The preliminary rounds of the 2023 CONMEBOL Copa Libertadores came to a conclusion last week. This phase of the competition has some similarities with the UEFA Champions League with representatives from lower-ranked countries eliminating each other first, and the survivors joined by teams from higher-ranked national associations. With a ten country confederation, the preliminary rounds ..read more

The preliminary rounds of the 2023 CONMEBOL Copa Libertadores came to a conclusion last week. This phase of the competition has some similarities with the UEFA Champions League with representatives from lower-ranked countries eliminating each other first, and the survivors joined by teams from higher-ranked national associations. With a ten country confederation, the preliminary rounds ..read more

After seven matches of the “league” phase of the 2023 Argentina Primera División season, we can see some familiar patterns and new teams jockeying for the highest positions in the table. San Lorenzo lead the Liga Profesional by a point over River Plate after the first quarter of the season, joining River as the only ..read more

Argentina won their third World Cup after a month that started with a mammoth shock and ended in not just the greatest and most thrilling World Cup final of all time, but arguably one of the greatest football matches of all time. Lionel Messi didn’t need to win the World Cup to achieve legendary status, but this tournament serves nonetheless as a personal vindication for him. If you look at the basic and advanced metrics, one could argue that no individual, since Diego Maradona in 1996 or Ronaldo in 2002, has dominated the World Cup finals to the extent that Messi did in Qatar. Let’s first tak ..read more

Goiás Esporte Clube, located in the interior of Brazil, are one of the elevator clubs of Brazilian football. Along with Sport Recife, Vitória, and Santa Cruz, they are tied for the second-most relegations from Brazil’s Série A to Série B. América Mineiro and Coritiba have been relegated the most — six times — from the Brazilian championship. I claim that if you look at Goiás’ basic and advanced statistical performance, they should have joined América and Coritiba atop the relegation list. But instead of relegation, Goiás are safe in Série A and will play the Copa Sudamericana in 2023. How? Goi ..read more

Palmeiras are the champions of Brazil — the Brasileirão Série A — for the 11th time in their history. It’s most unfortunate that Athletico Paranaense denied us the Copa Libertadores final that we neutrals deserved, but the Brazilian league title is a fine reward for Palmeiras’ efforts. (And quite lucrative, too.) When I wrote my review of the Argentine Primera, I claimed that this year’s Boca Juniors side was one of the most underwhelming champions of their title-winning sides over the last 25 years. That statement, emphatically, does not apply to this Palmeiras side. They had the best attacki ..read more

Boca Juniors completed a sweep of 2022’s Liga Profesional de Fútbol (LPF) competitions in Argentina: the Copa de la LPF during the first half of the year, and the single round-robin Liga Profesional tournament that concluded on October 23rd. It’s a common saying in football that at the conclusion of a season, the table informs you what kind of team you were, and Boca, having faced all competitors in the Primera División, deserve to be called champions. If you look at the advanced metrics, however, the lingering impression of this tournament is that this edition of Boca is an underwhelming cham ..read more

If the report from The Athletic turns out to be accurate, Josef Martínez will not return to Atlanta United for the 2023 MLS season. After a difficult two years that included a major knee injury, a rocky recovery, quarrels with coaching staffs, and the inconsistency and bad breaks that characterized the 2022 season, a departure seemed sadly inevitable. Atlanta United had already needed to acquire a second striker during the off-season, but if Martínez is indeed gone, the need will take on greater urgency. The pool of players who match Martínez’s goal-scoring ability and production is very small ..read more

This was supposed to be a mid-season check-in of Argentina’s Primera División championship, also called the Liga Profesional de Fútbol AFA, or commercially the Torneo Binance. One thing and then another happened, and before you knew it, two-thirds of the season has gone. It’s time to write that post before the entire season is over. This season’s tournament format is part of AFA’s slow, slow march toward a more manageable 20 team top division (which, believe or not, was once an AFA goal as recently as 20 years ago). There are 28 teams in Primera, and every team will play each other once for an ..read more

At the beginning of the year, I started to teach an online college course on Data Analytics at a four-year university. This was a completely new experience for me as I had never taught a course before at any level. It was work that was terrifying, uncertain, and demanding, but ultimately very fulfilling. I had to manage my own expectations for the course as well as the reactions of the students as they experienced it, but at the end I learned many things that I hope to incorporate into a future teaching opportunity, should I get another opportunity. This post will revisit my experiences surrou ..read more