A certain section of technology experts will live and die by Ray Kurzweil’s ‘law of accelerating returns’. Evolution happens exponentially, the theory goes, for technology as well as for anything. People build on the knowledge of what’s come before, and that knowledge helps them get new knowledge faster. This won’t be a post about that…
100 days after COVID-19 brought football to a sudden halt, the Premier League returns on Wednesday. But, not as we know it. The last Premier League fixture to take place before coronavirus paralysed Europe saw Leicester City thrash Aston Villa 4-0 on March 9. In the months that followed, life, as we know it, hit…
Jack Grealish is one of the most sought after players in the Premier League. The Aston Villa maestro has been perpetually linked with Tottenham Hotspur, Liverpool were rumoured to be keeping tabs on the 24-year-old while Manchester United have reportedly made the £75million-rated attacker their top target for the belated summer transfer window. On paper,…
Visualisations can, at times, be an afterthought in the world of content. They’re used to break up written pieces of copy or to add a bit of colour to social media. People use them because they feel they have to, not because they see the value in them. Because of this, you often see overcomplicated,…
Data is a word with four letters but the way it’s used often makes it feel bigger than that. Sometimes people ask ‘how to use’ football data, as if there were One Single Way or a multi-step programme for how to live a more enriched, wholesome, data-guru life. There are definitely some things that should…
The Data Game series sees Twenty3 speak to prominent writers and figures in football to get their opinion on the use of data and analytics in the beautiful game. To kick things off, we caught up with world football guru James Nalton, who has written for the likes of BBC Sport, Forbes, This is Anfield,…
It’s ironic that Thomas Müller, a man who made a position famous, is now thriving in a role usually associated with Kevin De Bruyne. The Bayern Munich academy graduate is, and always has been, a Raumdeuter. In English, it roughly translates as an interpreter of space. Teams didn’t know how to handle the German or…
If you’re reading this blog post, you’re probably someone who likes, or is at least intrigued by, football data. If so, you’ve made a good choice. You’ve made a good choice because now you get a peek at the work we’ve been doing at Twenty3 to make data visualisations (a many-syllable way of saying pretty…
Timo Werner and Kai Havertz may have, perhaps rightly, stolen the show since the Bundesliga returned. The RB Leipzig forward has added four goals to his tally in the four matches he’s appeared in while his compatriot, the Bayer Leverkusen wonderkid, has struck five times in four matches to continue his fine 2020 form. However,…
The Bundesliga is back and while it may not be football as we knew it before the COVID-19 pandemic, last weekend’s action was – perhaps somewhat surprisingly when you consider the long, enforced break – played to a high standard and an impressive pace. Borussia Dortmund were at their scintillating best as they swept aside…