Inside soccer’s data renaissance

Jesse Davis, a computer science professor at KU Leuven and head of its Sports Analytics Lab, is leading a data revolution in soccer. His lab, established over a decade ago, utilizes advanced data analytics and machine-learning models to uncover game-changing insights that influence professional clubs' decision-making. While the lab applies its methods to various sports, its impact is most significant in soccer. Davis's team has developed strategies for roster evaluation, assessed tactical efficiency, and created algorithms to identify hidden patterns, such as the strategic advantage of kicking the ball out of bounds near the opponent's goal to set up a scoring opportunity. To validate this seemingly counterintuitive tactic, Davis's group compiled a dataset of over 1.4 million passes and approximately 60,000 throw-ins, including data from the 2022 World Cup. They employed tree ensemble models to simulate the tactic, concluding in a 2024 paper titled "Boot it" that this strategy can be effective when the ball is in the middle third of the pitch. Hugo Rios-Neto, data recruitment lead for Royal Sporting Club Anderlecht, described Davis's lab as the most influential sports analytics lab in soccer.