Alex Scanlon is a Men’s Performance Analyst at The Football Association, where he has been working with development groups since 2017. Alex joined The FA as part of the 2016 initiative to invest in winning England teams by significantly expanding the technical groups that support the various squads. Prior to that, he was a Performance Analyst for Everton’s first team before spending three and a half years working across most age groups in West Bromwich Albion’s academy. Alex tells us about his pathway to become a Performance Analyst for England.
Tell us about your background. What made you want to become a Performance Analyst?
I never really played football recreationally or at a higher level growing up. Only at times, but I never played at a club standard. When I went to college I did play in a national college league, but even though I played often and enjoyed it, I was never that interested in or loved playing. I was always more interested in the other side of the game; the coaching side.
I took my first coaching session when I was 14 years old, when I was still in school. My dad was a primary school teacher and I helped him out a few times at first, then started helping him out more regularly. By the time I was 16 I had my first little under 7s group of players that I would coach every week. I started doing lots of coaching and really started to enjoy the coaching side of football.
I live in Liverpool, where there are two big clubs around. The recruitment of players at that young age is quite tight. Most people from these two clubs are after the same players all the time. Somehow, we managed to get a good group of young lads in our team. Everton asked us to scout for them, gave us a kit and said “if you get any good young players, can you send them to us?”. So I started doing that as well. I managed to get into Everton’s academy and did a bit of development-centered coaching there.
I left school at the start of six form. I hated academics at that age. I wanted a to be more practical, so I left school and went to college to do a Sports Performance course. It was ok. Then off the back of that, I went to Liverpool John Moores University where I did their Science & Football course. It was only there that I started to see the opportunities in football. I got my first role holding a camera and filming games through John Moores University, filming Premier League tournaments. In my final year of the three-year course, I did a part-time internship at Everton with their first team. I was lucky to get that role and do it alongside my third year of studies.
Every year, John Moores University places an intern at Everton’s first team through their programme. I was working with Steve Brown and Paul Graley, who is still at the club. It wasn’t really working at the frontline; it was more working in the background supporting databases and doing that sort of work. It was still within the team’s environment where you could listen to the conversations and see how Steve and Paul worked and got involved on match day. I was also able to travel with the under 18s. I got to travel to a couple Youth Cup games. It was a really good experience, although I think didn’t maximise it when I reflect back on it now. I didn’t get as much out of it as I probably should have. I didn’t put enough into it as I was also trying to do the third year at the university at the same time. Maybe I wish I had asked more questions, studied the work a lot more or reflect a little more about things when I was at Everton. But it was a really good experience at the same time, I took lots from it.
After Everton, an opportunity came to work at West Bromwich Albion via the person that had done that same role at Everton two year prior. They had managed to get a job at West Brom and they knew that the pathway I had been on through John Moores University could be trusted. They knew the type of person that Everton would employed and that John Moores University educates, so they trusted that pathway. The role at West Bromwich Albion was a full-time internship. I moved down there and was living on small wage.
West Brom are really good at moving people up. You start at the bottom and work your way up very quickly. They don’t tend to replace; they try to promote from within so that when someone leaves they bump up from inside the club. For the first 5 to 6 months, I started my weeks doing the under 9s on a Monday, then under 12s on a Tuesday and he under 17s during the day if they were out of school. Eventually, the under 18s analyst moved on and I was given the opportunity to move up quite quickly. I went from doing under 9s to the under 16s programmes, to then do the under 18s and then being the under 23s analysts quite quickly. For most of the 3 and a half years I was at West Brom, I was working with the under 23s team, which is a bit like the first team these days. It was a very good experience, different to Everton as I was in the frontline delivering every game to coaches and players. Another good thing about a club like West Brom is that you end up doing a little bit of everything. You can do some first team stuff, or you can do some support work with the under 18s if they need it. It is quite a small staffed club. I ended up doing a lot of work, which was great for a first full-time job to get that kind of experience and it gave me a good skillset.
After 3 and a half years at West Brom, an England role came up. I applied to it and was successful after the second interview. England were expanding at the time. In 2016, their technical director said that as part of a new strategy everything that looked after the football side (coaching, education, team operations, performance, etc.) was expanding massively with big investments into that area. Winning England teams was a big objective, and putting the structure and the staff around those teams was part of that expansion. As part of that initiative, I applied to the role at the FA and have been there since the start of 2017. The England teams’ development staff was expanding massively. Rather than England using 5 or 6 analysts who go on the road all the time with different teams, they now have an analyst with every age group who can really get down into the detail on that age group, as well as working in other projects.
I am now a Men’s Performance Analyst. I work primarily with the development teams, but the role evolves all the time. The last 12 months we have barely been away with the teams. The senior team have played a lot of games, so instead we’ve done a lot of background work for them. Previously, the first 2 to 3 years I was here, we were on the road with the teams quite a lot. That was our primary focus. I’ve done camps with the under 17s, under 18s, under 19s, under 20s and I also did the under 21s European Championship. I’ve also done lots of background and support work for the seniors. That’s what the resources that we have in our department now can afford to do. Even though we try to fix an analyst with an age group to try build relationships with the coaches, if the under 19s were at a final of a tournament, any analyst that is free because, let’s say, the under 18s haven’t got a camp, those analyst would focus on supporting the under 19s at that tournament. If the under 21s are on a tournament we would put the support that way instead, behind the analysts that are on the ground with that team and support them with opposition analysis, game reviews and all of that.
That’s my pathway. I was always interested in coaching and education to develop players rather than playing. The two main parts of my pathway are the work experience from college and university experience and then the coaching side of things.
What is your main highlight in your Performance Analysis career?
My main highlight is the first 12 months that I was at England. We had an unbelievably successful 12 months with the development groups. I was lucky enough to go to 3 of the 4 tournaments that we won. That year, the under 20s won the World Cup, the under 17s won the World Cup, the under 19s won the European Championship and we had a hybrid under 20s groups also won, and I managed to go to three of them. That was definitely an unbelievable year in terms of results and emotions. Professionally for me, it was also an eye opener. I developed a lot that year. I learned how to work differently and in an international setting. It was not only successful for the teams that I worked with but my development and experiences went through the roof.
You may look at international football and think that it has only got 10 games a year, but that year I did 3 major tournaments, about 27 games along the road for 200 days of the year. There was so much to learn from that year. I developed a lot mainly around the analysis process. Working in a club is a different kettle of fish. You’ve got your equipment at the club and you just take what you need to the game and then it comes back to the club. Whereas with England, we went to India for 5 weeks with the under 17s and we had to take everything that we might need with us. Logistically it was a big planning operation. We also were two analysts that went out to India so we had to plan how we would work together, how we would fit in the tech groups in the squad, how we would work every day, how we would provide information to the players, how we would get the players to think about what we would want them to think about, how we would get them to talk, etc.
At a club, you get stuck in the game cycle. You are constantly preparing for the next game. Whereas for India, we were able to plan 2 to 3 months in advance and get really into the detail of what we were going to do and how we were going to work. That level of detail that we went through was a massive eye opener for me. We were very well prepared and missed no training sessions. We were so ahead of the curve in terms of preparation that the next morning after the game we could watch our game back, we could feedback and talk to the players and coaches and we could then watch the next opposition very quickly, also because we had that support coming from back home. We were able to do matchday+1, so that next time we train with the players we were preparing and learning way ahead of schedule.
At West Brom, I was delivering stuff on a Thursday afternoon for a Saturday game, which when I look at it now, I think “how did that ever work? It is too late to deliver something”. England was a big jump in level for me. At West Brom, you work day to day, game to game, but you don’t get a chance to take a step back and think “are we doing the right thing? Is this the best way of doing things? Are we maximising what we’ve got?”. Whereas with England you definitely get that opportunity to reflect. You definitely have to prepare and make sure you are on it, because you will get tested. Operationally, England was another level.
The intensity with England peaks and drops a lot more compared to a club, where it is a bit more levelled. At a club, you have a more stable level of intensity and get by and have an impact game by game, week by week. However, the intensity during a tournament with England goes through the roof because you are still expected to deliver at a high level. The intensity is mad on camp, specially the turnaround. It is so important for us to be ready for the next game having learned and reviewed the previous game. You don’t get 6 or 7 days that you would get in a club. Instead you get 2 days in between games. If you win the semi-final you’ve got to prepare the final straightaway, on top of the travel to change venues and locations. We were flying across India in our travel days and had to think about how we maximise that travel time. The intensity at international level when it peaks, it really peaks.
What are the most challenging aspects of being a Performance Analyst?
For us with England we try to change the way analysts are viewed. We want to come away from just doing the clips, the codes and the filming to really have a real impact. That is not to say that analysts don’t have an impact, of course they do. We just wanted to shape our roles to come out of that traditional view of an analyst a little. When previously there were 5 or 6 analysts constantly going around the different age groups, we now want to have a real focus and build a technical group of staff that include coaches, analysts and performance coaches to really have an impact in each group. We don’t want to just provide information to coaches, we want to challenge them and give them more informed insights. We give them better information, and if they disagree with it, it is fine. If you disagree with them, it is also fine. With England there are no hierarchical considerations when it comes to analysis.
Getting that message across the line was the main challenge for us. We were trying to change the culture around analysis while changing the way it operates. We wanted coaches to be similar to what you see in Rugby, coaches that take a lot of ownership of their content, letting them study and teach them how to produce their own clips. Educating coaches on how we work and explaining how they could take some of that work themselves became a big part of our role. Getting the coaches buy in and getting the shift towards coaches taking a lot more ownership over the analysis-type of work has been the biggest challenge of our role up to now.
What are the most important skills as a Performance Analyst?
It is important to be good with key analysis technology, to be efficient with your work and to make sure you are having an impact with the level of detail that you are offering coaches and players. A massively important skill that could often get overlooked is being a good communicator. You have to be involved in the conversation and make sure you are able to judge a room and a set of coaches. It is important that you build those relationships with coaches where you can, so that you can challenge them and comfortably say “I disagree, I think there is a better way of doing this, I think this is more important for this next game as oppose to that”. You definitely need to build your credit by being good at your job. I don’t think you can get away from that. What takes you to the next level in Performance Analysis is that impact, the communication, the clarity, the detail and making sure you can get your point across in a concise way.
How is data and analysis being used and perceived today at The FA?
At The FA, we would try to get the coaches to do a lot of the subjective analysis, where they look through clips themselves without needing an analyst. Analysts would then bring objectivity to that meeting. We would bring the objective angle by bringing the data, whether we are coding it ourselves or bringing it from a third party. We may also provide subjective opinions too when we are trusted with that, but we would primarily want to provide that objectivity. That is the piece that we are responsible for in that setting. Coaches are responsible for the technical and tactical stuff, but we would provide our input by supporting or challenging their message with data.
Data is the biggest thing that is coming in sport. There is so much of it. The most important thing for an analyst is to be a translator of data. You need to be good at the software that looks at data, writing scripts or designing outputs. It is important that you can look at data and translate it into something meaningful. We are in a place where so much data is available that the real skill is to find the good bits from it, being able to find a pattern that you can trust and that has an impact on how you work and what you do.
In terms of how data is delivered to the coaches at The FA, it is really difficult to do it on the road but it is definitely in our processes. Even though we try to incorporate our data on the road, it’s one of those situations where it is really challenging to find the right time and the right way to do it. We try to do it subtly, for example, we try do it one-on-one with the coaches or players. We never really put up charts of data on the screen. We don’t dissect information in that way as a group. If there is a point to be made about something that will support or challenge a decision, then we would make it with either data or footage.
Data has more of an impact off-camp, when we can get into the numbers, study them and build analysis to tell a story with it. You don’t really have that time when you are on the road. When we do, we look for key indicators that we can trust and compare them with the metrics that we normally use and benchmark with. We have some Tableau outputs that we use to visualise data. We are able to use tools like that, but the challenge is finding the right time. You also don’t want to be a person that produces a graph and that’s it. You want to have an impact by providing more meat on the bone. We have way more impact with data when we are off-camp and we can do projects, study and do really good comparisons. However, we do have the tools to be able to use it on-camp if we want to have a very quick look on specific stats. That is the way we use it when on-camp.
In general, we tend to use more video than data. This is probably because it follows the flow of how we give feedback to players and what we show them. We are normally going to be showing them some video examples and talk about the game rather than get into the mud with the data with them. Having said that, data tools are there for us to use as analysts, and the coaches do listen to the data. They are receptive to it if they can see the value and is communicated well and it is translated into their language. That is why translation and communication is massive as an analyst.
What are the main tools and technologies you use in you analysis?
At The FA we utilise Hudl. We use SportsCode and Hudl’s online platform to house and share video with players and coaches. We also have Hudl Replay for live video in the game. We utilise Hudl packages quite a lot. All the coaches have SportsCode licenses on their laptops as well as the analysts. We try to include SportsCode into coaching education courses and give coaches some licenses so that they can get on their laptops and use it as part of their development. We also use CoachPaint if we want to do illustrations, since it has various ways of doing them. We also collaborate online by sharing documents and game plans. We used to use Google to share documents online but have now moved on to Microsoft. We also use Tableau to manipulate and present data.
In terms of footage, as much as we can we try film ourselves so that we know we can trust our own footage. The level of support in international football is quite mixed. You have some teams that don’t have an analyst at all and just have someone filming the game for them for the day and that’s it. Then there are other nations that are similar to us and are heavily resourced. So as much as we can we try film ourselves. Although, UEFA do a really good job at trying to provide footage for the tournaments, same as FIFA, but it is not always reliable and you are not always playing in a UEFA or FIFA competition either. In the cases where we can’t film a game, we’ve got good relationships with some nations who we exchange footage with. We are really open to sharing because we’ve got nothing to hide in terms of footage. The good thing is that we get a wide angle from most of our opposition teams.
What does the future of Performance Analysis look like?
Data is the next big thing in Performance Analysis. There is lots of it at the minute but we only use a fraction of it. There are lots of companies and third parties that are doing very cool stuff. Some organisations code in-house like we do. The skills needed will be people who can refine it, study it and pick out useful information from it, as opposed to just collecting it and looking at it.
Finding useful information from the data is key. If you are not skilled at Python or R, there is still a place in the translation of the data and the presentation and delivery of it to coaches and players. The role of an analyst will need to evolve that way because a lot more coaches, especially the younger coaches that are coming through now and managers at the top level are all proficient on their laptops. Coaches don’t need an analyst just for the clips because they now can do that themselves. Analysts need to add value in a different way and data analysis is where I see it going towards.
What advice would you give to someone looking to get into Performance Analysis?
There are so many ways to get into Performance Analysis. There is not just one way of doing it and I don’t think there is a secret to it either. As much as you can, get out there. If you are at university, just offer yourself. You might have to do work free of charge just to get that experience at first. A lot of people have done that and will carry on doing that. It is how you make yourself stand out as a candidate for when you do look for your next job and get the opportunity.
There is nothing stopping you from watching football on TV and doing tactical reports. There is also nothing stopping you from getting hold of data, there is so much free data that is out there if you’ve got the skills to use it. Nothing stop you from getting hold of that data and doing some work with it. There are enough platforms to get data out there and there is a big community online, like Twitter. You’ve got to put your work out there and when the opportunity comes, take it and don’t look back.
The one thing that I’d take from my career so far is when I was very split of whether I moved down to Birmingham and work for West Brom or not. The money wasn’t great to live on but it was a good internship. I ended up doing it and that decision paid off in terms of the pathway that then followed because of that. You don’t get many opportunities so if you get one, take it.