Hi all. Miss you. Guess what? You can preorder my book — today!

Ryan O'Hanlon @rwohan

ANNOUNCEMENT: My book has a new name, a beautiful cover, and a release date. Oh, and it's now available to pre-order. As they say: please get stuck in. Net Gains Inside the Beautiful Game’s Analytics RevolutionAn in-depth examination of the rise of analytics in soccer and the wild experiments unfolding around the world in the beautiful gameNet Gains:Inside the Beautiful Game’s Analytics Revolution takes readers on a tour across the world and throughout soccer habramsbooks.com

March 23rd 2022

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Here’s the official description from my publisher:

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, staff writer at ESPN, 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.

The book should be available from wherever you typically buy your books; the Abrams page has a bunch of options listed. The publication date, for now, is October 18, and you will be receiving many more emails from me about that before then. If you know anyone who might be interested in buying/reading the book, please let them know. As far as I’m aware, word-of-mouth is one of the biggest drivers behind the success of a book written by someone who isn’t a disgraced politician, a distant relative of a disgraced politician, or a motivational speaker with at least 150,000 Twitter followers.

Also, I know I said I’d be sending out updates with links to my ESPN work. So far, I have failed. But now that the book work is winding down, I’m gonna start doing that, too. Earlier this week, I wrote about a little-known Portuguese journeyman named Cristiano Ronaldo. And here are some thoughts on the USMNT’s final three games of World Cup qualification. (They’re fine.)

Be well, everyone.