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The first half of our quarterfinals review, semifinals preview podcast. Brazil were great and football occurred, Croatia executed their strategy and got lucky, Argentina remain a big step more boring than you'd hope and that's a pretty good semifinals preview right there. Support the show
We've got the Netherlands, Argentina, Croatia and Brazil through to the quarters. How they did it, how Brazil got so good with a broken team, what might be some ways for Van Gaal to approach Argentina, were we unfair to Scaloni, a lot going on here. (Part 2 at patreon.com/doublepivot) Support the show
The USMNT won and go through to the knockouts. It was another good game in a good tournament for the USA and so we figured we'd talk about it. Support the show
A scoreless draw, but one that said a number of interesting things about both teams. We talk about the many things the US did well and how this... doesn't change our evaluation of England at all. Support the show
Argentina lost! To Saudi Arabia! And Germany lost to Japan! Both upsets involved a whole bunch of stuff that an expected goals approach would ask you to doubt. So what did they really mean? Support the show
Mike thinks England are going to win the World Cup. Michael thinks Alvaro Morata could score lots of goals. We're coming in hot. Support the show
It's been reported that FSG are looking to sell Liverpool. We take a look at what this means: why would FSG sell now, and what does that tell us about the state of elite European football? Support the show
Is it secretly another Leeds episode? Well sort of. What does pressing look like in contemporary football, how are Leeds a throwback and what exactly are Newcastle doing that is just so good? Support the show
United beat Spurs soundly. What's going on at both United and Spurs that this was not exactly a shocking result? And [pokes Chelsea with a stick] Support the show
Our priors, updating in real time. Arsenal were really good, Liverpool were pretty bad, how far are we willing to go in adjusting our evaluations of these two clubs after another game in line with their performances over the full season? Support the show
Arsenal won a messy North London Derby and we talk about what single-match xG means and can tell us about this game, while City won a pretty silly Manchester Derby and we talk about just how good they might be. Support the show
A lot of great questions! Juventus, Leicester, Fulham, Odegaard, Kulusevski and the North London Derby. Support the show
Potterball begins, Everton are not particularly bad, and we take on the greatest of all soccer questions: what if America's best athletes played soccer? Support the show
Well that was sure something. Thomas Tuchel already sacked, Graham Potter already hired. We talk about the process here (bad!) and the result (interesting, possibly not bad!) and what we are watching to see with Potter at the new club. Support the show
It's been four games, are we rethinking anything? On Aston Villa, West Ham, Spurs, Chelsea, Arsenal and Brighton. Support the show
As Beveridge's Law demands, the answer is mostly "no". But we walk through the game and why it suggests a clear floor under United and the bits and pieces of Liverpool concern that it excavated. Support the show
The analytics pod leans hard into tactics and description in the early part of the season. We begin with a discussion of Arsenal's win over Crystal Palace and their underwhelming xG, and Liverpool's draw with Fulham and their rather more whelming shot numbers. Support the show
Part I of our all-twenty-teams Premier League preview and draft extravaganza. Spurs and City, Liverpool and Newcastle, Brentford and Leeds and more, let's do this. Support the show
Lots of questions! The relegation picture and the promoted sides, our Southampton worries, how to watch preseason football, and Darwin, Vieira and the Primeira Liga transfers. Support the show
They are doing some weird, weird stuff at the Camp Nou. Even if you ignore all the financial questions, the football side of this is a big mess. And they're doing it while the team is still in the midst of an ongoing, if evolving financial crisis. We've got a lot to get into. Support the show
Chelsea are doing more confusing things and we try to piece them all apart. Sterling more or less makes sense but is expensive, and all the rest of it makes somewhat less sense and we still have a lot of midfield questions. Support the show
We dig down into what modern wide attackers are, statistically and tactically, by looking at a variety of players currently on the transfer market. Gabriel Jesus, Richarlison, Raphinha, Raheem Sterling, Ousmane Dembele, and a touch of Christian Pulisic at the end. Support the show
Fabio Carvalho, Marc Cucurella and Yves Bissouma are all at different stages in the transfer rumor to actual transfer process, all generally look like good players that good teams are right to target, but all are complicated to evaluate analytically because of the different tactical contexts in which they have produced. (We also talk about Bissouma's sexual assault arrest and how we think about a less cut-and-dried but still troubling story.) Support the show
City won the league but are making some big changes in their forward line. Liverpool came close but likewise are looking at some retooling. We also take closer looks at how it all went so wrong for United and what West Ham might do to mount another competitive season. Support the show
There has been a whole lot of Premier League drama and we've got you covered with all the analytics takes on it. Support the show
The PL is giving us everything right now -- stakes at the top and the bottom and dramatic reversals and the best teams playing great. We start with Everton at the bottom and work our way up to the title and top four races with a brief detour through Aston Villa on the way. Support the show
The world's most agreeable Everton podcast is back and we are worried about our beloved Toffees. Support the show
Manchester City are going to sign Erling Haaland, for a lot of money. We break down the signing, from the striking division of wages and fees to what kind of player Haaland is and could be, to our questions about his fitness and the way he'll fit in at Manchester City. Support the show
Big game, big pod -- we discuss the tactical narrative of the match, what it tells us about Liverpool and Man City, how Pep got the drop on Liverpool, as well as the unusual initial expected goals numbers and how to read the statistical profile of this match. Support the show
It's that time again! We have a nearly dead-even top four race between Arsenal and Tottenham. It's time to talk about Antonio Conte's high-variance Tottenham and how they got good and what makes them different from the strangely high-variance Arsenal of early this season. And we return to the well-trod ground of, huh, Arsenal are good now, plus some bonus Declan Rice coverage. Support the show
Mike's fave episode in a while! We break down the race to survive -- what's gone wrong for Burnley and Everton, what went right for Newcastle, where do we stand on Leeds' recent turnaround? Support the show
Staff Writer at the Atlantic Adam Serwer (@AdamSerwer) joins the pod for a wide-ranging discussion of his love of Italian football, Roma and Jose Mourinho, racism and fan culture, the politics of sports and more. Support the show
On the one hand, yes. On the other hand, we remain earnestly confused by what Arsenal have done over the last five months despite having no particular questions about the real quality of the underlying performances. Plus a little more Chelsea/sanctions coverage. Support the show
We've been talking about it for a long time and it has happened. Chelsea are now a frozen asset under sanctions and we are here to talk it through, what it means now and in the medium term, what is still left in the air (most things!), how it could be resolved, what it means for football generally, let's go. Support the show
Marcelo Bielsa is out at Leeds in the most Marcelo Bielsa of ways, somehow both on his own terms and against the wishes of the universe. What did he accomplish at Leeds, what went wrong, and what do we think of the hiring of Jesse Marsch to replace him? Support the show
Russia invaded Ukraine and it has a lot of football implications. We still really do not know what those implications will in many ways be but we try to provide some context to help you understand what may come next. Support the show
Title race! Top four race! Spurs beat City and now they're both interesting! We break down Spurs-City for a bit and then consider what this means for the title race (mostly that it exists) and what it means for the top four race, which is a lot harder to sort out. Support the show
Covering the biggest movers at the deadline: Liverpool, Spurs and Juventus. Support the show
Tanguy Ndombele is out at Tottenham. Giovani Lo Celso appears likely to follow. We look back on a number of midfielders that we've raved over before, including the two from Tottenham and Naby Keita, Adrien Rabiot, and Paul Pogba, and ask what happened with them and do we take any new conclusions from these results? Support the show
What is win probability? Does it "work"? What do we learn from a win probability chart about the game of soccer, and would there be better ways to use such charts to explain the game? Support the show
It's an old-fashioned top four race! Have Tottenham and Arsenal gotten good? Why haven't United gotten good? We break down what remains a close race and try to piece together the evidence that something materially changed for either North London side. Plus Chris Wood's transfer, which is funny. Support the show
A bunch of business nearly done or in process and bunch of interesting links. We talk Trippier and Vlahovic, Coutinho and Adama. Support the show
Josh Sargent, the ethics of sports analytics, Wilfried Ndidi and the evolution of midfield tactics, Liverpool's forward targets and more! Support the show
A lot of games didn't happen. Most of the ones that did saw their outcomes significantly determined by how severe an omicron outbreak the clubs playing were going through. Does it mean... anything? We talk City, Chelsea, Wolves, Spurs, Arsenal and Liverppol. Support the show
The omicron variant is spreading rapidly in Europe and the US. Tottenham and Manchester United have had to cancel matches because of outbreaks that may not have been omicron but regardless are a model of what we expect to see in sports over the next month. So what is the omicron variant? What are the likely outcomes for European soccer and you know, the world and stuff? Support the show
It's been a very short time since Steven Gerrard, Antonio Conte and Eddie Howe took over their new clubs. It's been even less time since Ole Gunnar Solskjaer left United and Ralf Rangnick took over. There are early indications of potentially significant managerial effects in the numbers of Spurs and Villa, and less so at Newcastle. What does this mean? How do we look at performance and tactical indicators in very small samples when evaluating clubs and managers? Support the show
United have a new manager and a new... consultant? We look at Rangnick's limited but striking statistical profile over the last decade and the style of pressing that is evident in the numbers. And then we ask, what will he do with a United squad that is significantly but also clearly not entirely a good fit for this pressing style? Support the show
Things finally went so bad at United that Ole is out but it's not clear any of the underlying problems are solved. Arsenal got whooped and we're on the aggregates beat again. And have Chelsea turned it around (yes, we know they're in first place but unlike with Arsenal, there's a real underlying stats story here). Support the show
We know a lot about quality of teams in the Premier League. We also know there's a lot we don't know. Trying to nail down our questions and our uncertainties about Liverpool, Chelsea, West Ham and Manchester United. Support the show
Tottenham have a new manager. He's real good at managing. What do we expect to see from Conte at Spurs (hint: he's not precisely a "defensive manager" as many PL fans have known him) and just how good is this Tottenham talent that will suddenly have an elite manager in charge of them? Support the show
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