In the beginning

The spring of 2018 was an exciting time. The Canadian Premier League had been announced and teams were taking names for season ticket commitments. I was number 711 for the HFX Wanderers. Time wound to a crawl as I longed for kickoff. I passed the time watching any number of matches from leagues around the world that were close to the level that we hoped the CPL would perform at. EFL League 1 and 2. Copa Sudamericana. Copa Libertadores. And I began to think about what differentiated the teams both within and between the leagues.

Why did a team play the way it did? How did the supposed underdog over perform so many times? Was that player the announcers kept talking about really as good as they claimed? League 1 Ontario was rumoured to be a hunting ground for teams looking to build out their rosters, but what level of play was happening there?

The more and more questions I asked myself, the more and more times I pumped them into Google in the hopes of getting answers, and the more and more times I was coming up with nothing. There was a lot of information and analysis on the big leagues (EPL, Bundesliga, La Liga, Serie A), but detailed analysis and thoughtful prognostication was almost non-existant at the lower levels.

It has taken a long time for me to figure out how to fill the void at the level of the CPL, and I don’t think I have it completed yet. I’ve searched high and low for data,dug deep for insight on how to perform the analysis, and poured hours into learning the basics of some of the tools that are commonly used. What I’m saying is that there’s a long path ahead. One that I’m sure is going to be wrought with frustration; both while learning how to do things, and while trying to get data to fulfill those ambitions.

What 105analytics is meant to be is a place where I will post my thoughts and analysis. It’s where I will strive to answer the questions that I’ve already started to build a backlog of. It is where I’m going to show how little I really know about football and analytics. So without further adieu, I give you 105analytics.