In the last chapter of her PhD thesis Lotte Bransen looked at penalty kicks. Several interesting things emerged. A simulation study indicated slightly higher save percentage if the goalkeeper did not always align directly in the center of the goal. 1/5

📝 dtai.cs.kuleuven.be/sports/blog/... w/ @probberechts.bsky.social @jessejdavis.bsky.social

The World Cup's Strangest Trend is Just Good Math

Have you also found yourself scratching your head at the sight of kick-offs at the 2026 World Cup? Instead of passing the ball backward to…

dtai.cs.kuleuven.be

🥾⚽️ As noted by, e.g., @zonal-marking.bsky.social a strange trend of the 2026 World Cup is teams deliberately booting the ball out of play from kick-off. With the @royalbelgianfa.bsky.social we looked into this in 2024 for the @statsbomb.com conference.

⚽➡️🧠 It’s a only small step from soccer analytics to Parkinson’s research… Over the past years, I collaborated on a project to improve how we understand Parkinson’s disease. It’s now published in Nature Communications: www.nature.com/articles/s41... Curious how soccer fits into this? Read on 👇

Our 2026 World Cup predictions are live! 🔮 🇪🇸 Spain (24%) is the clear favourite, followed by 🇦🇷 Argentina (17%), 🇫🇷 France (11%), 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 England (7%) and 🇧🇷 Brazil (5%). Explore every team’s path to the final in our interactive 👇 w/ @jessejdavis.bsky.social dtai.cs.kuleuven.be/sports/world...

If you are interested in Bayesian analysis and the Bayesian framework in general (which you should imo) I've put together an open course on coursera. Check it out here: www.coursera.org/specializati... #Bayesian #MachineLearning #DataScience

What if you could simply “prompt” a model with a few shots and get accurate xG predictions? #TabPFN is making waves on academic benchmarks. We tested how it handles a real-world sports analytics problem. w/ Timo Martens & @jessejdavis.bsky.social dtai.cs.kuleuven.be/sports/blog/...

Tabular Foundation Models for xG: Can TabPFN Score Without Training?

For years, the answer to “what’s the best model for expected goals (xG)?” has been boringly consistent: a carefully tuned XGBoost model…

dtai.cs.kuleuven.be

⏳ The submission deadline for our MLSA workshop is coming up soon: June 5, 2026 (just two weeks away)! Don’t miss the chance to share your ongoing research ideas or recent work on Sports+AI!

Pieter Robberechts@probberechts.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Our Workshop on Machine Learning and Data Mining for Sports Analytics (MLSA) will happen again as part of @ecmlpkdd.org! 📅 7 or 11 Sept 2026 📍 Naples, Italy 📝 Submissions due 5 June 2026 \w @hugoriosneto.bsky.social @azimmermdm.bsky.social & Maaike Van Roy dtai.cs.kuleuven.be/events/MLSA26/

This is a reminder that you can still register for our #socceranalytics symposium. We have a great set of speakers! www.kuleuven.be/liss/events/...

Our Workshop on Machine Learning and Data Mining for Sports Analytics (MLSA) will happen again as part of @ecmlpkdd.org! 📅 7 or 11 Sept 2026 📍 Naples, Italy 📝 Submissions due 5 June 2026 \w @hugoriosneto.bsky.social @azimmermdm.bsky.social & Maaike Van Roy dtai.cs.kuleuven.be/events/MLSA26/

MLSA 2026

13th Workshop on Machine Learning and Data Mining for Sports Analytics at ECML/PKDD 2026

dtai.cs.kuleuven.be

Don't miss the deadline for the LISS Football Analytics Symposium! Here are 3 reasons to get that abstract in 👇 1️⃣ Make an impact: Present your work directly to club analysts 2️⃣ Low effort: 2-page abstract (published research welcome!) 3️⃣ Learn from 4 of my favourite speakers on soccer analytics

Jesse Davis@jessejdavis.bsky.social · 5mo ago

⚽Call for Abstracts ⚽ The abstract submission for the Leuven Institute of Sport Science’s #FootballAnalytics Symposium closes this Thursday, Feb 26 @ 17:00 CET The symposium is on April 23rd. Speakers include @unravelsports.bsky.social and Pascal Bauer (DfB) www.kuleuven.be/liss/events/...

We’re recruiting for a Data Engineer to join our Research team at Liverpool FC. In my (perhaps biased) view, it’s a great opportunity to join an excellent team, work at the forefront of sports analytics, and have a tangible impact. www.linkedin.com/posts/conorq...

New Vacancy - Data Engineer I am excited to share we are recruiting for a Data Engineer to join our Research team at Liverpool Football Club - this is a fantastic opportunity for someone to be a… | ...

New Vacancy - Data Engineer I am excited to share we are recruiting for a Data Engineer to join our Research team at Liverpool Football Club - this is a fantastic opportunity for someone to be a par...

linkedin.com

⚽Event Announcement⚽ Leuven Institute of Sport Science’s #FootballAnalytics Symposium will take place on April 23! Current invited speakers are Prof. Pascal Bauer (DFB, USaarland) and @unravelsports.bsky.social Abstract submission closes on Feb 26 @ 17:00 CET www.kuleuven.be/liss/events/...

It’s that time of year again: proposals are now being accepted to present at Opta Forum 2026, which is taking place in London at the end of March. If you are interested in taking part, the submission deadline is 9th February. Full details can be found ⬇️ www.statsperform.com/resource/opt...

Opta Forum 2026: Call for Proposals - Stats Perform

Following the announcement of the return of the Opta Forum to London in 2026, we are pleased to confirm that submissions are now being accepted for the event’s annual data analytics competition. For o...

statsperform.com

Continuing the tradition, I have compiled an end-of-year overview of the soccer analytics content that I liked the most in 2025. This edition includes pointers to about 200 resources, including research papers, blog posts, news articles, podcasts, and webinars. janvanhaaren.be/posts/soccer...

Can we measure the ability to block dangerous passes in soccer? ⛔️⚽️ We recently presented our latest research paper "Quantifying Off-Ball Defensive Impact through Cover Shadows" at the Hudl Performance Insights 2025 Conference: 📺 youtu.be/kf6far1Zst8?... 📝 static.hudl.com/craft/perfor...

We're expanding the Club Brugge Football Data Science team. As our Football Data Scientist, you'll work with one of the most advanced analytics infrastructures in football to help management, scouting, and analysis staff turn data into better decisions. jobs.clubbrugge.be/en/football-data-scientist

Football Data Scientist at Club Brugge

As a Football Data Scientist, you will be responsible for researching and developing advanced models and metrics for analyzing player and team performances and evaluating potential acquisitions for Cl...

jobs.clubbrugge.be

IMPECT released a season of public event data! ⚽ There’s already plenty of event data out there — so why care? Because IMPECT’s data adds some really cool and unique features, such as their Packing Zones. And with the new kloppy v3.18 release, it's really easy to get started with this dataset.

IMPECT@impect-official.bsky.social · 10mo ago

🚀 𝐁𝐢𝐠 𝐧𝐞𝐰𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐨𝐭𝐛𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐲𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐬 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐲! We are thrilled to announce the release of our 𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐧 𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐚 – the 𝐦𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐱𝐭𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐳𝐞𝐝 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐚𝐬𝐞𝐭 𝐢𝐧 𝐟𝐨𝐨𝐭𝐛𝐚𝐥𝐥, covering the 2023/24 𝐁𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐚 𝐬𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐨𝐧, including Bayer 04 Leverkusen’s historic invincible campaign.

We’re excited to launch the 𝐒𝐤𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐂𝐨𝐫𝐧𝐞𝐫 𝐗 𝐏𝐲𝐒𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭 𝐀𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐲𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐬 𝐂𝐮𝐩 - a hackathon-style challenge that will bring together the community to collaborate, compete, and innovate using open-source SkillCorner data. 👉 Sign up pysport.org/analytics-cup

Top stuff once again. Bringing validity to the conversation which is too often overlooked in the football analysis space.

Pieter Robberechts@probberechts.bsky.social · 11mo ago

Before an app launches, it undergoes usability testing. Why shouldn't an advanced sports metric? In our latest blog, we propose 4 criteria: 1️⃣ Trustworthy 2️⃣ Novel 3️⃣ Intuitive 4️⃣ Useful Then, we put VAEP to the test... \w @jessejdavis.bsky.social & Maaike Van Roy dtai.cs.kuleuven.be/sports/blog/...

Before an app launches, it undergoes usability testing. Why shouldn't an advanced sports metric? In our latest blog, we propose 4 criteria: 1️⃣ Trustworthy 2️⃣ Novel 3️⃣ Intuitive 4️⃣ Useful Then, we put VAEP to the test... \w @jessejdavis.bsky.social & Maaike Van Roy dtai.cs.kuleuven.be/sports/blog/...

How Do We Know a Metric Is Good? A Case Study on VAEP

In sports analytics, the primary goal is to develop indicators that quantify the skills, capabilities, and tendencies of athletes and…

dtai.cs.kuleuven.be

We can use xG to compute post-hoc win-draw-loss probabilities. Our new blogpost shows MCMC's estimates of these probabilities are unstable, computing them exactly is faster than approximating them, and MCMC's runtime strongly depends on its implementation. dtai.cs.kuleuven.be/sports/blog/...

Expected goals and the Monte Carlo Trap

On a team level, xG is often used to assess the quality of the goal scoring opportunities that a team creates and concedes. That is, it…

dtai.cs.kuleuven.be

Looking forward to the #MLSA25 workshop next week at @ecmlpkdd.org! We'll have some exciting research on soccer, ultimate frisbee, basketball and table tennis. ⚽🥏🏀🏓 Want a sneak peek? The papers are already available on the workshop website 👇

The Carnegie Mellon Sports Analytics Conference is an annual event dedicated to highlighting the latest sports research from the statistics and data science community. Registration for the 2025 CMSAConference is open. 🔗 www.cmsaconference.com

“What if, when the opposition has 11 players behind the ball, a centre-back decided it was more worthwhile to ‘kick for touch’ rather than attempt to play through midfield?” Oh boy do I have a research presentation for you

Boot it: A pragmatic alternative to build up play, Lorenzo Cascioli | Hudl Statsbomb Conference 2024

YouTube video by Hudl Statsbomb

youtu.be

Excited to announce a new paper together with @sigridolthof.bsky.social entitled "Perspectives on data analytics for gaining a competitive advantage in football: computational approaches to tactics". This is a synthesis article that has 3 key objectives www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10.... 1 / 4

🔷 𝐏𝐲𝐒𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭 𝐗 𝐏𝐲𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐚 𝐄𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐡𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐂𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐚𝐥𝐬! 🔶 On December 9th @PyData Eindhoven and @pysport.org will organize 𝐏𝐲𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐚 𝐄𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐡𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟓! 𝐌𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐟𝐨: lnkd.in/eBGWKs3V

Your fave women’s footie analytics gals (@cata-bush.bsky.social and myself, ofc) are at it again! Below is a VAEP inspired breakdown of the Women’s Euros group stages - read to see which players and teams have shown out or bombed (whoops, Netherlands 👀): open.substack.com/pub/beyondth...

5 takeaways from the Women's Euro group stages

The Women’s Euros kicked off at the start of July and Catalina Bush and I launched an online app using the Value Actions by Estimating Probabilities (VAEP) framework. The app is being updated after ev...

open.substack.com

Our Women's Euro 2025 predictions are out! 🔮 Spain 🇪🇸 is our model's favorite to win the title, with Germany 🇩🇪 close behind. Meanwhile, Belgium 🇧🇪 will most likely be eliminated in the group stage. w\ @jessejdavis.bsky.social dtai.cs.kuleuven.be/sports/blog/...

Predicting the 2025 Women's European Championship

The UEFA Women’s Euro 2025 will be held in Switzerland in July. Will Spain capture the title after winning the World Cup in 2023? Or will…

dtai.cs.kuleuven.be

Our Women's Euro 2025 predictions are out! 🔮 Spain 🇪🇸 is our model's favorite to win the title, with Germany 🇩🇪 close behind. Meanwhile, Belgium 🇧🇪 will most likely be eliminated in the group stage. w\ @jessejdavis.bsky.social dtai.cs.kuleuven.be/sports/blog/...

Predicting the 2025 Women's European Championship

The UEFA Women’s Euro 2025 will be held in Switzerland in July. Will Spain capture the title after winning the World Cup in 2023? Or will…

dtai.cs.kuleuven.be