ABSTRACT
Let’s imagine a football club that—despite all concerns—does not mind risks and puts data into the focus of its work. A club that not only trusts the expertise of its scouts when acquiring players for millions, but one that also tries to objectify its decisions with the help of elaborate analyses. A club that constantly invents new tactical tricks based on event and positional data, to astonish the opposition. Fortunately, this club already exists—it’s FC Midtjylland from Denmark. Matthew Benham (also involved with FC Brentford) and Rasmus Ankersen took over the club and “redesigned the club based on a question: what would a football club look like if it had no human eye and ear?” (Ankersen). This chapter discusses the story of FC Midtjylland and their data-driven approach, and also includes an Interview with Lars O. D. Christensen who works at the club and gives an insight into their daily work with data.
