In Episode 7, we couldn’t wait any more: we had to talk about our favorite sportswriter, Brian Phillips, whose weird, beautiful soccer blog Run of Play ran from 2007 to 2010 or so.
In 2008, Phillips fell victim to a classic blunder: he got addicted to Football Manager. His yearlong series on the travails and triumphs of his FM team, Pro Vercelli, is a fun look at a video game that — as a couple of listeners pointed out — has been a massive influence on the soccer nerd world. We talk about how these posts effortlessly probe some of the sport’s most interesting questions and why Football Manager is so important to the story of analytics and tactics blogging.
Blogroll
Brian Phillips, The Run of Play: Series: Pro Vercelli (November 2008 - October 2009)
Brian Phillips, The Run of Play: The Genius of Basketball and the Genius of Soccer (January 2008)
Episode 7: Pro Vercelli