11:36
  Speaker 5: every individual to do in a game. So you watch
• 11:39
  Speaker 5: any game of football, what does a player have to do?
• 11:41
  Speaker 5: They have to control the ball when it's passed to them,
• 11:46
  Speaker 5: They have to control it quickly and accurately. They need
• 11:49
  Speaker 5: to look up and see who's in a better position
• 11:51
  Speaker 5: and then they have to pass it accurately on to
• 11:54
  Speaker 5: an opponent. And so every single player, no matter what
• 11:59
  Speaker 5: the position, needs to do that technical skill really well.
• 12:04
  Speaker 5: The further you get up the hierarchy of quality of players,
• 12:08
  Speaker 5: the more important it is that they do that consistently.
• 12:11
  Speaker 5: Not just once, every two times, but 99% of the time.
• 12:17
  Speaker 5: And then another really common thing that players have to
• 12:20
  Speaker 5: do is they need to run with the ball. They
• 12:22
  Speaker 5: need to dribble it. And so there's different types of
• 12:26
  Speaker 5: dribbling too. So there's the ones where a player will
• 12:29
  Speaker 5: kick the ball well in front of them and then
• 12:33
  Speaker 5: use their pace to run naturally and go as fast
• 12:38
  Speaker 5: as possible. And so what's clear is that every time
• 12:41
  Speaker 5: you touch a ball, it slows you down ever so slightly.
• 12:45
  Speaker 5: So if you want to go as quickly from A
• 12:47
  Speaker 5: to B, you want to kick it a few times.
• 12:50
  Speaker 5: But some of the best dribblers in world football are
• 12:54
  Speaker 5: those that can use the ball in tight spaces and
• 12:57
  Speaker 5: navigate their way through. And that means taking lots of
• 13:02
  Speaker 5: small touches and extremely accurately and often using two feet.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 13:10
  Speaker 5: And so I've got tests where they go in a
• 13:13
  Speaker 5: real curved path and some that go directly straight. I
• 13:18
  Speaker 5: really should have brought that sort of setup to get
• 13:21
  Speaker 5: you guys tested on the dribbling paths.
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: Make us into Jeremy Docu's.
• 13:27
  Speaker 5: Oh, yes, that's right.
• 13:28
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 13:28
  Speaker 5: Isn't he fantastic?
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: He really is.
• 13:30
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: So Robbie, so we saw some of your setups in
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: the park the other day. And I think for me,
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: it was interesting that given how popular football is and
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: how many kids play football, that this level of detail
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: and resolution isn't already being taken care of at the
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: sort of grassroots level?
• 13:52
  Speaker 5: To be fair, I'm just as surprised as you are.
• 13:56
  Speaker 5: It's astounding. So I can go to any club, the
• 14:00
  Speaker 5: elite clubs around the world for youth academies, and I'll
• 14:07
  Speaker 5: ask them, okay, who's the fastest player? which player's fastest
• 14:10
  Speaker 5: in the under-16s? They'll know. Which player ran the most
• 14:13
  Speaker 5: kilometres in a game? They'll know. Which one is best
• 14:16
  Speaker 5: on the agility test? Which one can do the longest
• 14:18
  Speaker 5: jump test? They all know it. And then I'll ask
• 14:21
  Speaker 5: a very simple question to me is, okay, how accurate
• 14:25
  Speaker 5: is that player with their left foot versus their right foot?
• 14:28
  Speaker 5: And they have no idea. And to me, that's a
• 14:32
  Speaker 5: fundamental part of playing football. Or how quickly can they
• 14:36
  Speaker 5: run with the ball fundamental part. So it's not happening.
• 14:42
  Speaker 5: And I think the simple reason is it's more difficult
• 14:47
  Speaker 5: to test that. It's more difficult to have a repeatable
• 14:52
  Speaker 5: test of these sorts of performances.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: But those are key for the games, right? The actual match.
• 14:58
  Speaker 5: Oh, no, I agree that they are absolutely key and
• 15:02
  Speaker 5: they should be done. However, They are more difficult than
• 15:08
  Speaker 5: just doing a straight sprint test or more difficult than
• 15:12
  Speaker 5: putting a little sensor on a player's back and then
• 15:14
  Speaker 5: downloading the data afterwards. But if they're serious about getting
• 15:20
  Speaker 5: ahead of their opposition and getting a little advantage over
• 15:25
  Speaker 5: their rivals, then it's the next step.
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So can your setups also help evaluate positioning in
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: a game? I always think this is interesting. So you
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: see a player do a great pass or a great
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: run and then sort of you think, well, okay, move now,
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: move into the space or, you know, what are you
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: doing now, right? Are you ready for the return pass?
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: Is that something you can help with?
• 15:49
  Speaker 5: So we do, but it's indirectly.
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 15:52
  Speaker 5: Okay, so an example is the passing control test I
• 15:58
  Speaker 5: showed you guys the other day. And now with that,
• 16:02
  Speaker 5: I can assess how good a player is at receiving
• 16:06
  Speaker 5: the ball, whether they've got the right body shape to
• 16:08
  Speaker 5: receive the ball, the right body shape to be able
• 16:12
  Speaker 5: to scan and see where they're supposed to be passing
• 16:15
  Speaker 5: it next. Whether they repeat that or do that in
• 16:20
  Speaker 5: a game is not necessarily possible. However, some of my
• 16:27
  Speaker 5: tests are small-sided games. So they are the closest tests
• 16:34
  Speaker 5: I have to what you would think is closest to
• 16:38
  Speaker 5: what happens in the 11v11 games. You have to do
• 16:43
  Speaker 5: those sorts of movements in those games. And just like
• 16:48
  Speaker 5: I was explaining before in the rondos, we do exactly
• 16:51
  Speaker 5: the same in those small-sided games where we record who
• 16:56
  Speaker 5: scores goals, who prevents goals. whether they're on teams that
• 17:01
  Speaker 5: win by more goals or not. And if you repeat
• 17:04
  Speaker 5: that over and over again, you get a metric from
• 17:08
  Speaker 5: an individual about how good they are in those game
• 17:11
  Speaker 5: realistic matches in terms of what's their quality in terms
• 17:17
  Speaker 5: of net goals per game. So we get a metric
• 17:19
  Speaker 5: of match effectiveness. So if you've got a player that's
• 17:22
  Speaker 5: maybe plus two goals per game in a 3v3 game,
• 17:27
  Speaker 5: you know they're really good.
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: So this whole approach makes a lot of scientific sense,
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: I think, Simon, because, you know, you're working on a
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: really complex, the game is the complex system, right, with
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: all sorts of things going on, you know, and it's
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: hard to really work out, you know, each bit of it,
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: you know, and each bit of performance of each player.
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: And you're almost coming up with experiments, aren't you? So
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: whether it's the rondos or at the individual level, where
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: you're able to assess these performances and you work out
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: which pit you can work on. So it's a real,
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: you're really taking your scientific training in a way that
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: perhaps often hasn't happened in football before. Although I'm sure
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: some sports scientists will say, wait a minute, Colson, what
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: are you talking about?
• 18:09
  Speaker 5: I 100% agree with what you're saying there. And I
• 18:11
  Speaker 5: think that's the real advantage from coming from the ecological
• 18:15
  Speaker 5: sciences is when I look into nature and I'm trying
• 18:20
  Speaker 5: to understand what makes an animal successful, I understand that
• 18:24
  Speaker 5: it's a really complex environment. It's way more complex than
• 18:28
  Speaker 5: a sporting environment. And so if I can break down
• 18:34
  Speaker 5: what makes an individual animal successful in that sort of complexity,
• 18:38
  Speaker 5: then I can do it in a sporting sense.
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: Simon, do you think we should go and trial this
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: out in the park? Because Robbie has bought his stuff,
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: hasn't he?
• 18:50
  Speaker 5: I don't want to talk anyone down here, but I'm...
• 18:55
  Speaker 5: suspecting that Syma is going to completely outdo.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: You, Tim.
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: I know. Come on, that's putting pressure on me.
• 19:03
  Speaker 5: I'm sorry.
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: No, no, no.
• 19:05
  Speaker 5: I don't mean it like that. What I would like
• 19:07
  Speaker 5: to say, preferably, is I don't think he's going to
• 19:10
  Speaker 5: be able to kick a ball.
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: A bit secret messy for all we know.
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: Well, let's take a first break and we'll then go
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: into the park and then we'll have another break and
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: then we'll come back here. But if you're enjoying this, remember,
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: please do subscribe, please do like, We also have some merch, Simon.
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: Do you want to hold that up to the camera?
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: How about this? So we're going to open up a
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: shop soon. And that shop, you're going to be able
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: to buy mugs. You're going to be able to buy hats.
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: You're going to be able to buy T-shirts because we've
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: had people emailing us asking whether they could buy them.
• 19:45
  Speaker 5: I'm just asking for a friend. Do you give those
• 19:48
  Speaker 5: to your guests?
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: Depends how well they've performed but talking of performance let's
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: go to the park.
• 19:55
  Speaker 4: Three kickboards which have got a light on.
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: And the player, we've got Danny here.
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: Has to look to see which light he's on and
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: then kick the ball to bounce.
• 20:06
  Speaker 4: Off that kickboard.
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: And then it comes back to if he hits the kickboard,
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: he has one touch and he has to kick it
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: somewhere else.
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: So it's a skill where you look to see which
• 20:14
  Speaker 4: has hit.
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: Up, you look to see which has come in, you
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: touch and then you kick it to the next one,
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: and then you can do that.
• 20:20
  Speaker 4: So Danny actually looks like he can control the ball.
• 20:24
  Speaker 4: Look at that, two at once.
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: Danny looks like he can control the ball.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: Now, a long time ago, I.
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: Did trial for Arsenal, but I was actually, it was
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: a trial to Amanda Parr, and I failed.
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: I didn't get the job. So we're going to speed.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: So you do it for 45 seconds, and you count
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: up the number of hits, and that was how many?
• 20:47
  Speaker 4: Thirteen. 13.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: So that's pretty good. So far Robbie had a go here.
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: Robbie's our expert. He got seven.
• 20:52
  Speaker 4: I had a little warm-up.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: I got eight. So Dan is well ahead of him.
• 20:58
  Speaker 6: So Simon, just so you know, this field is horrific.
• 21:03
  Speaker 6: So whatever you get, it's going to be worse than
• 21:07
  Speaker 6: if you'd been put on a nice piece of grass
• 21:10
  Speaker 6: or artificial grass.
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: Now the test is just a random... assignment with the lights.
• 21:18
  Speaker 5: So wherever the green light is, you follow that, you
• 21:21
  Speaker 5: hit the board and then you move to the next light.
• 21:26
  Speaker 5: The only rules are you must take one touch before
• 21:29
  Speaker 5: making a pass.
• 21:30
  Speaker 4: So no first time passes.
• 21:33
  Speaker 5: And the reason is that we actually want to quantify
• 21:38
  Speaker 5: how well people control the ball and which foot they
• 21:42
  Speaker 5: control with and how their body shape is when they
• 21:44
  Speaker 5: control it. So it's all part of it. Okay, so
• 21:48
  Speaker 5: let's just do a practice run. Let's get the second
• 21:50
  Speaker 5: ball in.
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: Stop recording this now.
• 21:53
  Speaker 7: We'll get a practice run in.
• 21:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah, well, let's have a practice run.
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: My advice is film everything, Simon, because a practice run
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: may be so good, but the real one.
• 22:02
  Speaker 4: Might be worse. My advice, Simon, is that.
• 22:08
  Speaker 8: Take the extra touches and slow down for the first
• 22:10
  Speaker 8: one just to get your rhythm.
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: So does the ball bounce off?
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: The ball bounces off?
• 22:21
  Speaker 4: It's irrelevant, we're going to get him to do it again.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: I did like eight.
• 22:25
  Speaker 4: I said I did 40, but that's wrong.
• 22:27
  Speaker 6: Okay, now it's going to count down, so ignore the
• 22:30
  Speaker 6: colourful lights.
• 22:32
  Speaker 8: It's the first time there's one light that's green.
• 22:34
  Speaker 4: So ignore these for now. Okay. It's about to turn green.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they're off.
• 22:50
  Speaker 4: Nice. Yeah, no, that's good. Gotta take a second touch. Yep,
• 22:56
  Speaker 4: that's it.
• 22:56
  Speaker 7: Nice.
• 22:59
  Speaker 4: That's it. Nice. Come on.
• 23:03
  Speaker 7: Again.
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: Nice.
• 23:07
  Speaker 4: One more touch.
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: Good.
• 23:10
  Speaker 4: Two touches.
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: Nice.
• 23:24
  Speaker 4: Yes, lovely. And you are done.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: That was good.
• 23:28
  Speaker 4: Simon, you got 15. First attempt. Nice work.
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: That's good.
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: That was the same as you, Daniel, wasn't it?
• 23:37
  Speaker 4: Knowing as not Lionel, it'll be Lionel. Lionel, who's never
• 23:41
  Speaker 4: seen a football. Okay. You know what you're doing here, Tim,
• 23:47
  Speaker 4: don't you? We're going to count down. Remember, it's the
• 23:50
  Speaker 4: green light.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: Okay?
• 23:51
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 23:52
  Speaker 8: Don't go off too quickly. Counting down, five, four, three, two, one, go.
• 23:58
  Speaker 8: We've got a light on. Beautiful start. That's all right,
• 24:04
  Speaker 8: you go back there.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: I'm on it.
• 24:07
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: That was about the worst.
• 24:12
  Speaker 4: We're hoping to see worse. Ah, lovely. Yeah, oh.
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: Oh, a Darwin-Nunez moment there.
• 24:24
  Speaker 4: What team do you think they're right for four?
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: This guy could actually team up with Nunez.
• 24:29
  Speaker 4: OK, we're going well. Yep, here we go.
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: Oh!
• 24:35
  Speaker 4: He's got the power. You didn't see anything. Okay, we're done.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: We're done.
• 24:53
  Speaker 4: Right, Danny. Okay, Danny.
• 24:59
  Speaker 7: Cracks is on now.
• 25:00
  Speaker 4: Not after that, you know.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 25:11
  Speaker 4: And again, remember, green light.
• 25:13
  Speaker 7: Two touches.
• 25:13
  Speaker 4: Two light, two touches. Counting down. Three, two, one, go.
• 25:24
  Speaker 7: Nice.
• 25:35
  Speaker 4: Nice, Danny.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: Nice. Yep.
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: So we should introduce our listeners to Danny, who actually
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: is a very competent footballer, but his real job is
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: he's doing a PhD at Oxford and he's an expert
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: on machine learning and he's even listened to a couple
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: of our podcasts.
• 26:09
  Speaker 7: Yeah, I've listened to quite a few. I was going
• 26:12
  Speaker 7: to see post.willam get a mention last week.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: No, that's good.
• 26:14
  Speaker 7: And now you've got a mention.
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: Danny Ash, everyone.
• 26:17
  Speaker 7: Danny Ash. So ideally... Here's the first light. I'll kick
• 26:23
  Speaker 7: to that. And then I'll control with my back foot here.
• 26:26
  Speaker 6: I'll control with my back foot because that sets up
• 26:30
  Speaker 6: my front foot straight away.
• 26:31
  Speaker 7: It's a faster way of doing it. Back foot, front foot.
• 26:35
  Speaker 7: And up here, the ball went back.
• 26:38
  Speaker 6: And what I did is I took a step back
• 26:40
  Speaker 6: to open up my body and control with my left
• 26:42
  Speaker 6: foot again.
• 26:43
  Speaker 7: And then back into a right. Back foot, right foot.
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: So you're not moving like.
• 26:54
  Speaker 7: That, are you?
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: No.
• 26:56
  Speaker 8: No.
• 26:56
  Speaker 5: And the other thing I'll point out is if I'm
• 26:59
  Speaker 5: controlling the ball, I'm actually pushing the ball into the
• 27:02
  Speaker 5: position I want in order to make the next pass. So,
• 27:06
  Speaker 5: for example, if I'm going to go towards that one there,
• 27:10
  Speaker 5: I've controlled it, and it ended up here, okay, which
• 27:14
  Speaker 5: is not ideal for me to make a pass like that.
• 27:17
  Speaker 6: So what I do is as I put my foot down,
• 27:19
  Speaker 6: I squeeze it, and it sets it up.
• 27:22
  Speaker 7: If that makes sense.
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: It only works if both your feet are decent, right?
• 27:28
  Speaker 7: Absolutely.
• 27:28
  Speaker 6: So what you'll find if we're going between two boards
• 27:33
  Speaker 6: like this and your right foot, okay? So what you
• 27:38
  Speaker 6: will do is if it comes back from here, you
• 27:41
  Speaker 6: will control with your right. The foot will come down.
• 27:45
  Speaker 6: You'll step into position and then pass the ball. You're
• 27:49
  Speaker 6: probably more comfortable controlling with your left foot And you
• 27:53
  Speaker 6: control and then you step in. And what that means
• 27:57
  Speaker 6: is you will be inherently slower turning to your dominant
• 28:01
  Speaker 6: side than your non-dominant side because you want to pass
• 28:04
  Speaker 6: with your right foot every time.
• 28:07
  Speaker 7: And that's a lot slower going that way.
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: But Robbie, so my technique though was in a real game.
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: I was assuming there'd be someone running at me and
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: I just wanted to confuse them. The problem is I
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: did sometimes confuse myself. But, I mean, this doesn't pick
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: that up, right, in a real game scenario.
• 28:23
  Speaker 6: No, the random nature of the lack of skill is
• 28:26
  Speaker 6: not actually quantified in this.
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: Welcome back, folks. So, Tim, that was a lot of fun.
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: I'm glad you enjoyed yourself. I think Danny was very good.
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: I think you were pretty good. I think I was
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: utterly hopeless. Robbie can play a bit, though.
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: Can't he?
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a bit annoying, right? It's a good scientist
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: and a good footballer. I know.
• 28:51
  Speaker 5: So, Tim, do you think that's going to be representative
• 28:53
  Speaker 5: of how your team's going to go?
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: I'm not going to... I don't want to.
• 29:00
  Speaker 5: You're getting really nervous.
• 29:02
  Speaker 6: I am.
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: I don't want to say anything that's going to jinx
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: the match. But I think one of the reasons that I...
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: So something that happened to me was one of the
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: reasons that I'm not a world-leading footballer is... When I
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: was at school, I was kind of very late, born
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: very late in the school year. So if I'd been
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: a month and a day younger, I'd have been in
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: the next school year and I'd have been old for
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: the year. And because I was late, you know, I
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: was small. I wasn't as well developed as people who
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: were earlier on in the school year. And therefore, I
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: didn't kind of get selected to play for teams and whatever,
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: and I never got the training.
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: So that's why I'm no good. Is that a real thing,
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: or am I imagining it?
• 29:41
  Speaker 5: Well, I think you're making a valid point, collectively, whether
• 29:46
  Speaker 5: that's why you didn't make it, I'm not sure about.
• 29:50
  Speaker 5: And I don't have the data to comment.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: But there is quite an age effect, isn't there?
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 29:56
  Speaker 5: So this is... I mean, we've known about this for
• 29:59
  Speaker 5: decades now. And the issue is that often you'll get
• 30:06
  Speaker 5: players that, well, you get sports that play in age cohorts.
• 30:12
  Speaker 5: And so, for example, right now I was working with
• 30:15
  Speaker 5: a team in Brazil and I was working with the
• 30:18
  Speaker 5: under 13 team. So they were born in 2012. So
• 30:19
  Speaker 5: that's the 2012 calendar year. And Anyone born in that
• 30:28
  Speaker 5: year is going to get selected into that. So the
• 30:31
  Speaker 5: problem is, if you're born in January, you are 10%
• 30:35
  Speaker 5: older than those individuals born in December. And that sounds
• 30:41
  Speaker 5: like a 10% advantage, but it's way more because that's
• 30:46
  Speaker 5: the time in which there are these massive growth spurts
• 30:50
  Speaker 5: in young boys. It's the same effect in young girls
• 30:53
  Speaker 5: as well. And these... this advantage in growth means that
• 30:59
  Speaker 5: there's a huge benefit for those that are larger, more
• 31:03
  Speaker 5: physically developed, and they get to dominate those games. And
• 31:06
  Speaker 5: when a scout comes along and watches a game, they'll go,
• 31:11
  Speaker 5: that play is the best. Clearly that play is the best.
• 31:14
  Speaker 5: And in a way, they're absolutely right. But that's not
• 31:19
  Speaker 5: what a scout should be doing. A scout should be
• 31:23
  Speaker 5: looking to see Who's most likely to be successful when
• 31:27
  Speaker 5: they all mature? Not the here and the now. But
• 31:30
  Speaker 5: just to show you what a ridiculous problem it is,
• 31:35
  Speaker 5: across the more than 1,000 players that I have looked
• 31:41
  Speaker 5: at in Brazil, in elite youth academies, around 60% of
• 31:48
  Speaker 5: them were born in January, February, March.
• 31:52
  Speaker 7: Wow.
• 31:52
  Speaker 5: 6% in the last three months.
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: Six.
• 31:58
  Speaker 5: Sixty versus six. It's insane. And no one is doing
• 32:05
  Speaker 5: anything about it. There are attempts to deal with it,
• 32:09
  Speaker 5: and there's a lot of work in Europe about something
• 32:12
  Speaker 5: called biobanding, and so they will match players that are
• 32:17
  Speaker 5: in the same sort of maturity status. However, that's done
• 32:22
  Speaker 5: after they're selected in academies. So the filtering has already occurred.
• 32:28
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 32:28
  Speaker 5: It's a massive problem. And so obviously, being the quantitative scientist,
• 32:34
  Speaker 5: I feel like it should be something easy to resolve
• 32:37
  Speaker 5: and at least to reduce in some sort of way.
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: I mean, when you're at school and there's sort of,
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: I went to a school where there was ability levels
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: of banding. And when I first started school, I struggled
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: with English, actually speaking English, because no one in my
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: home spoke English. And I was in a low ability
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: band and then slowly moved my way up through. And
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: you would have thought that perhaps similarly something could be
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: applied in football, right? Sort of moving players around in
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: these groups.
• 33:06
  Speaker 5: No, I mean, it does intuitively make sense. But the
• 33:09
  Speaker 5: problem is that when those kids are selected at maybe
• 33:14
  Speaker 5: as young as 10 years of age, they get, the
• 33:17
  Speaker 5: better training, the better facilities, they're training more often. And
• 33:22
  Speaker 5: then that difference usurps the difference in physicality. And then
• 33:29
  Speaker 5: they never get a chance.
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: I suppose another way, though, you could say that any
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: team at that age has to have, you know, a
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: certain number of people born in each quarter of the year.
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: So that might be another way of doing it, I suppose.
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: I mean, Paul, I'm making it up as I go along, obviously.
• 33:45
  Speaker 5: No, I mean, I think there's the sorts of simple
• 33:48
  Speaker 5: things that are possible to deal with the situation. It
• 33:53
  Speaker 5: won't deal with it entirely, but I think it's a
• 33:55
  Speaker 5: step forward.
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: So are there any players that you know of who,
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: you know, who were born late in the year who
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: have met with success? There must be a few, you
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: say 6% in the academy. Any kind of, any global superstars?
• 34:09
  Speaker 5: Well, it's a really interesting, I'll answer that in two
• 34:12
  Speaker 5: different ways. One is that If you're in an academy
• 34:17
  Speaker 5: and you're born in the last three months of the year,
• 34:21
  Speaker 5: then you're more likely to be a professional. You're more
• 34:25
  Speaker 5: likely to be successful. Now, that may be because they're
• 34:28
  Speaker 5: just picking the little geniuses that can stand above. An
• 34:34
  Speaker 5: alternative explanation is that if you're small and got those
• 34:38
  Speaker 5: physical disadvantages, then... you're getting an amazing experience in a
• 34:45
  Speaker 5: training academy because you're playing against bigger players. And what
• 34:49
  Speaker 5: do you have to do? You have to be smarter
• 34:51
  Speaker 5: here and you have to be better with your feet.
• 34:54
  Speaker 5: But I think there's a great example of someone who
• 34:59
  Speaker 5: wasn't picked up until 18 years of age. And that
• 35:03
  Speaker 5: is the super successful Rafinha, Brazilian who's playing in Barcelona.
• 35:10
  Speaker 5: Had an amazing season. Born mid-December.
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: What academy did he come through?
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: He was Leeds for a while.
• 35:19
  Speaker 5: Yeah, he played at Leeds, but he didn't have any
• 35:23
  Speaker 5: academy because there were trials everywhere. But no one picked
• 35:27
  Speaker 5: him up. He was smaller. And a player of his quality,
• 35:33
  Speaker 5: worth above 75,000 euros.
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: Million.
• 35:35
  Speaker 5: Million euros.
• 35:36
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 35:42
  Speaker 5: He wasn't discovered and wasn't placed into a professional team
• 35:47
  Speaker 5: until he was 18, playing on the streets of Porto
• 35:50
  Speaker 5: Alegre in the south of Brazil. Incredible.
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: What a story. I'm still yet to be discovered.
• 35:56
  Speaker 5: Still time.
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: I can't hold a laugh.
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: I think my footballing days might be over, so I'm
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: holding out for cricket.
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: I think cricket could work for you.
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: Maybe we should go to our sponsors now.
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so. Yeah, let's take a little break, folks. Hi, Tim.
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: You're looking particularly snazzy today. What are you wearing?
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: I'm wearing a piece from a company called Grace and Garbo.
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: And actually, you know a little bit more about them
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: than I do, to be honest.
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you're right, I do.
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: You're the fashion queen. Yeah.
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: I'm also wearing a piece from Grayson Garbo. So this
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: is a delightful knitwear outfit set up in Birmingham. What
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: they do is they source knitwear, quality knitwear from all
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: around the world. It's vintage, one-off pieces, many of which
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: they then hand embellish, like the one you're wearing today
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: with its beautiful purple flowers. And so they're big on
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: sustainability and You know, nothing goes to waste. Everything is
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: sort of recycled and reused. And if you want to
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: know more about them, then have a look at the
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: link beneath this episode.
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: And thank you very much to them for supporting our podcast.
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: I hope their sales soar.
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: Thanks a lot, Grace and Garvo. Okay, folks, so welcome back. Okay, Robbie,
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: now we're going to really put you in the spotlight.
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: So can you tell us how do you evaluate that
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: your methods, your tests work?
• 37:22
  Speaker 5: Yeah, that's a great question, a complex question, because when
• 37:27
  Speaker 5: I'm dealing with young players, then you've got to see
• 37:29
  Speaker 5: how they develop over time, and that's the true test. But,
• 37:35
  Speaker 5: you know, I've got stories, and there's a great one
• 37:39
  Speaker 5: where I was working in the north of Brazil, and
• 37:43
  Speaker 5: it's with the football club, Bahia Football Club, and they
• 37:48
  Speaker 5: are now part of the Manchester City group, And I
• 37:51
  Speaker 5: was there in early 2020, before COVID, and worked with
• 37:59
  Speaker 5: their youth academy. So these were under 12 and under
• 38:03
  Speaker 5: 13s players. And worked closely with their technical director up there, Daniel.
• 38:10
  Speaker 5: And what we were able to do, and the whole
• 38:13
  Speaker 5: point of that trip, was to develop a method of
• 38:16
  Speaker 5: quantifying individual success from individuals a team game, small sided games.
• 38:23
  Speaker 5: And so the small sided games, they're the closest ones
• 38:28
  Speaker 5: we get to the largest. They've got everything that is
• 38:33
  Speaker 5: fundamentally part of a game of football.
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: I'm starting to wonder, this is a long winded answer.
• 38:38
  Speaker 3: I don't want our listeners to forget the question.
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: Proof of success. Come on, come on.
• 38:48
  Speaker 5: Okay. So, We were developing this method and we worked
• 38:54
  Speaker 5: with the under 12s and under 13s and we had
• 38:56
  Speaker 5: 40 players. We spent three days with them. We did
• 39:00
  Speaker 5: all sorts of tests and then we ranked the best
• 39:03
  Speaker 5: to worst in these small-sided games. Number one was a
• 39:09
  Speaker 5: young player, an under 12 player, Juan Pablo. And he,
• 39:14
  Speaker 5: since then, under 12 then, near the end of last year,
• 39:21
  Speaker 5: he was the youngest ever player to play first team
• 39:26
  Speaker 5: for Bahia Football Club and also the youngest ever player
• 39:31
  Speaker 5: to score a goal in the first team and now
• 39:34
  Speaker 5: been training with the Manchester City Football Club.
• 39:37
  Speaker 7: Oh, wow.
• 39:38
  Speaker 5: So, and that's why I'm back working with that team
• 39:43
  Speaker 5: in the north of Brazil now. They are no longer
• 39:45
  Speaker 5: with the Bahia Football Club. Um, but I'm working there
• 39:49
  Speaker 5: because they saw what my method can pick up. The
• 39:53
  Speaker 5: fact that we can rate the players, the fact that
• 39:56
  Speaker 5: there's a player much younger than the whole cohort we're
• 40:00
  Speaker 5: dealing with, but stood out and then continued to stand out.
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: No, I mean, that's, that's a bit anecdotal though, right?
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's one case. I mean, have you got a, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 40:13
  Speaker 5: We think the same, like we're scientists and it's an anecdote. Uh, But,
• 40:19
  Speaker 5: you know, they're pretty powerful anecdotes when you are doing this,
• 40:24
  Speaker 5: and I'm travelling around going to different football academies, assessing them,
• 40:29
  Speaker 5: lucky enough to work with these amazing clubs, amazing academies,
• 40:33
  Speaker 5: assessing these players, and time and time again, the top
• 40:38
  Speaker 5: two or three in our tests are the ones that
• 40:42
  Speaker 5: go through. Kai Elias, his... I worked with Fluminense, one
• 40:49
  Speaker 5: of the big clubs in Rio. I worked with them
• 40:54
  Speaker 5: a couple of years ago. He subsequently, he was one
• 40:57
  Speaker 5: of our top performers in all our tests from the
• 40:58
  Speaker 5: under-17 cohort. He's now playing at Shakhtar Donetsk, 17 million
• 41:04
  Speaker 5: euros he was sold for.
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: I guess some of it, to an extent, is also
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: outside of your control, right? You pick out the ones
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: who have the potential, who seem to be, and then
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: what happens after you leave, that you have no control over, right?
• 41:17
  Speaker 5: Yeah, yes, no, totally. And a fair criticism of the
• 41:22
  Speaker 5: sorts of tests we do is we're testing the players.
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: In the now.
• 41:28
  Speaker 5: And we're not really looking at their resilience because if
• 41:32
  Speaker 5: you're a football player and you want to make the top,
• 41:35
  Speaker 5: you're going to have setbacks. And the sorts of things
• 41:38
  Speaker 5: that we are quantifying, it's nothing to do with that.
• 41:42
  Speaker 5: And so we might be able to say they look
• 41:44
  Speaker 5: good given our tests. Whether they keep on coming back
• 41:48
  Speaker 5: from those sorts of tests that are inevitable, it's hard
• 41:52
  Speaker 5: to tell.
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: So how.
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: How would your methods kind of link in with what
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: traditional scouts do, for example? So are you able to
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: test a much larger number of people than they would
• 42:03
  Speaker 3: be able to look at quickly and say, why don't
• 42:05
  Speaker 3: you look at this subset?
• 42:07
  Speaker 5: So the aim has always been, how can I help scouts?
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: Right, okay.
• 42:11
  Speaker 5: And I don't want to replace.
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: So you don't want to become a scout?
• 42:13
  Speaker 5: No, absolutely not. And because I totally respect how they
• 42:18
  Speaker 5: look and assess players, but they have a ridiculously difficult job.
• 42:24
  Speaker 5: You look at the magnitude of Brazil. It is enormous.
• 42:27
  Speaker 5: Is it possible for a scout to be everywhere?
• 42:31
  Speaker 7: No, it's not.
• 42:31
  Speaker 5: Is it possible that so many young kids that are
• 42:35
  Speaker 5: growing up in favelas are getting missed purely because they
• 42:39
  Speaker 5: are not there on the field when a scout's there? Absolutely.
• 42:42
  Speaker 5: And the other side of it is the age effect
• 42:45
  Speaker 5: that we talked about. So how can I develop a
• 42:49
  Speaker 5: method that essentially can help the scouts out? So instead
• 42:53
  Speaker 5: of the scout's traveling thousands of kilometers, I could bring
• 42:56
  Speaker 5: a small cohort of players and pop them in front
• 42:59
  Speaker 5: of the scouts. That would be the aim.
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: And you found that small cohort by testing very large
• 43:03
  Speaker 3: numbers of players.
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 43:04
  Speaker 5: So I'm thinking on the magnitude of 10,000 players.
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 43:08
  Speaker 5: So in order to do that, you need to think
• 43:12
  Speaker 5: about how to structure the tests, which is why I
• 43:17
  Speaker 5: put together tests like the individual tests of dribbling and
• 43:21
  Speaker 5: passing control, because I can do those rapidly. I can
• 43:24
  Speaker 5: get through thousands of players in a day. And then
• 43:28
  Speaker 5: I can start to filter those. And then the next day,
• 43:32
  Speaker 5: we can do the more complex tests that might be
• 43:35
  Speaker 5: something like a rondo or might be something like a one-on-one. Again,
• 43:39
  Speaker 5: pretty fast to do. I can filter through and then
• 43:44
  Speaker 5: get to the more complex games. And they'll be the
• 43:47
  Speaker 5: small-sided games, say three-on-three And then we're getting closer to
• 43:52
  Speaker 5: what the actual game is. And then at that stage,
• 43:56
  Speaker 5: I would want to filter again and then present those
• 43:59
  Speaker 5: in front of the scouts.
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: In my field, I think this is called enhanced sampling.
• 44:08
  Speaker 5: Yes, 100%. Because you don't have time to watch 10,000
• 44:14
  Speaker 5: individuals play a game of football. So how do we
• 44:17
  Speaker 5: sample around that?
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So the sports science world must be pretty excited
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: by this.
• 44:23
  Speaker 5: I wouldn't go that far.
• 44:24
  Speaker 3: But you're starting to get some traction.
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: You're working with some big clubs.
• 44:31
  Speaker 5: I'm working with really big clubs. Whether they are going
• 44:35
  Speaker 5: to adopt these methods or not, it's hard to say.
• 44:39
  Speaker 5: It is the future of no doubt. And the clubs
• 44:44
  Speaker 5: will adopt it eventually.
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: But.
• 44:47
  Speaker 5: It's conservative in the world of sports and football, and
• 44:50
  Speaker 5: I'm pushing up against the tradition of scouts, which is
• 44:54
  Speaker 5: why I say I really want to work in with
• 44:56
  Speaker 5: the scouts and enhance their skills. But no, I haven't
• 45:02
  Speaker 5: had much traction at all, which is a bit.
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: Well, now that you've been on Science of the Times,
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: you know, the traction, I think, for sure will come.
• 45:14
  Speaker 5: I'm hoping so, yes.
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: And so what next?
• 45:16
  Speaker 6: Next?
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: What's the next steps?
• 45:20
  Speaker 5: So the next steps are I'm working, I'm developing partnerships
• 45:27
  Speaker 5: in Brazil right now where I'm wanting to at least
• 45:32
  Speaker 5: have a trial where we roll out testing for a
• 45:37
  Speaker 5: couple of thousand players, invite them in and in the
• 45:42
  Speaker 5: remote parts of northern Brazil and give that a go
• 45:45
  Speaker 5: and then see what talent we can bring back. to
• 45:48
  Speaker 5: an academy. But apart from that, as you know, the
• 45:55
  Speaker 5: science that we do evolves. And all I'm thinking about
• 45:58
  Speaker 5: constantly is how I can make what I do better.
• 46:02
  Speaker 5: I know I've got a product right now that will
• 46:05
  Speaker 5: enhance clubs' ability to find players more efficiently, but I'm
• 46:11
  Speaker 5: never going to be satisfied. I want to be three
• 46:15
  Speaker 5: steps ahead of past me.
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: Well, hopefully when you, you know, when, when you rolled
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: all this out and you come back, you'll come back
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: on the, come back on the podcast and tell us
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: how it all went.
• 46:26
  Speaker 5: Oh, I will be here.
• 46:27
  Speaker 7: No doubt.
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: No.
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: Well, thanks very much, Robbie. That's great that you spared
• 46:32
  Speaker 3: the time to talk to us. And I think it's,
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: you know, it's fascinating that the scientific approaches we use
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: every day, you know, can be applied to sports in
• 46:39
  Speaker 3: this way.
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: It's really exciting. Yeah.
• 46:41
  Speaker 5: I'm, I'm terribly excited about it.
• 46:43
  Speaker 7: I love it.
• 46:44
  Speaker 5: And I spend so much time in Brazil. And what's
• 46:47
  Speaker 5: to hate about that? It's an amazing place to visit.
• 46:51
  Speaker 5: And I love it.
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: Well, thank you very much.
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: Thanks a lot.
• 46:52
  Speaker 4: Thank you.
• 46:53
  Speaker 5: I appreciate it.
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: And thanks for putting up with us in the park.
• 46:56
  Speaker 7: Oh, no, no.
• 46:57
  Speaker 5: Too much fun.
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: Well, so I thought that was really interesting. I don't
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: know about you.
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, me too. Well, I mean, I guess both of
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: us are keen football fans. We're both scientists. So it hit,
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: you know, ticked both of those boxes for us. And
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: to see the two working together was amazing.
• 47:10
  Speaker 3: And I think it's really interesting that You know how
• 47:12
  Speaker 3: Robbie has started his career in biology and has been
• 47:16
  Speaker 3: able to actually take what he learned in the field
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: and take it over to his other love, football.
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he's living the dream, isn't he? He's using the
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: scientific method with the sport he loves and heading over
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: to wonderful Brazil.
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: But were there any bits of it you were a
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: bit sceptical about or not?
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: I think time will tell on how many talented players
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: or young talent is exposed this way, I think. And
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: that's with any kind of scientific method.
• 47:44
  Speaker 3: No, I did sit down with him and he showed
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: me some data. And obviously there's noise around the data,
• 47:48
  Speaker 3: but actually it looked really promising. But I think the
• 47:52
  Speaker 3: challenge he has, as he said, is working against a
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: fairly conservative, old-fashioned system where they think they know best. And,
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: you know, I mean, neither of us have come across
• 48:02
  Speaker 3: anything like that working in.
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: Oxford, have we?
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: Academia or specifically Oxford.
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: Not at all. Yeah. Well, anyway, that was great fun.
• 48:10
  Speaker 3: And then again, once again, a reminder to our listeners,
• 48:14
  Speaker 3: if you've enjoyed this, please subscribe, please like, and please
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: spread the word.
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: And we'll see you next week. And if I'm not here,
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: it's because I've been signed up by Barcelona.
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: Tim will be here next week, folks.
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: Goodbye.