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Post Script Podcast
Episode 8: Slap Shot
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Episode 8: Slap Shot

How hockey turned soccer's attention to shot stats and luck

In 2011, James Grayson witnessed a turnaround in the fortunes of his local football club. In the first half of the season, Lincoln City had teetered on the brink of relegation from League Two, but then they sacked their manager, brought in some new players, and went on a tear in the winter, winning six games out of seven.

Instead of writing about how his team had saved their season, Grayson, blogging from his BlackBerry, used data to ask a different question: had they really gotten better at all?

In a few short posts, Grayson changed the course of public soccer analytics for a decade, or at least foreshadowed a turn the discourse would soon take. But why was he asking the kinds of questions he did? Where did they come from? It was an invasion.

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Post Script
Post Script Podcast
A podcast about how the internet changed soccer analysis