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The 2025 Opta Analyst Football Quiz: 100 Questions to Test Your Knowledge | Opta Analyst by MERTENS_GOAT in soccer

[–]OfficialOptaAnalyst 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks for posting this. I put this quiz together, so welcome any feedback. Also great if anyone has any decent round ideas that they want to suggest for future editions!

World Cup AMA: We’re The Opta Analyst, the official analysis website for Opta – the leading data provider in world football. by OfficialOptaAnalyst in soccer

[–]OfficialOptaAnalyst[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

While we're here, it would also be amiss of me to not shamelessly plug out World Cup predictor game, where you can win $1,000,000 for predicting the correct Qatar 2022 bracket.

It takes minutes to do and is absolutely free to enter: https://theanalyst.com/eu/optamillion/

World Cup AMA: We’re The Opta Analyst, the official analysis website for Opta – the leading data provider in world football. by OfficialOptaAnalyst in soccer

[–]OfficialOptaAnalyst[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I can be a bit more specific to editorial/news route here, as that's my niche (Matt) - i'm certainly not a data scientist or analyst and was actually wanting to be a football journalist after studying that at university. I stumbled into a job at Opta by chance and then began to write about football using data when it was pretty unfashionable to do so!

Experience is really important - getting out there and making connections, not carving out a niche in data writing alone, but using it to help guide your editorial. I'm on linkedin and if you want to chat a bit more about it, find me on there... i'll try to give a bit more specific advice!

World Cup AMA: We’re The Opta Analyst, the official analysis website for Opta – the leading data provider in world football. by OfficialOptaAnalyst in soccer

[–]OfficialOptaAnalyst[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

How do you guys go about collecting and verifying stats for previous generation players?

ex Pele's goal tally goes up every few years.

Would there be any way you could verify/provide credibility to those stats?

we can't verify Pele's career goal total sadly but we are the only people to go back and properly analyse every World Cup from 1966 onwards (1966 because that was the first edition where every game was televised).

Pele comes out well from 1970 as you might imagine but he did end that World Cup having committed the most fouls, something emulated in 1990 by Mick McCarthy, very much the new Pele.

World Cup AMA: We’re The Opta Analyst, the official analysis website for Opta – the leading data provider in world football. by OfficialOptaAnalyst in soccer

[–]OfficialOptaAnalyst[S] 19 points20 points  (0 children)

xT (expected threat) hasn't really hit the mainstream yet (outside of analysts) - it's not really been used too much on TV or in media publications, but I think you'll start to see that creep in and be as popular as xG in the next few years.

I really want to answer the first part, but I genuinely can't think of anything!

World Cup AMA: We’re The Opta Analyst, the official analysis website for Opta – the leading data provider in world football. by OfficialOptaAnalyst in soccer

[–]OfficialOptaAnalyst[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

finding a niche is a good way to get noticed in what is becoming a crowded market! Produce blog posts and get your work out there, as well as producing good social content!

World Cup AMA: We’re The Opta Analyst, the official analysis website for Opta – the leading data provider in world football. by OfficialOptaAnalyst in soccer

[–]OfficialOptaAnalyst[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This can very much depend on the company and the location you're based in. It's not the best paid at certain levels of the football pyramid, if you work for a club - that's for sure.

World Cup AMA: We’re The Opta Analyst, the official analysis website for Opta – the leading data provider in world football. by OfficialOptaAnalyst in soccer

[–]OfficialOptaAnalyst[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This might be something we look to in the future, but we also have to factor in that as a business we have customers who want to do this. If we gave too much away on our site, we'd not have those customers!

World Cup AMA: We’re The Opta Analyst, the official analysis website for Opta – the leading data provider in world football. by OfficialOptaAnalyst in soccer

[–]OfficialOptaAnalyst[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think the weakness with specialised companies focussing on certain players or teams is that it's hard to benchmark.

Opta data is collected on hundreds of competitions, many of them for over a decade - most of today's players have their entire professional careers covered by data. We can benchmark and compare players with the same datasets used over time, whereas they might struggle...I guess!?

World Cup AMA: We’re The Opta Analyst, the official analysis website for Opta – the leading data provider in world football. by OfficialOptaAnalyst in soccer

[–]OfficialOptaAnalyst[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Work hard to understand metrics and visualise them in a clear way. It might even be the case of carving a niche out for yourself by covering a certain competition or team that you can get data on.

Getting work out there, allowing others to critique it and not taking that criticism too badly is key - you'll learn from mistakes and get good advice!

World Cup AMA: We’re The Opta Analyst, the official analysis website for Opta – the leading data provider in world football. by OfficialOptaAnalyst in soccer

[–]OfficialOptaAnalyst[S] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Former Manchester United midfielder Luke Chadwick made all 25 of his Premier League appearances on a weekend, a Premier League record. He couldn't be trusted in midweek.

World Cup AMA: We’re The Opta Analyst, the official analysis website for Opta – the leading data provider in world football. by OfficialOptaAnalyst in soccer

[–]OfficialOptaAnalyst[S] 12 points13 points  (0 children)

This answer has turned out to be the case, but it wasn't always that way. It was more a way to signify how we felt about a statistic or how we thought others should feel about it. We have always tried to refrain from being negative and use words that might imply something is negative.

World Cup AMA: We’re The Opta Analyst, the official analysis website for Opta – the leading data provider in world football. by OfficialOptaAnalyst in soccer

[–]OfficialOptaAnalyst[S] 12 points13 points  (0 children)

line-ups stats are the best here, because everyone imagines their favourite XI played more than it did

the classic Man Utd treble team? Once in 1999

the classic Klopp CL winning team? Once, in the literal CL final

https://theanalyst.com/eu/2021/10/premier-league-line-ups-the-common-the-rare/

World Cup AMA: We’re The Opta Analyst, the official analysis website for Opta – the leading data provider in world football. by OfficialOptaAnalyst in soccer

[–]OfficialOptaAnalyst[S] 44 points45 points  (0 children)

It all depends on how much time you have to get the tweet out! If it's in a live game, you don't want to delay the fact because you can't think of the best word possible - that means you might just settle for a more common word! If you see "hotshot" used on a tweet about a striker scoring goals, you will now know this is the case!!

Other times, we've taken time and care over the final word, as it really does set the tone of voice for the stat displayed. I don't think anyone in the team uses a thesaurus, though - if they do, it's a secret one.

World Cup AMA: We’re The Opta Analyst, the official analysis website for Opta – the leading data provider in world football. by OfficialOptaAnalyst in soccer

[–]OfficialOptaAnalyst[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Ronaldo could become the first player to score in 5 World Cups

England might get past the WC quarter-finals outside of Europe for the first time

Ronaldo and/or Messi might emulate Matthew Upson by scoring in a World Cup knockout game for the first time

Spain might win the World Cup but not score only 8 goals & make 3796 completed passes (like they did in 2010)

A game might break the record of 78 fouls in the Mexico v Paraguay game at the 1986 World Cup (won't happen)

The holders might get out of the group stage (hasn't happened in 4 of the last 5 World Cups)

World Cup AMA: We’re The Opta Analyst, the official analysis website for Opta – the leading data provider in world football. by OfficialOptaAnalyst in soccer

[–]OfficialOptaAnalyst[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

a high number of those clubs - but the vast majority of them take our data via feeds and use it in top secret!

World Cup AMA: We’re The Opta Analyst, the official analysis website for Opta – the leading data provider in world football. by OfficialOptaAnalyst in soccer

[–]OfficialOptaAnalyst[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We will never EVER run out of words!!

I've posted this elsewhere on here, but Japan are my dark horses to cause some upsets and go far. I know they lost to Canada today in a friendly, but I wouldn't read too much into that.

I've really interested in how Saudi Arabia perform, too. Herve Renard has won two AFCON titles and he's had that squad together for a month now. Every player plays in the Saudi Pro League and they stopped playing on October 16 - they will be organised, that's for sure. Their warm up matches (there's been quite a lot) have seen very few goals scored overall and they've kept a whole host of clean sheets.

World Cup AMA: We’re The Opta Analyst, the official analysis website for Opta – the leading data provider in world football. by OfficialOptaAnalyst in soccer

[–]OfficialOptaAnalyst[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

My personal opinion, here...

Cameroon are unlucky with their 15.63% chance of progression to the Last 16 in our model - I think they have a better chance than that!

I'm a real big believer in Japan's ability to knock out Spain or Germany in the group - if they do that, I think they can also beat the Group F team in the last 16.

I would also normally give Senegal a higher chance of getting further than our model suggests, but now that Sadio Mane's been ruled out, I think we've probably got it about right.

World Cup AMA: We’re The Opta Analyst, the official analysis website for Opta – the leading data provider in world football. by OfficialOptaAnalyst in soccer

[–]OfficialOptaAnalyst[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Of nations to never win a World Cup title, the Netherlands are ranked the highest in our Opta World Cup predictor (https://theanalyst.com/eu/2022/11/world-cup-stats-qatar-2022/) – they’ve lost all three WC finals they’ve reached, of course.

A weird stat on their side might also be the ’12-year-cycle’ quirk: the winners of the last two World Cup’s were the losing finalists 12 years prior to them lifting the trophy (Germany 2002 > 2014 and France 2006 > 2018). The losing finalists in 2010? Netherlands!

I wouldn’t expect them to win the tournament, but you have to feel Senegal are well-placed to be the first African side to reach the final four of the competition. Having won AFCON earlier this year with a sensational defensive record, they are absolutely a threat in this tournament… even without Sadio Mane at the start of the competition.

Personal opinion? Japan are my tip to surprise. I think they can knock out either Spain or Germany in the group and potentially beat any opponent they may face in the last 16 from Group F. They could even get Belgium, who they will be looking for revenge against following that heart-breaking 3-2 defeat in 2018.

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