Liverpool vs FC Midtjylland is the type of Champions League fixture that those clamouring for the formation of a European Premier League want to be consigned to history. For everybody else, it is an intriguing match-up which pits together a club with a rich history and pedigree against an innovative up-and-comer which has made startlingly quick progress.
In April 1999, while Liverpool had Michael Owen, Robbie Fowler and Steve McManaman in their ranks and Gerard Houllier in the dugout, FC Midtjylland was founded following a merger between two clubs in Denmark’s Central Jutland region – Ikast FS and Herning Fremad – and plonked in the second-tier of the country’s footballing pyramid.
Since then, through a combination of innovative training methods, analytics-based scouting and the development of homegrown youngsters in its academy, FC Midtjylland have risen to become a force in Danish football, winning the Superliga three times over the past six years, including by a 14-point margin over the previously dominant FC Copenhagen in 2019-20.
The driving force behind their ascent over the past six years is owner Matthew Benham, an Englishman who made millions as a professional gambler and who since 2012 has had a controlling stake at Brentford, a club considered to be one of the most progressive in the Football League.
Benham has applied principles and methods that enabled him to succeed in the cut-throat world of gambling in the equally ruthless business of football. Using data collated by his Smartodds company, Brentford and FC Midtjylland have sourced undervalued players who fit the club’s styles of play and have developed them into stars.
Brentford could earn £63m in total from Ollie Watkins and Said Benrahma’s moves to Aston Villa and West Ham this summer, while FC Midtjylland have sold players to Celtic, Celta Vigo, Ajax, Anderlecht, Crystal Palace and Borussia Monchengladbach in recent seasons. Ex-Palace striker Alexander Sorloth is a notable alumnus, joining RB Leipzig for £23.5m this summer.
For clubs like FC Midtjylland, players come and go each year, although some to have flown the nest have made their way back, including captain Erik Sviatchenko and winger Pione Sisto who terrorised Manchester United during a 2-1 victory in the Europa League during his first spell with the club back in 2016.
Amid such a constant churn of players, FC Midtjylland have maintained their competitiveness domestically and increasingly in Europe by positioning themselves at the forefront of football’s analytical revolution.
Matches are broken down into minute detail by analysing underlying statistical numbers and that data is used to gain an upper hand over their opponents. A much-publicised example of that methodical approach was FC Midtjylland’s use of a specialist throw-in coach, Thomas Gronnemark, who was subsequently poached their upcoming opponents.
To say that there was scepticism at Liverpool’s appointment of Gronnemark in September 2018 would be an understatement but, as he explained in an interview with Sky Sports in January, throw-ins are consistently overlooked.
“You can watch a match on your TV and a team will lose a ball from a throw-in, and that happens a lot for most teams, and the commentators don’t say anything at all,” he said. “Then if the same player loses the ball seconds later when passing it with his feet, they will say: ‘Ooh, that was a bad pass.’ From my point of view, it is totally weird.”
Gronnemark’s work differs from club to club. As a record holder for the world’s longest throw in – 51.33 metres to be precise – Gronnemark’s talents were used by FC Midtjylland to maximise goalscoring opportunities through long throws. According to Gronnemark, the club scored 35 goals from throw-ins in four seasons while he was working with them.
In contrast, at Liverpool, the focus is on retaining possession from short throws, with Gronnemark claiming that they now keep the ball 68.4 per cent of the time from such situations compared to just 45.4 per cent before he started working with the club. Liverpool have turned an area of weakness that few clubs even recognise into a position of strength.
Although Gronnemark is a freelance throw-in coach, the growing demand for his services has meant that FC Midtjylland has had to find alternative ways of making marginal gains without him. According to former Celtic defender Sviatchenko, they are becoming increasingly prolific from set-pieces.
When explaining that FC Midtjylland has an NFL style playbook comprising over 20 set-piece routines, Sviatchenko told the Guardian: “Other clubs do this. But when you see the data, 49 per cent of all our goals last season were scored on set pieces. They are something our club and our owner, Matthew Benham, sees as a clear point for winning or changing games.”
Given it has filtered into the mainstream over the past couple of seasons with Match of the Day using it since 2017-18 and Football Manager introducing it for the latest iteration of their game, it is unsurprising that FC Midtjylland has used expected goals (xG) as an attacking metric for some time.
Expected goals provide an insight into the quality of chances being created by assessing where shots on goal are being taken from with a view to reducing inefficiency. Perhaps that is why FC Midtjylland have become so proficient from set-pieces by trying to score from as close to the goal as possible using clever pre-rehearsed routines and good deliveries into the box.
That Liverpool conceded twice in the Merseyside from set pieces against Everton after losing Virgil Van Dijk to injury, will no doubt encourage the Danish champions at Anfield.
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from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/2Hv3Tgm
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