When you work professionally in football, you often get overwhelmed because you’re watching games all week long. Every now and then you need to switch off and watch for fun.

However, this is not always the case for Hesham Abozekry, head of data operations at Hudl and co-founder of StatsBomb.

A few years ago, a Champions League winning team that worked with the data company filed a complaint because one of their goals was counted as an own goal and not awarded to the player in question.

Looking at it from a different angle, it was clear that the shot had missed the goal and was only diverted into the net by a deflection. But it is situations like this that keep Abozekry on his toes when watching football.

“I try not to think about work while I watch for fun,” he says The athlete“However, when there is a controversial situation in a big game, I worry because it can open up room for interpretation in data collection. Is it a shot or a cross? An assist or just a ball that deflected off the player? How does this affect the live data?”

The reality is that working in soccer is often tiring, even though it’s a dream job. “The amount of work required to get a complete picture of what’s happening can be quite exhausting,” says Carlon Carpenter, senior video analyst for the Houston Dynamo. When he watches soccer for entertainment, Carpenter is more relaxed and tries to enjoy the spectacle of the event more.

This view is also shared by Jamie Carragher, former Liverpool FC defender and current leading pundit for Sky Sports in the UK and CBS Sports/Paramount+ in the US.

“I would say I analyse 80 percent of the time, but sometimes I just like to watch without thinking too much,” says Carragher The athlete“It’s usually after Monday Night Football when my head hurts.”

Jamie Carragher watches a lot of football (Richard Sellers/PA Images via Getty Images)

On the other hand, Aurel Nazmiu, a senior data scientist at Twenty First Group – a company that provides consulting and technology services to help clubs gain a competitive edge – tells us that he watches live games with less stress due to the nature of his work.

“In general, I try to enjoy games for what they are. That includes being more emotional and less objective than in my day job,” says Nazmiu. “In some ways, it’s a welcome change.”

These individuals have to watch certain games every weekend for professional reasons: Carpenter watches MLS games to study his future opponents, and Carragher travels all over the Premier League because of his role on Monday Night Football.

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For the casual viewer, Nazmiu has developed a match recommendation model that takes into account the quality of the teams playing over the weekend, the potential impact of the result on their final season predictions, the geographical distance and the historical rivalry between them to calculate the final score for each game.

“At Twenty First Group, we have a ‘quality’, ‘jeopardy’ and ‘connection’ framework that allows us to quantify for fans what the best game is on a given weekend,” says Nazmiu The athlete“My biggest challenge as a fan is sometimes knowing which game to watch on a given weekend. This framework helps me decide where to spend my time.”

The number of games each person watches per week varies from role to role. A first-team performance analyst won’t necessarily watch the same number of games as an executive at a data company.

Ali Elfakharany, co-founder of StatsBomb, and his colleague Abozekry watch an average of about five games a week. “I watch any game I find interesting, no matter what league it is,” says Elfakharany, but Abozekry’s data-gathering trips to the lower leagues have changed his preferences.

“When you’re exposed to lower quality football all over the world because of work commitments, you appreciate the higher levels,” he says. “That’s why I focus more on watching the Premier League.”

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As an analyst at professional clubs, you have to watch more games to prepare for upcoming opponents. “I watch on average 10 to 15 games, half of which are usually work-related,” says Jimmy Enani, an intern performance analyst for AFC Wimbledon’s first team.

“Together with the club’s head of analysis, Tom Daws, we analyse the opponents and work on three to four games per opponent. Sometimes we have three games in seven days, so we may have to watch five or more games in a week just for work reasons.”

Keir Starmer (centre) with Dave Jones (left) and Jamie Redknapp during Sky Sports’ Monday Night Football in March 2023 (Stefan Rousseau/PA Images via Getty Images)

Carragher watches seven to eight games a week, as well as catching up on Premier League highlights on Match of the Day. But that doesn’t even take into account the time he spends reviewing certain situations or rewatching games in their entirety. “If I get Monday Night Football, I’ll rewatch one or two games on Sunday night,” he says.

Carpenter says that as lead video analyst, he always rewatches his team’s game — usually twice. “I edit the game while watching it live and watch it again the next day to create a debriefing presentation for the staff,” he says. “That includes adding more team-specific phases that were important, as well as individual development work by creating clip packages for the players.”

Despite these differences, there is a general consensus among respondents for this article: when watching for analysis purposes, they do not use dual screen when two games are running simultaneously; they prefer to watch the game alone and without any ambient noise.

The latter isn’t really an option for those who work in the stadium. “When I’m working during a game, I always wear noise-canceling headphones so I can talk to the staff on the bench. That muffling effect really helps,” Carpenter says.

Before watching a game, some preparation is done to gain insights. An analyst in the stadium needs to set up their laptop to sync event and tracking data to their video feed as soon as kickoff happens. If it’s not their team, they can use a tactics board when watching at home. Another data-focused person can check their company’s data analytics platform for game trends and areas where teams excel, with or without possession.

The most interesting aspect of the observation skills of different people involved in football is that they pay attention to different elements depending on their role.

“I focus on what we can improve or continue to do positively as a team. We can also stress the importance of doing things that add tremendous value to us as a team,” Carpenter says. “At halftime, I try to show the staff some of the key clips before the manager talks to the players.”

(Naomi Baker/Getty Images)

Outside of matchday analysis, Enani studies other teams to expand his repertoire with different ideas from different coaches. “When I watch a Roberto De Zerbi game, I focus more on short goal kicks, the build-up in general and how the opponent deals with it,” says the Wimbledon analyst.

“On the other hand, when I look at Thomas Frank’s Brentford, I might focus more on the phase without the ball and on set pieces.”

For Carragher, it starts with the systems of both teams and then what their ideas are with and without possession. “When players are in strange positions that you wouldn’t expect – that’s obviously the manager’s fault – I try to find out why,” he says.

Rupesh Popat, who has coached in England and Germany and most recently worked as a scout in the Championship, explains that in addition to identifying the phases in which a team is having particular difficulties and thinking about how they might solve those problems, he also understands the roles and responsibilities of each player in the system.

“It is important to evaluate a player’s performance taking into account the coach’s requirements,” says Popat. The athlete“Then it’s a matter of assessing their suitability for the team’s needs and evaluating them based on those criteria.”

It is common practice to take notes and write down timestamps of the minutes you want to go back to. The notes are usually short and are written when the ball is out of play or during a replay. However, in-stadium analysis is different.

“When I’m working, I take most of my notes in the form of video clips that I send to the coaches,” Carpenter says. “I might add a note or two for future reference, but I usually discuss it with them as they watch the clip.”

From a different perspective, Abozekry thinks about the quality of the data to be collected. “I make notes about ambiguous situations that could affect our data collection process,” he says. “Also about situations that could be useful for training the data collectors.”

But it is not just professional reasons that are important to him. Nazmiu also wants to improve his football skills for his regular sevens matches.

“I play football twice a week and I’m often in the No. 6 position. Sergio Busquets was a player I used to like to watch closely. Now it’s Rodri,” says the data scientist. “So I usually like to watch how the defensive player scans the pitch and makes decisions.”

(Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)

Focusing on individual player actions is one way to learn. Fans can get more out of watching a game in different ways and for different purposes, whether it’s to advance their careers or expand their knowledge.

“It’s fun to focus on something specific in a game and watch it closely. It could be an individual or a particular aspect of a team’s play – when do they try to apply pressure? What triggers do they use? How do their wingers and fullbacks interact when they have the ball?” says Carpenter.

“If you do that every week with something new, you will better appreciate the different aspects of the game and also become a more educated viewer.”

Elfakharany suggests that fans should be less hasty in judging and ask more questions about the decisions made by players and coaches.

“I also think that fans would appreciate the level of football today much more if they considered fatigue and physicality as a central function of performance and considered how decisions change when players are tired,” he adds.

Nobody falls in love with football by running models to calculate expected goals (xG) or analyzing corners, but learning newer aspects of the game adds to the fun.

How can you watch football? There are several options.

(Cover photo: Rich Linley – CameraSport via Getty Images)