Course Introduction

The first course in our Academy provides a solid foundation in Football Analytics.

You'll learn all the basics from understanding expected goals to analysing opposition tactics. This learning can be successfully applied to a role in professional football analysis, assist you with a future role or simply provide learning material to help develop your knowledge of data and analytics in football.

This course contains 5 core lessons, each tuition video lasting between 30-50 minutes.

The course is also available in Spanish at cursos.statsbomb.com.

Watch Intro Video

Watch to find out what's included

in our Introduction to Football Analytics course

Course contents

  • 2

    Expected Goals

    • Before we begin - Guess the xG

    • Expected Goals with James Yorke

    • Guess the xG again

  • 3

    Types of Attack

    • Types of Attack with James Yorke

  • 4

    Set Pieces

    • Set Pieces with StatsBomb CEO, Ted Knutson

  • 5

    Defensive Choices

    • Defensive Choices with James Yorke

  • 6

    Team/Opposition Analysis

    • Team/Opposition Analysis with James Yorke

  • 7

    Wrap up

    • That's a wrap

  • 8

    Course survey and resources

    • End of course survey

    • Useful post-course resources

Start your course today

£60 inclusive of any relevant taxes

StatsBomb Course Instructors

Director of Football at StatsBomb

James Yorke

James has been involved with StatsBomb since 2014, first as a writer and then as Managing Editor between 2015 and 2018. In his current role, he oversees StatsBomb’s football operations and adds analytical and sport-specific context to the StatsBomb IQ and IQ Live products. James enjoys most sports in his free time, at least from a non-participation angle, and is content with his semi-rural existence.

Co-Founder at StatsBomb

Ted Knutson

Ted has decades of leadership experience spanning sports betting and data analytics. Before founding StatsBomb he worked at Pinnacle, Brentford FC and FC Midtjylland.

FAQs

  • Who is the course for?

    The introduction course is designed to be accessible to everyone and teaches you the basics of data analytics in football. You don’t need to work in professional football or have advanced statistical knowledge. A basic understanding of football and statistics is useful.

  • How does the course work?

    It’s very simple. You will need to create an account on our courses website, then you can watch the course videos at a time that suits you. There are some exercises to complete during the course which you can also do at your leisure, there’s no need to send these back to us, they are for you to test your learning.

  • How long is the course?

    There are 5 modules, each lasting about 40 minutes.

  • How much does the course cost?

    It’s £60 inclusive of any relevant taxes for all 5 modules, payable before you start. No student discounts or refunds available.

  • Who should I contact if I have questions?

    You can email [email protected] with any questions about the course.

  • Are there any technical requirements to access the course?

    This is a web based course - we recommend using Chrome but it also works on Safari. We recommend watching the videos in 1080p - you can set the video resolution in your settings when watching each video (bottom right hand corner of your screen). There are no particular tools or software introduced in this course. However at the end we do link to some of our existing resources for getting started with data (especially our R/python packages).

  • Does the course expire?

    No it doesn't. Once you've paid for the course you can access it whenever you like and we won't take the course away.

  • Will I get a certificate when I complete the course?

    Yes you receive a StatsBomb certificate of completion once you finish the course.

  • My company is paying for the course, can I get an invoice?

    If your company is paying for the course we can arrange an invoice in advance and once payment is received we will provide access to the course. To request an invoice please email [email protected] including the following details below; Course Required, Business Name, Address and VAT number to be included on the invoice. Please note that we cannot provide B2B invoices retrospectively if not indicated in advance, as payment is processed as a B2C transaction.

Football data and analytics excellence

Reviews

Read reviews from customers who have completed this course

5 star rating

Fantastic introduction to football analytics

Douglas Hagey

I probably can't overstate how much I learned from this course. Not only from the amount of detailed material covered but, perhaps more importantly, how it g...

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I probably can't overstate how much I learned from this course. Not only from the amount of detailed material covered but, perhaps more importantly, how it got me thinking more about the possible usage and ways of using analytical football data. Whether you're a football professional, aspiring to be one, a fantasy football fan, or just a plain lover of football, you will find valuable nuggets of information in this class

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5 star rating

Great way to get started with football analytics!

Bas Stegehuis

A good place to start if you're new to football analytics, but also useful if you're already familiar with some of the concepts. Definitely worth the money f...

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A good place to start if you're new to football analytics, but also useful if you're already familiar with some of the concepts. Definitely worth the money for me

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5 star rating

A Great Introduction

Paul Olson

This course was a really great primer for those looking into how to think about analytics in the world of football. While staying away from anything that req...

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This course was a really great primer for those looking into how to think about analytics in the world of football. While staying away from anything that requires a Masters in Data Science, James and Ted do a really great overview of how teams are starting to look at integrating data into their decision making. Excited for more!

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5 star rating

Excellent Introduction

Gareth Young

Really good from start to finish, detailed, engaging and very well presented. Hoping for more online learning in the future

Really good from start to finish, detailed, engaging and very well presented. Hoping for more online learning in the future

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star rating

5 star rating

Fantastic introduction to data analytics in football

Oliver Davies

As somebody with a lot of interest in football but no experience in data analytics, this course opened up a new way for me to look at football. Would definit...

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As somebody with a lot of interest in football but no experience in data analytics, this course opened up a new way for me to look at football. Would definitely recommend this course to anybody who is interested in the statistics behind football and how to make them useful.

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