Statistics guru Billy Beane could prove to be the clincher when it comes to AC Milan’s efforts to sign Tijjani Reijnders from AZ Alkmaar this summer, a report claims.
As has been reported by La Gazzetta dello Sport (via Milan News), there is fair reason to think that Milan have an unexpected edge in their efforts to sign the Dutchman.
Beane is known for being the subject of the Moneyball film, centred on using stats to acquire cheaper players who can eventually be sold for much higher figures.
He has been a consultant to Milan owner Gerry Cardinale for many years and he actually also has a minority stake in AZ Alkmaar.
This puts him in a unique position to influence the negotiations which could see Reijnders join Milan for €18-20 million. Personal terms have already been agreed upon with the player, which are a five-year deal on €1.7 million per season.
Mr. Billy the magic Beane there’s one thing statistics cannot give you in European football – league differences. He can be all that in Eredivisie. But can he be all that in Serie A as well? See muricans have one top league for each sport. We have many. That’s the reason why moneyball is mostly useless in Europe.
Tbf I’ve heard a lot of promising thing about Reijnders, not exactly the defensive midfielder we need though but as an attacking midfielder he’s very good
He play last season as double pivot (transfermarkt recorded it as CM but if you look at formation of AZ’s matches in transfermarkt record, he played as one of the double pivot).
But I’ve seen some graph statistics and he’s not the most defensive talented player he’s more of an attacking mindset player and is very good in possession but either way I personally think he’s a top player
Tonali play as double pivot but he often move forward during attack, so Reindeer will fit in nicely.
Fair but not sure reijnders has the defensive capabilities and the capability to get stuck in into a tackle like Tonali could but still would be very excited to have him in the team
Do u hate stats (ie weirdly calling it Moneyball) or Americans or both? You know many clubs use data analytics to seek out players right? It’s nothing new. It was less used back in the day hence it was novel when Beane did it but things have progressed now. Also you can model league differences in stats, a statistician worth his salt would be able to do that easily. Matter of fact you can even go as far as club differences within and across leagues
Marco van Basten, the best striker ever, came from that league, same with Rijkaard and Gulit, Ronaldo, Ruud Van Nistelrooy, Jaap Stam and many more great players.
One of the best midfielders in serie A currently Koopmeiners not only came from the same league but from the same club.
Does the player have talent or not, is the only important thing.
It doesn’t matter what league they come from.
Kvaratskhelia came from the Russian and Georgian league and won MVP in his 1st season in serie A
Actually baseball has a lower league structure. Its called Triple A ball. Players constantly go up and down but teams don’t.
Other sports have college/universities which these players are not pro, but it’s similar skillset to a lower league type of comparison. Players regularely leave to go pro.
Stats can actually give an angle you that – if you’ve ever heard the phrase “Bundesliga Tax” (there’s a good Tifo video on it) then it’s based on monitoring players that move between leagues and averaging their differences.
Baseball is very international and they do the same with analysing talents from Japan, Korea or other leagues. Same for how they analyse expected contributions between AAA leagues and the MLB or between college leagues and the big basketball/gridiron leagues.
I think your point is true to a degree, because ultimately they are all playing football, though it is at slightly different levels but these are professionals who train every day almost
so being able to know what specific thing they excell at can allow you to complete a jigsaw which should be successful.
Although luck and form are prevalent in football at all levels
Well if he’s true to his own logic it would mean that he won’t give us a discount as he would also want to maximize the value of the players he’s selling….by said Moneyball logic 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Moneyball isn’t hoping to get a discount because your brother works down at the parts shop. It’s a methodological process which entails squeezing out max values in your favour
Well said.
Hahaha these guys thinking they’re geniuses doing nonsense all day long
Magic Beane* part owner of AZ, inventor of maximizing profits in sports
Jerry* hires him to help recruiting
Magic Beane* hey now that you have crazy money and a hole from Sandro’s sale, do you want my guy from my club so I can maximize my profits?
I’ve heard good things about reijnders and he plays in the defensive mid role so Ya to bring him if we continue with a 4 2 3 1 would be good because we definitely need someone physical and that can cover the defence.
We could use a “new Mark van Bommel”… 😀
He’s actually not good in the defensive phase, I’ve read. Seems like he’s more of an attacking midfield. I might be wrong though. Pioli better work magic.
Jesus…. Enough with the Beane references already… We git it, stats and analytics in everything Milan does now.
So tired of all this Moneyball talk. It’s nonsense. It’s a completely different sport with guys competing in different leagues of varying difficulty. Not to mention Billy Beane’s Oakland A’s never won anything. ANd the whole Moneyball thing was designed to help small market teams be competitive with larger market teams with more money. Milan is not a small market team , they are one of the biggest clubs in the world. Moneyball will help you be competitive, but if you actually want to win trophies you have to spend money.
Amen
Italian club have low income from tv & sponsor compare to EPL club. ACM dont have stadium. You can use owner money by manipulating fake sponsor but since our owner are fund investment and dont have single owner ,that trick cannot be doing