Tofa Fakunle is currently the assistant General Manager at Canadian Premier League cub, Cavalry FC.
Before this current role, he was the football operations manager at the same club, and then before that, a professional player.
Based in Calgary, Cavalry FC are one of 8 teams that compete in CPL, which is a relatively new league, having only started in 2019. The league is the only professional league in Canada, which offers a lot of potential to grow, especially with the World Cup arriving in 2026.
In this conversation we speak about how Tofa has to look after and manage the clubs’ budgets, the rules set by the leagues around squad building, and how Tofa and his team source players, for free, from all over the World.
We touch on data, the MLS, and a bit more on the overall football landscape within Canada.
Timestamps
0:00 – Introduction
1:28 - Tofa joins and gives some background
3:47 – Transitioning from player to front office, roles & responsibilities
7:55 – Transfer window and season timeline
10:41 – Access to data and spending rules
14:56 – Recruiting players from around the World
18:26 – The landscape of football in Canada & North America
24:25 – Cavalry FC squad profile
28:18 – Rules around building a roster
31:57 – Networking and working with agents
33:38 – Team culture
35:40 – Trading players for profit, thinking long-term
42:59 – Future thoughts on soccer in Canada
46:24 – Summary and wrap up
You can also see more of Chris chatting to analytics professionals over on his podcast too, right here: https://www.youtube.com/@chrisgill_UK
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Episode 55: Ricardo Moreira, Orlando City
Ricardo Moreira currently is General Manager and Sporting Director at MLS club Orlando City SC.
Now in his 7th year at Orlando, Ricardo joined from another MLS side, Columbus Crew, as Orlando's head of recruitment. Ricardo is highly knowledgeable when it comes to building squads around the constraints and regulations that MLS sides must contend with.
In this conversation we touch on a few of those aspects such as allocating playing budgets accordingly and getting the right balance of youth and homegrown players.
We then go on to talk about scouting around the world and how Ricardo uses his South American background to find great success there, as well as data, and promoting youth. A great insight into what goes on behind the scenes of an MLS team when trying to construct a competitive squad.
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Episode 54: Ryan Beal, Sentient Sports
Ryan Beale is the CEO and co-founder of sports AI company Sentient Sports.
After completing a degree in computer science, Ryan went on to do a PhD in Artificial Intelligence. Like many others, he was very keen to combine this skillset with his passion of football and one of the first ways he did this was via Fantasy Football.
From there, Ryan raised capital to fund his startup, and now Sentient Sports is working on some really interesting tech being used by professional clubs and organisations.
In this conversation we speak about different types of artificial intelligence and how this is having an impact of professional sports. We highlight scouting, decision making and how certain jobs are changing within the industry.
Ryan also shares a little more on GuardianAI, a tool that the Sentient team is working on that detects online abuse, in real time, that is being directed at athletes and officials. Just another cool application of how AI technology can add to the sporting world
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Episode 53: Nikos Overheul, formerly Vancouver Whitecaps, Statsbomb, Brentford FC
Nikos Overheul is an experienced football scouting and strategy professional who has spent time working with various clubs around the world.
Nikos was actually involved with Brentford FC in the early days of their data revolution and since then, spent time with Statsbomb, and Vancouver Whitecaps in the MLS.
As well as this, Nikos has also operated as a consultant, aiding teams in their recruitment and alignment towards longer term goals.
In this conversation I ask Nikos about some of the intricacies that come with working in the MLS, how he thinks about risk and reward, and I pitch him a hypothetical job to try to better understand Nikos’ thought process when working with a new club.
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Episode 52: David Ray, Plymouth Argyle
David Ray is currently Head of Finance at Championship football club, Plymouth Argyle.
His role is a really interesting one, as it seems he is much more involved with the typical performance and recruitment aspects of the club that a typical head of finance would be elsewhere.
David speaks about the transfer committee they have, how they model and forecast the club’s income to ensure they can remain sustainable and how the club has been clever to diversify their assets.
Plymouth actually went into administration back in 2011 so to now see them competing in the Championship is great to see. Their budget is definitely one of the smallest in the league and David speaks about the challenges that this brings, but how it also forces them to be creative.
Ultimately the goal is to be a sustainable football club that can produce a squad that can compete. We all know the importance of getting recruitment right, but this chat hopefully shows you how a club thinks about optimising income to invest in squad building.
Analytics FC is a football podcast looking at the beautiful game in a different light.
Each episode, we’re joined by a guest from the world of football analytics to talk about the ways we can use numbers, statistics and data to better understand the sport.
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