devinpleuler
Goalkeeper. he/him.
- En route to Houston for @americansoccerinsights.com summit. Really looking forward to catching up with some old faces.
- Reposted by devinpleulerIn the wake of FBref's defacto death, I saw a lot of posts suggesting alternate data sources. Unfortunately, many of them focus exclusively on men's soccer. To measure what options remain for woso, I conducted a survey of the most popular FBref alternatives. What I found is disappointing: 🧵
- The best thing about LLMs in data science is that nobody forgets to label their axes anymore.
- Reposted by devinpleulerWe have an opening on our Data Analytics team at US Soccer for a Performance Data Analyst. This person should have strong foundational skills in data analysis (python preferred) as well as experience in the Sport Science/human performance space (any sport) recruiting.paylocity.com/Recruiting/J...
- When your step count is larger than your sample size. Ahead of the election, I walked 65 km around my electoral district and took a picture of every political lawn sign. www.centralwinger.com/p/getting-st...
- So if Distance is flat, and Sprints are up, that means ... Walking must also be up? There has to be some sort of reciprocal change to the ensure balance. I'm having a very difficult time believing this data, especially after the inflation of stoppage time added minutes.
- NEW with @simonkuper.bsky.social: The prevailing narrative around increased injuries and player workload in elite football is wrong. Players don’t play any more football than in the past. What has changed is a sharp rise in intensity of play. Not more minutes, but each minute exerts more load.
- We’re hiring for a very unique Data Coordinator contracting role. jobs.smartrecruiters.com/MLSE3/744000...
- Reposted by devinpleulerWe're talking football! Well kinda. @centralwinger.com asked if anyone was interested in explaining The Zoo model, so I figured I'd give it a go. thebucketless.wordpress.com/2025/04/01/e...
- First blog post in a while. Tracking data research probably wasn’t worth it until recently. And some unexpected utility of the Hungarian algorithm. www.centralwinger.com/p/tracking-d...
- Lucasfilm should have hired @mikeduncan.bsky.social to do a Revolutions-style accompanying podcast for Andor. Such a missed opportunity.
- Is there a conceptual issue with performing a bayesian update on xG measurements after a shot? The outcome is pretty useful information, and it's a mathematically valid approach. I assume someone has already tried this?
- This is awesome!
- Been having fun* recently** with the body pose data that MLSE made available: github.com/mlsedigital/... Stars on the graphs are a 'phase detection' function for various types of joints *Not always fun **getting ill just after New Year didn't help productivity
- I built 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗺𝗹𝗶𝘁-𝘀𝗼𝗰𝗰𝗲𝗿, a custom React component for Streamlit for working with soccer tracking data. And a blog post on 𝗕𝗶𝗴 𝗗𝗮𝘁𝗮, 𝗧𝗶𝗻𝘆 𝗧𝗲𝗮𝗺𝘀
- You can find the GitHub repo here.
- And a live demo on Streamlit Community Cloud:
- Big thanks to @probberechts.bsky.social – this uses his lovely 𝗱𝟯-𝘀𝗼𝗰𝗰𝗲𝗿 package under the hood.
- First search term of the 2025 (and my parental leave) was “baby ate cat food”, so we’re off to a good start.
- Reposted by devinpleulerThe theory here is that some kind of basic property of “goal probability” is “option-ness” open.substack.com/pub/absolute...
- Big Chances. Gone too soon?
- Reposted by devinpleuler🏃♂️⏪ 🏃♀️ 𝐀𝐧 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐮𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐌𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐧 𝐒𝐨𝐜𝐜𝐞𝐫 It's been over a year now since I was invited to present my 𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐲 metric to a small group of people at a SkillCorner event in Dallas, TX. I've finally put some effort into writing a blog on it! unravelsports.github.io/2024/12/12/p...
- We're looking for a 𝗙𝘂𝗹𝗹 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗗𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗿 on a 12-month contract help us build team performance tools across multiple sports.
- These are some of my favourite "tricks" that I've picked up over the last few years that have been particularly useful in soccer analytics.
- A football formulation of the fermi paradox – in blog post! Where are the new ideas?
- Really cool that these sort of jobs are starting to be earnestly posted and advertised as opposed to purely insider appointment. And posted salary range! The times are changing.
- Enjoyed speaking with the folks at Analytics FC. I haven't spoken a whole lot online about my new role. It's exciting to be working across multiple sports. Learning a bunch.
- New Podcast Episode 🎙️ ⚽ New host Chris Gill welcomes MLSE 's Devin Pleuler for a deep chat about football data. The pod also covers figuring out player roles and positions, and how Devin thinks about and decides on new research projects. Listen here: soundcloud.com/analytics-fc...
- New post (!) – on xG, rebounds, conditional probability, and the need for more storytelling. There are still a lot of problems with how we use this model.
- New (first) post on the Central Winger substack. With thoughts on Player Similarity, problems with current approaches, and a path forward.
- Reposted by devinpleulerI hear people are harking for a former time 😎
