The following is an edited excerpt from Ryan O’Hanlon’s forthcoming book, “Net Gains: Inside the Beautiful Game’s Analytics Revolution.” The book comes out tomorrow (Oct. 18), and you can order a copy here or purchase one from your local bookseller. This excerpt comes from a chapter about the ongoing efforts — and continued failures — to truly quantify the value of midfield play.
“It was something new and foreign to me,” Tim Sparv said. “I was bought because of stats and data.”
It would not be wrong to call Sparv the Sergio Busquets of Finland. He’s a year older and two inches taller than the Spaniard, but they played the same role at the base of midfield. At six foot four, he’s all gangly arms and legs, intense eyes, and an intimidatingly dense beard. He moved to England at age 16 to join the academy of Premier League club Southampton, where he was teammates with the likes of Champions League winner Gareth Bale and England internationals Theo Walcott and Adam Lallana.
– How Barca and Real Madrid became the same team (E+)
– How do we measure creativity in soccer? (E+)
– Why your favorite team won’t win the World Cup (E+)
Sparv never made an appearance with Southampton’s senior team, though he didn’t expect to: “I don’t think I was ever thinking that I was good enough to play for Southampton’s first team,” he said. He left in 2007 and has since played in Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Greece, and Finland.
Where you might have seen him: playing for the Finnish national team. After all, you can’t miss him, the bearded beanstalk with the neon- colored armband. As the captain of Finland’s national team, Sparv did something no other Finn has done before: led the country to its first- ever major tournament.
At Euro 2020, however, the greatest moment in Finland’s footballing history — a 1-0 win in their first match — coincided with the near tragedy of Denmark’s Christian Eriksen collapsing on the field and going into cardiac arrest. After the match, Sparv, in particular, spoke thoughtfully, not just about the difficulty of finishing the game and his concern for Eriksen’s health, but about the shock that everyone else had experienced, too.
“You start thinking about your family, for me it’s my girlfriend and five-month-old daughter,” he told the Guardian. “I contacted them immediately after what happened to Eriksen and told them how we were feeling. Seeing it up close, the kids in the stadium, kids watching on TV, it can be a very traumatic experience. I hope anyone who needs it will get the help to deal with this.”
