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Reposted by Jesse Davis

mantas-simkus.bsky.social @mantas-simkus.bsky.social · 9d

The 4th European Summer School on Artificial Intelligence (ESSAI 2026) will take place 6–10 July 2026 in Vienna, Austria. We invite leading AI researchers to submit course proposals for this premier event.

The deadline for course proposals is December 3, 2025.

Full details at essai2026.eu

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Reposted by Jesse Davis

Pieter Robberechts @probberechts.bsky.social · 16d

Before an app launches, it undergoes usability testing. Why shouldn't an advanced sports metric?

In our latest blog, we propose 4 criteria:
1️⃣ Trustworthy
2️⃣ Novel
3️⃣ Intuitive
4️⃣ Useful

Then, we put VAEP to the test...

\w @jessejdavis.bsky.social & Maaike Van Roy

dtai.cs.kuleuven.be/sports/blog/...

How Do We Know a Metric Is Good? A Case Study on VAEP

In sports analytics, the primary goal is to develop indicators that quantify the skills, capabilities, and tendencies of athletes and…

dtai.cs.kuleuven.be

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Jesse Davis @jessejdavis.bsky.social · 26d

Yes, this should also be possible when using the Poisson Binomial. You can use the approach outlined by @centralwinger.com that we refer to in the blog.

TBH, I think that would also be the best way to do it for MCMC as then you avoid using rejection sampling.

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Jesse Davis @jessejdavis.bsky.social · 27d

@probberechts.bsky.social has also provided an online tool that computes the exact probabilities:

dtai.cs.kuleuven.be/static/sport...

Match xG Simulator

How (im)probable was the match result? Check it out here.

dtai.cs.kuleuven.be

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Jesse Davis @jessejdavis.bsky.social · 27d

This is joint work with @janvanhaaren.be & @probberechts.bsky.social

Many others have looked at the MCMC approach (cf @danny.page's online simulator) or discussed how to use the Poisson Binomial distribution to compute these probabilities exactly (cf @tonyelhabr.bsky.social, Jonas Lindstrøm,...)

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Jesse Davis @jessejdavis.bsky.social · 27d

We can use xG to compute post-hoc win-draw-loss probabilities.

Our new blogpost shows MCMC's estimates of these probabilities are unstable, computing them exactly is faster than approximating them, and MCMC's runtime strongly depends on its implementation.

dtai.cs.kuleuven.be/sports/blog/...

Expected goals and the Monte Carlo Trap

On a team level, xG is often used to assess the quality of the goal scoring opportunities that a team creates and concedes. That is, it…

dtai.cs.kuleuven.be

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Jesse Davis @jessejdavis.bsky.social · 29d

Burger time! With a very fitting flipper thanks to @janvanhaaren.be and Giels

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Reposted by Jesse Davis

Leander **PRE-ORDER THE LONG GAME** Schaerlaeckens @leanderalphabet.bsky.social · Sep 2

🚨🚨You can now pre-order my book, THE LONG GAME, on the United States men's national soccer team and its messy rise from total international irrelevance to, well, TBD!🚨🚨

I spoke to ~150 players/coaches/etc. and got fresh stories and unprecedented access!

www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/722130...

The Long Game by Leander Schaerlaeckens: 9780593653876 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

The gripping account of the U.S. men’s national soccer team’s winding saga from obscurity to the global stage as they stand on the brink of a seminal World Cup in 2026. For almost half a century,...

www.penguinrandomhouse.com

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Jesse Davis @jessejdavis.bsky.social · Aug 27

At OHL for women’s champions league qualifiers with the whole family

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Jesse Davis @jessejdavis.bsky.social · Aug 20

3. Discuss how to foster such collaborations. We provide (anecdotal) advice, wrt possible pitfalls that may arise and how to avoid them when collaborating. We believe joint events can help facilitate collaborations. This paper arose out of discussions Sigrid and I had at such an event. 4/4

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Jesse Davis @jessejdavis.bsky.social · Aug 20

2. Highlight emerging trends in computational research on sports both from a methodological and task perspective.

Tackling these problems requires combining sports & computational expertise. I.e., deeper collaborations between sports and computational researchers will be essential.

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Jesse Davis @jessejdavis.bsky.social · Aug 20

1. Overview historically prominent lines of work in computational approaches (e.g., AI/ML/Statistics) to analyzing tactics in soccer.

Hopefully, this can serve as an introduction for those wanting to learn about the area but many not know where to look for relevant publications.

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Jesse Davis @jessejdavis.bsky.social · Aug 20

Excited to announce a new paper together with @sigridolthof.bsky.social entitled "Perspectives on data analytics for gaining a competitive advantage in football: computational approaches to tactics".

This is a synthesis article that has 3 key objectives

www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10....

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Perspectives on data analytics for gaining a competitive advantage in football: computational approaches to tactics

www.tandfonline.com

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Reposted by Jesse Davis

PySport @pysport.org · Aug 15

🔷 𝐏𝐲𝐒𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭 𝐗 𝐏𝐲𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐚 𝐄𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐡𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐂𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐚𝐥𝐬! 🔶

On December 9th @PyData Eindhoven and @pysport.org will organize 𝐏𝐲𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐚 𝐄𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐡𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟓!

𝐌𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐟𝐨: lnkd.in/eBGWKs3V

PyData Eindhoven 2025 collaboration with PySport. December 9th 2025.

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Jesse Davis @jessejdavis.bsky.social · Jul 30

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Reposted by Jesse Davis

John Muller @johnspacemuller.com · Jul 30

If you loved Sarri's Napoli or De Zerbi's Brighton, you should be watching Mikey Varas's San Diego.

I wrote for the Guardian about the risky press-baiting style that makes MLS's newest team its most tactically interesting, statistically extreme and just plain fun.

San Diego FC are setting risky new records in an eye-catching MLS debut

No team in the world relies on buildup quite like the newly-formed group of ‘30 strangers’ with teenagers in key positions

www.theguardian.com

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Reposted by Jesse Davis

EurIPS Conference @euripsconf.bsky.social · Jul 16

EurIPS is coming! 📣 Mark your calendar for Dec. 2-7, 2025 in Copenhagen 📅

EurIPS is a community-organized conference where you can present accepted NeurIPS 2025 papers, endorsed by @neuripsconf.bsky.social and @nordicair.bsky.social and is co-developed by @ellis.eu

eurips.cc

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Reposted by Jesse Davis

John Muller @johnspacemuller.com · Jul 9

Minnesota United became the most aggressive set-piece team on the planet with old-fashioned tactics backed by new analytics — and now they can’t stop scoring from it.

My first for The Guardian:

The most aggressive set-piece team in the world plays in Minnesota

Under the guidance of a former Manchester United assistant, Minnesota United are finding MLS success with a surprising tactic

www.theguardian.com

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Reposted by Jesse Davis

Leander **PRE-ORDER THE LONG GAME** Schaerlaeckens @leanderalphabet.bsky.social · Jul 10

I took my 8-year-old son to his first professional soccer game... at the Club World Cup. It was too much of everything.

But we found a moment of humanity in amid the artifice and the avarice.

Column @theguardian.com

www.theguardian.com/football/202...

In the stands with my son, the Club World Cup was as human as it could possibly be

Unexpectedly cheap tickets gave my boy an overwhelming soccer experience, and me a jolt of faith in a flawed tournament

www.theguardian.com

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Reposted by Jesse Davis

Leander **PRE-ORDER THE LONG GAME** Schaerlaeckens @leanderalphabet.bsky.social · Jun 30

Column on last night's spirited #USMNT penalty-shootout win over Costa Rica in the Gold Cup quarterfinals, and what this tournament really represents to the Americans.

@theguardian.com

www.theguardian.com/football/202...

The US needed more than a trophy from the Gold Cup, and it may just get it

Missing stars and short on sparkle, the USMNT have still found something vital at this Gold Cup: a renewed sense of belief, identity and collective fight

www.theguardian.com

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Reposted by Jesse Davis

Pieter Robberechts @probberechts.bsky.social · Jun 24

Our Women's Euro 2025 predictions are out! 🔮

Spain 🇪🇸 is our model's favorite to win the title, with Germany 🇩🇪 close behind. Meanwhile, Belgium 🇧🇪 will most likely be eliminated in the group stage.

w\ @jessejdavis.bsky.social

dtai.cs.kuleuven.be/sports/blog/...

Predicting the 2025 Women's European Championship

The UEFA Women’s Euro 2025 will be held in Switzerland in July. Will Spain capture the title after winning the World Cup in 2023? Or will…

dtai.cs.kuleuven.be

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Reposted by Jesse Davis

Thomas Dietterich @tdietterich.bsky.social · Jun 15

I think we should be building systems that complement people; systems that do well the things that people do poorly; systems that make individuals and organizations more effective and more humane. 3/

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Reposted by Jesse Davis

Leander **PRE-ORDER THE LONG GAME** Schaerlaeckens @leanderalphabet.bsky.social · Jun 12

If you missed it yesterday, I spoke to fans, economists and players unions and wrote long about the overlapping ways in which the Club World Cup represents a collision of all the untenable forces in modern soccer.

Leander **PRE-ORDER THE LONG GAME** Schaerlaeckens @leanderalphabet.bsky.social · Jun 11

I wrote about the Club World Cup, which is at once a money-grab, a power-grab, a litmus test for FIFA’s working assumption that the demand for soccer is infinite, and maybe a referendum on the American soccer market, just a year out from the World Cup proper.

www.theringer.com/2025/06/11/s...

FIFA’s Club World Cup Is an Audacious Bet on Limitless Growth—and Greed

Taking place almost exactly a year before the 2026 World Cup, and also hosted in the United States, the newly-revamped competition is a litmus test on the supply and demand for global soccer

www.theringer.com

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Reposted by Jesse Davis

Pieter Robberechts @probberechts.bsky.social · Jun 11

I strongly believe biomechanical analysis will be the next big leap in sports analytics—and not just for the pros. I got a glimpse by testing the @runeasi.bsky.social sensor (a @dtai-kuleuven.bsky.social spin-off) and wrote about how it helped during my marathon training → runeasi.ai/my-marathon-...

My Marathon Journey with Runeasi by Pieter Robberechts

Discover my marathon journey with Runeasi by Pieter Robberechts, including my race day experience and new personal best of 2:31:59.

runeasi.ai

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Reposted by Jesse Davis

Joris Bekkers @unravelsports.com · Jun 10

🌀 𝐎𝐩𝐞𝐧-𝐒𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐜𝐞 𝐅𝐨𝐨𝐭𝐛𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐀𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐲𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐬 @ 𝐏𝐲𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐚 𝐋𝐨𝐧𝐝𝐨𝐧 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟓

On Saturday I presented a Graph Neural Network Expected Possession Value model at @pydatalondon.bsky.social 2025.

This 𝐆𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐡𝐄𝐏𝐕 model is an ML approach that predicts scoring probability for any moment in the game

🔗 tinyurl.com/pydata-ldn25

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