FROM SIMULATION TO REALITY: SPORTS ANALYTICS PROFESSOR SID PANAYI DISCUSSES BROMLEY’S UNIQUE JOB OFFER

This is a genuine job opportunity, paying £13.15 per hour. Prospective candidates must win any domestic league in Football Manager 24, as well as the submission a one-minute video explaining why they are the right person for the role to be considered. Then, after undergoing an interview with the staff, the selected candidate will become an integral part of the staff as full-time support performance tactician from January until the end of this season.

Sid Panayi, Lecturer in Sport Analytics at the University of East London, can see the potential of this approach but has some reservations too: “Football Manager involves a lot of different tactical insights and player interactions that are in some cases real life. But in some cases, not so real life. There is obviously some football knowledge that can be gained, especially some of the formation insights, and the training in such player development.”

He added: “It’s as good as a football simulation you can get, but, at the end of the day, it’s a football simulation.”

Football Manager is considered by expert gamers, as well as many football connoisseurs, to be the best sports simulation game in the world. Without directly controlling the players on the field, the user takes on the role of a football manager and seeks the climb to glory by managing an entire team. This includes handling training sessions and tactics, conducting interviews, recruiting players and staff, and managing transfers on a budget.

For Panayi, this opportunity could carry on the trend that’s already happening in football: “Teams are starting to go more data led and getting technologic insights rather than just observational, where what the coaches see on the field is the sole driver of decision making. Now some coaches may use technology to shortlist certain players.”

Over the years, the game has managed to predict through its algorithms many of the so-called “wonderkids”, namely, extremely young talents who as the seasons progressed, would become world-class players. Among these, we can mention various players like; Sergio Aguero, Vincent Kompany and Marco Verratti. Also more recently; Erling Haaland, Christopher Nkunku and Eduardo Camavinga.

But for as many talents as the game managed to discover ahead of time, there are just as many who failed to live up to the high expectations: among them, “the next Pele”, Freddy Adu, Sir Alex Ferguson’s pupil Federico “Chico” Macheda, and for the most nostalgic, the “cheat code” Maksim Tsigalko.

However, Panayi argued that this role could help to diversify the coaches in the country, “UEFA coaching badges are very expensive and they’re hard to get onto. Maybe this gives an opportunity to some people that don’t have all the resources in the world: they can just buy a £40 game off the Internet and learn that way.”

The most famous example of this is Will Still, the Belgian-English head coach of Ligue 1 side Reims, who admittedly gained his coaching experience from the simulation game: but so far, not many have followed in his footsteps.

“These are rare occasions: would clubs hire someone who has done really well in Football Manager but don’t have their UEFA coaching badges?” Questioned the Professor in Sport Analytics before sharing his final thoughts: “There are positives and negatives to this approach. However, in my opinion it should not be an essential criterion for a job advert to be good at a video game.”