American sports fans have long been comfortable talking in the language of stats and analytics. Soccer embraced the 'moneyball' revolution later; the sport was once perceived as too complex to model analytically — there were too many players on the pitch, the game's progression was too random and chaotic to reliably predict. That's no longer the case, and soccer watchers are well aware of stats like xG (Expected Goals) and each match is an opportunity for a team to mine data, whether its tracking data, on-ball data, or even analyzing body poses and movement. Today, we speak with two soccer analytics veterans, Mike Treacy (head of risk at Apex Fintech Solutions) and Joris Bekkers (a soccer analytics consultant). Treacy's background includes a stint in analytics for a Premier League team and he's currently advising the MLS team Austin FC while Bekkers has built software that analyzes raw soccer data and he's worked with the US Soccer Federation. We talk to them about how VAR has affected the sport, how data analytics can capture ineffable things like hustle, how European leagues and the MLS differ in their analytics strategy, and why chess and soccer are not so dissimilar. Chapters: 00:00:00 - How Players Feel About the Rise of Statistical Analysis 00:01:01 - Baseball vs. Soccer Analytics 00:04:15 - The Philosophy of Modeling Fluid Games 00:05:25 - Current State of Soccer Analytics 00:07:25 - Market-Sports Analytics Overlap 00:09:09 - Purpose and Applications of Soccer Analytics 00:12:22 - Evolution from Moneyball to Modern Soccer Analytics 00:16:05 - Handling Randomness and Referee Decisions 00:20:18 - Data Quality and Model Building 00:22:00 - Translating AI Models to Human Understanding 00:24:11 - Real-Time vs Post-Game Analytics 00:26:05 - Cultural Integration: Old School vs Data-Driven Scouting 00:29:07 - Analytical Framework for Player Evaluation 00:32:04 - In-Game Win Probability Models 00:34:16 - MLS vs European Analytics: Portfolio Management 00:39:44 - Democratization vs Concentration of Analytics Power 00:42:02 - Data Sources and Structure 00:47:05 - Player Attitudes Toward Analytics 00:48:13 - The Future: Is Soccer Just Computation? 00:51:00 - World Cup Predictions and Sell-Side Analysis 00:52:37 - Broader Implications Watch Bloomberg Vodcasts: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLe4PRejZgr0MS0Tqk_zQl1LVVTdWuH2Di Watch more Odd Lots episodes: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLe4PRejZgr0OJbRzA6nWybYiThLJd_ouz Bloomberg's Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway analyze the weird patterns, the complex issues and the newest market crazes. Join the conversation every Monday and Thursday for interviews with the most interesting minds in finance, economics and markets. Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots Subscribe to Bloomberg Podcasts: https://bit.ly/BloombergPodcasts Check out more Odd Lots: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLe4PRejZgr0MuA6M0zkZyy-99-qc87wKV Get the Odd Lots newsletter: https://www.bloomberg.com/account/newsletters/oddlots And for all things Odd Lots, visit https://www.bloomberg.com/oddlots #Investing #Markets #Finance #Bloomberg #Podcast #OddLots Visit us: https://www.bloomberg.com/podcasts For coverage on news, markets and more: http://www.bloomberg.com/video Visit our other YouTube channels: Bloomberg Television: https://www.youtube.com/@markets Bloomberg Originals: https://www.youtube.com/bloomberg