Net Gains

An in-depth examination of the rise of analytics in soccer and the wild experiments unfolding around the world in the beautiful game from ESPN staff writer and Infinite Football podcast host Ryan O’Hanlon.

Net Gains: Inside the Beautiful Game’s Analytics Revolution takes readers on a tour across the world and throughout soccer history, introducing the many people who have attempted to shine a light onto and innovate a sport that, in many ways, is still stuck in the Dark Ages. This deep dive into the rise of analytics in soccer—a sport where tradition reigns supreme—shows how revolutionary tactics and underexplored metrics are breaking the beautiful game wide open.

By exploring how massive institutions built on billions of dollars can function for so long without any kind of introspection—and what happens when people from the outside attempt to question the status quo—author Ryan O’Hanlon shows how time and again experts, managers, coaches, players, and fans feel they know the best approach for any given team or player, and yet get undermined by the complexity of the game—and human behavior.

To tell this globe-trekking story, O’Hanlon takes readers inside the front offices and analytics departments of the top professional leagues’ most cutting-edge clubs and profiles a misfit cast of number-crunchers, behavioral economists, tech insiders, and managers all working to move beyond the philosophical side of soccer and uncover the hard truths behind possession, goals, and developing talent.

“Ryan O’Hanlon pulls off a remarkable trick in Net Gains: he writes about the evolution of soccer in a way that somehow feels both romantic without being blind and analytical without being cold.” —#1 New York Times bestselling author Shea Serrano