Data scouting. One of the most intriguing and fast-developing corners of professional football. Most people have seen a heat map. Very few know what a Lead Data Scout actually does on a Tuesday afternoon, or what the method can genuinely explain about a player, and where it hits a wall.
Rodrigo Picchioni built analytics department at Atlético Mineiro and now works at AS Monaco. In this conversation he crosses two worlds that rarely talk to each other directly: the rigour of data analysis and the deeper question of what we can do with data, and what not.
In this episode: what data scouting actually is, how the Monaco model differs from what Rodrigo built in Brazil, and what the hardest things to quantify reveal about the limits of the field. The Moneyball promise — has analytics democratised football, or have rich clubs simply bought both the data and the best players? A provocation from @ThePurist on the felt connection between players and audience that precedes analysis.
The most interesting version of this conversation is not data versus the eye. It is what it means to understand a footballer at all, and whether we are getting closer.
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