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Solidly beaten by Leverkusen in the top of the table clash at the weekend and then a shocking loss away to Lazio in the first leg of their Champions League knockout. So what's wrong? And separately, how impressive were Leverkusen? Support the show
It's another Trivote episode as Grace from the Grace on Football newsletter joins us to discuss Klopp leaving Liverpool, how we expect the search to proceed from here, and why this situation resembles the period leading to Brendan Rodgers' hiring. We've also got Goodman and Grace taking on the question of Thomas Frank. Subscribe for Grace's takes at https://www.graceonfootball.com/ Support the show
We take your questions on Andre Onana and Mark Flekken, goalkeeper stats, why financial regulation has come so late to European soccer, and expected goals modeling. And because the questions came from the Double Pivot discord, many of the questions have already been answered so we also discuss some answers. Support the show
Jordan Henderson has found his way out of the Saudi Pro League and Karim Benzema is hunkered down in Mauritius searching for his own escape. What's gone wrong with the Saudi Pro League? And how is it implicated in much larger economic and geopolitical dynamics and the broad political outlook of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia? Support the show
There is not much hopeful that can be said about the present Manchester United side. But the club is still massively wealthy, a nearly unparalleled cash generator, and they have a new part-owner in Jim Ratcliffe who will now control football operations. What do we think is coming next for United? Subscribe to Grace's newsletter: https://www.graceonfootball.com/ Support the show
The big bets of Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali on their new and innovative methods of running a football team have been tested by another half-season of Premier League football. Where do they stand? What do we think they should do in the January window? Support the show
For the holiday, an unlocked premium episode on the European Court of Justice, the Super League, and the future of the business of European soccer. Support the show
City keep dropping points. Liverpool also dropped points against United in one of the most tactically bizarre matches of the season. Arsenal did not drop points. But now they're both ahead of City, and we take a look at the three teams most likely to win the Premier League. Support the show
The launch of fbref.com has changed public soccer analytics, and we sat down to interview Sean Forman, the president of Sports Reference, about the website, how it came to be, what he learned about soccer analytics from building it, and about their new Stathead feature (stathead.com). Support the show
The Premier League is holding serve so we're talking about a more general subject. Where do you go if you want to progress up the table as a manager? Thomas Frank has done an excellent job at Brentford, but exactly where does he go next and what is likely to be open to him? Why and how has the managerial market changed in the past decade? Support the show
The relegation race, such as it is, is defined by the historic weakness of the promoted teams and the 10-point deduction taken by Everton. We put the weakness of Sheffield United, Luton Town and Burnley in recent historical context and talk about how we remain relatively unconcerned about Fulham, Bournemouth and even Everton despite those teams being in situations that would make them serious relegation fodder in a normal season. Support the show
We are joined by Semafor's Liz Hoffman, who has broken all the big 777 Partners news in the last week, to talk about what she discovered, what her business and finance reporting means for Everton Football Club and what we still have to learn. Read Liz's reporting (and sign up for her newsletter) here: https://www.semafor.com/newsletter/11/15/2023/777-partners-bought-sports-teams-with-insurance-customers-cash And check out her book too: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/669739/crash-lan...
Roman Abramovich hasn't been owner of Chelsea for a while but he's back in the news with a big leak of documents from Cypriot banks where he did his shady banking. We take stock of what these stories actually mean, what they tell us about how oligarch football team ownership functioned, and whether there will be any consequences for Chelsea. On the Video International "trade": https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-67300638 And the football payouts: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov...
Everton, Brentford, Arsenal, United, Bournemouth, West Ham, Brighton, Liverpool and more. Support the show
The Derby gives us the opportunity to do the United pod that's been needed. An impressive win for City (who attacked!) but the real story coming out of it is how bad United were and how fully in line with their performance this season that is. Why is it so bad and can it get better? Support the show
Their numbers are so good. Drill down a little and their numbers are so weird. And this was true last season too except they were weird in a completely different way! What are we to make of this? Support the show
We asked for your galaxy-brain ideas to fix the game of football and you delivered. We discuss proposals to fix video review and the offside rule, as well as the multi-ref system. Support the show
The best team in the world lost again. Does it mean anything? We talk about how City and Arsenal approach their weekend clash, what we can glean from the data about City's attack not quite clicking, and how we think it could get fixed. Support the show
They got a big call wrong in an unusually straightforward way in Spurs - Liverpool. So what's to be done? We talk about what this means about refereeing and VAR, the prospects for positive change and the profound structural limits on organizing toward it. Support the show
Spurs and Arsenal played to a more or less fair draw, but given our priors this leads to different kinds of questions about Spurs and Arsenal. Why isn't Arsenal's attack quite clicking? Can Spurs keep taking these risks in possession? And we talk about the tactics of the game and stuff. Support the show
Caley did an analytics. Talking about Chelsea, Newcastle, Brentford, Brighton, Forest and the bottom of the PL table in terms of their schedule-adjusted numbers. And stick around for the appendices. For reference, Caley's xG table: https://twitter.com/MC_of_A/status/1703908497543356705 Support the show
There's some interesting stuff going on under the hood at a few Premier League teams. Have Crystal Palace's young attackers taken the leap? Can Man City really be this conservative? Have you seen Brentford's xG difference? And is Ange Postecoglu magic? Support the show
Looking back on the window that was. How PSG ended up doing reasonable business, the disaster at Fulham, and all the maybe / maybe not business at the top of the Premier League including Liverpool. Arsenal, United and Spurs. Support the show
It's just three weeks in and there are too many takes about the Premier League. We walk through most of the top teams in the Premier League, look at some numbers, and consider whether there's anything here to be learned just yet. Support the show
We're only two matches into the Premier League season but it's already clear that the new midfield/fullback tactics are creating some wild, Bundesliga-esque matches. What's going on, and is this why midfielders have gotten so incredibly expensive? Support the show
Arielle Dror is joined by Kieran Doyle to talk through all the questions before the final. Have Spain been as good as their stats suggest? How many questions do we have about England's path to the final? How will the two defenses hold up under very different kinds of pressure? And how much violence might there be on Sunday? All the analytics you need to get ready for the World Cup final, plus Arielle talks about what it's been like to watch in Australia. Support the show
Arielle is joined by her colleague Casey Thayer, a former collegiate goalkeeper, to break down the World Cup quarters -- in which there was more than a full share of goalkeeping drama. How Sweden keep rolling, the vibes watching Australia, can Spain play their style and win, England's slow and steady success, and more insight on shootout strategy. It's all here! Support the show
The every team Double Pivot Premier League preview is back and we are working alphabetically so that means Arsenal through Fulham make up part 1 -- the Premier League is quite profoundly alphabetically unbalanced. Support the show
Double Pivot women's soccer correspondent Arielle Dror has the reins of the pod from Australia to talk about the first round of group games. She is joined by Arianna Cascone (@casconearianna) and Kieran Doyle (@KierDoyle) to break it all down. A solid US performance but what did we learn for the upcoming matches? Concerns about Canada, Australia, England and France. Sadness for Zambia. And more players and matches to watch. Support the show
We are joined not only this week by Double Pivot Women's Soccer Correspondent Arielle Dror for a World Cup preview but Arielle will also be providing regular coverage on the ground in Australia and New Zealand for Double Pivot listeners throughout the tournament. We cover the very in-flux state of the US and of most of their top competitors and suggest a few underdogs to watch as well. Follow Arielle on twitter at @arielle_dror. Support the show
Brighton and Aston Villa will be competing in Europe next season despite revenues clearly outside the big six (or financial backing outside the big seven) clubs. We break down the traditional Villa approach, the more modern Brighton approach, and the very projectible young attackers that Brighton will be featuring. Support the show
Szoboszlai to Liverpool, Havertz to Arsenal, Mount to United -- we're seeing a clear trend of top Premier League teams looking to move to systems with more attacking eights. What's going on? We take a little tactical and statistical tour of recent developments in football and explain why this is really all about fullback tactics. Support the show
After a lot of worries about how they might plug the ffp gap, Chelsea found buyers for Kovacic and Havertz in the Premier League and for a bunch of their excess salary in Saudi Arabia. How did this happen, was it a conspiracy, and wait who are Chelsea's good players now? Support the show
The best player in the world, question mark, is one year from being out of contract at PSG and we've got drama. Where might he go, how might he fit, and just how good in Mbappe right now? Support the show
Big day! Lionel Messi rejects both Barcelona and Saudi Arabia to go to MLS. We offer context -- why couldn't Barcelona afford him? why couldn't Saudi Arabia land him with an impossibly large salary, and what does that tell us about the KSA sporting project? And what's going on with the MLS offer? Support the show
Barcelona's bond offering, Saudi Arabia's current account balance -- we talk about the global financial and political context of European football, and why these contexts weigh harder on the game than they do in American sports. Support the show
Drama! Bayern's Bundesliga title streak could end on Saturday. We talk about the frankly bizarre Dortmund team that has a chance to do what no one predicted this summer, and what's gone wrong from Bayern over the season and recently under Tuchel to land them here. Support the show
The Champions League semifinals were a dreadful anti-climax. But it's interesting why they were such. And can anyone stop City? Like, ever? Support the show
Mike Goodman is joined by CBS soccer correspondent James Benge (@jamesbenge) to talk about all things media, analytics and yeah a little bit of Arsenal. Support the show
We got one really live race going but it's a good one. Leeds collapse, Forest bad, Everton bad, Leicester also in trouble, we talk through the teams at the bottom. Support the show
Bad game by Spurs. We break down the set of bad decisions that brought them to this point. Support the show
The 6th and 7th place teams in the Premier League have, otherwise, quite distinct profiles. We break it down. Support the show
Lots of small takes on Premier League teams. Spurs, Everton, United, Leeds, Villa, Liverpool and on. Support the show
It's the hottest thing in owning soccer teams: owning lots of soccer teams. But why is it happening, what risks does it pose to the current state of football, and what do we expect to see in the near future? Support the show
What's going on with non-state soccer owners trying to sell their teams? What's going on with the aggressive non-state money coming in to soccer? What, for real, is going on with Chelsea and Clearlake? We talk to Skanda Amarnath (@irvingswisher) about the baseline state of play in the sports business. Support the show
No, not really. But a lot of interesting questions about exactly how to understand their recent slump, what to expect from this team over the rest of the season, and the kind of fascinating tactical periodization of the City match. Support the show
Yes, Chelsea has a plan! But is it a good plan? We are very skeptical. Support the show
A walk through the entire table besides the top two. Starting with top four, Newcastle and United have run hot long enough to look very good, Spurs and... Brighton are their top competition? It could get settled pretty quick. Support the show
With the transfer window open and big money ready to move, we have been recording player profiles for subscribers, and this is a little teaser of what that's covered. You can subscribe at patreon.com/doublepivot Our Premier League back to speed podcasts coming later this week. Support the show
Argentina won the World Cup! And the match, while it developed into a pure vibes Rocky-style haymaker fest at the end, was actually a really interesting tactical battle before that with Argentina coming out very much on top. We have a lot to dig into! Support the show
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