Applied Football Analytics - Looking at real-world cases

This course explores how football analytics is applied in real-world professional environments, moving from theory to practice across performance analysis, scouting, club strategy, and media. Learners will follow the workflows used by elite analysts, from pre-match preparation and in-match evaluation to post-match reporting, and understand how clubs build data-driven processes to support coaching and decision-making. Through detailed case studies, the course examines how scouting databases are designed, how key performance metrics and ranking systems are built, and how clubs integrate qualitative evaluations with advanced models such as xG, xT, packing, clustering, and weighted scoring systems. Learners will also analyse how clubs assess team performance using Expected Points, Monte Carlo simulations, phase-of-play analysis, set-piece modelling, squad planning, ageing curves, and contract evaluation. Finally, the course explores how analytics influences football media, from radar charts to real-time broadcast overlays, and the psychology behind numbers, helping learners recognise common misinterpretations and build stronger data-driven arguments. By the end, learners will understand how analytics supports tactical insights, recruitment, forecasting, and storytelling across the football ecosystem.