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.
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Episode 51: Gregg Broughton, Chicago Fire FC
Gregg Broughton is the new Sporting Director at MLS side Chicago Fire, having previously held the same role at Blackburn Rovers FC in the English Championship.
Gregg has vast amounts of experience when it comes to player development, squad building and leadership. Prior to Blackburn Rovers, Gregg spent time as head of player development at Norwegian side FK Bodø/Glimt after spells as academy manager at both Luton Town and Norwich City.
In this conversation we speak about factors to consider when constructing a squad and planning for the future, but also the importance of a ‘club identity’.
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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