What does football have to learn from Moneyball?

And how it could greatly improve the sport.

Moneyball is a concept that was created in the 1970s by a pork and beans factory security guard named Bill James. An ardent baseball fan, and qualified statistician, he wrote a book exposing baseball’s inefficiencies - Baseball Abstract. In it, he describes how teams should use statistics to try and find undervalued players, and how franchises tend to ignore the most important statistics of all. While writing his book, James focused on one particular metric, OBP (on-base percentage). By using this measurement, he found that there was a direct correlation between a team’s OBP and how many runs they scored games they would then win.

The same can be true in football. While it is not nearly as repetitive or predictable a sport as baseball, clubs can still use this theory to render their transfer windows more efficient. If managers know what they want in a player who plays a certain position, then according to Moneyball, he should ignore all other statistics and only focus on the ones he wants quality in. For example, if a manager needs a striker who is able to run behind defences and finish one-on-one with the goalkeeper, he should focus on the striker’s speed, finishing and dribbling stats, and ignore the rest. 

This  approach allows for 2 things. First, the signing is more likely to integrate better his new club’s style of play. Second, by ignoring unimportant yet popular factors, these signings are often much cheaper than big name stars, yet they will produce the same if not better result on the pitch. 

A few clubs are in fact subscribers to the Moneyball theory, such as Liverpool, Brentford or AZ Alkmaar. These teams are known for punching above their budget with intelligent signings that rarely ever fail. Take Liverpool for example. Even though they only have the 7th highest net spend in the Premier League over the past 5 years (-£253,000,000), less than a third of 1st place Chelsea’s net spend (-£793,000,000), they are currently top of the league and Champions league. This relatively low-cost success has come as a result of trusting in the Moneyball theory, allowing them to make smarter transfers than other teams. Liverpool’s ex-head of analysis, Ian Graham, is a physicist from Cambridge, and inspired an era of innovation using the concepts of Moneyball. This approach allowed them to see things other teams didn’t, which is why they selected a manager who had previously endured an underwhelming campaign, because the underlying numbers showed that his team deserved to score more goals and concede less than they actually did. With this strategy, the following decade was the most successful in Liverpool’s history since the 1980s, winning a Premier League and reaching three Champions League finals, winning one of them. This example shows how a baseball inspired theory still functions in football, and can bring incredible results. 

To understand how Moneyball can improve a team’s transfers, we first need to understand the inequalities that are common in the market, namely international tournaments and teams, age, and leagues. Let’s start with the first. After a major international tournament, teams across the big leagues enter into a wild frenzy of business, desperately competing to sign the best performers. 

This strategy is not only ineffective on the pitch, it is also a huge waste of money. Clubs need to understand that there is a fundamental difference between club and international football. While the majority of club games are league matches, favoring more attacking-minded games, international matches are mostly during knockout-style tournaments, where defence is king. The style of football a team plays can vastly affect how its players are perceived. 

Take Morocco, for example, a team that tremendously over-performed at the 2022 World Cup thanks to its resolute defence. In the context of this team, a defensive-minded player will be placed in a better light than an attacking player. For example, Sofyan Amrabat was heavily courted by practically every single European giant after this WC. Teams ignored that his club stats showed that he was a decent player in a possession-based, but that he was clearly more suited for a "Morocco-like" - heavily defensive approach . 

Therefore, when he signed on loan for Manchester United, it wasn’t very surprising that he didn’t excel like he did at the World Cup. If United had used the teachings of Moneyball, they would’ve focused on his stats that would be important in their team, and would therefore have realized that he was little more than mediocre in these departments. 

To solve this, clubs need to understand why a player performed well and in what context did they play well in? In the Sofyan Amrabat example, Manchester Utd never considered these two questions, even though they could’ve prevented them from making an unintelligent signing.

These two questions are so crucial because if a club is able to answer them, they can quickly decide whether this player is an intelligent signing or not. If the player performed in a context and team similar to theirs, then he is probably a smart buy. If the player excelled in a very different team, then he most likely won’t adapt very well to his new side.

The next main inequality in the transfer market is a player’s age, and this one is intrinsically linked to the league a player plies his trade in. Top teams tend to ignore older players from their own league, instead targeting young prospects from other nations.. This strategy is not only riskier it is much more expensive. Buying an established player who has been consistent for the past few seasons is so much more intelligent than signing a player who had one breakout season, and paying £70,000,000 or £80,000,000 to hope that he’ll continue to do so. The only way this strategy can work is at extremely wealthy clubs who have the means to throw large sums of money at players. In football, if a club signs three big-money stars, and one of them performs extremely well, that transfer window might be considered a success. But in what other context is 1 for 3 a good result? If a stockbroker profited from 1 of three stocks, he would be bankrupt! Why must this be true in football? Look at teams that have abandoned this approach and ignored a player’s age and the league he plays in, teams like Arsenal FC. 

Over the past two years, Arsenal have become one of the best teams in the world, in part thanks to their superior recruiting strategy. Going against the widely accepted strategy described above, Arsenal have signed the most consistent performers from Premier League teams, for relatively cheap prices. 

Take Leandro Trossard (LW) and Oleksandr Zinchenko (LB/CM), both signings that fit this bill. When bought by Arsenal, they were in the prime of their careers (28 and 25 years old respectively). They had spent most of their career in the Premier League (with Brighton and Manchester City respectively. Though they never had one stellar season, they were extremely consistent performers. Zinchenko and Trossard had been long ignored by top football clubs, and by using this to their advantage, Arsenal were able to buy them for a combined £59,000,000. Since then, Zinchenko played a crucial role in their almost title-winning campaign, particularly impressive when inverting into midfield and Trossard contributed to 30 goals in his first two seasons, as well as tying the record for the most assists in a Premier League game. These signings embody everything that Moneyball means: buying undervalued players that have thrived in similar settings, and, because of their age, are being ignored. 

If more clubs adopted the Moneyball approach, two things would occur. First, transfers would be much more original and successful, which would save club owners a lot of money. Second, a probably more importantly, success in this sport will no longer simply rely on money. Gone will be the days of the “Big Six”, or Real Madrid winning dozens of Champions Leagues. Football will gain a new sense of excitement and unpredictability. Poorer clubs will be able to rise to the top using Moneyball, but without it, football is destined for a reality in which money equals trophies.