The best way to sum up Brighton & Hove Albion’s novel approach to data and analytics-driven recruitment is that not even Dario Vidosic is sure why they hired him. He can take a guess, but the details are a closely guarded secret. That’s how protective Brighton’s owner and chairman, Tony Bloom, is of the algorithm that has turned the club into a Premier League mainstay.
A professional gambler-turned-sports betting entrepreneur, Bloom uses the same mathematical skills and insights that made him his fortune – predominantly in poker – to help him pick out hidden bargains on the transfer market and find coaches whose ideas neatly fit the club’s ethos. Vidosic, the 37-year-old former Socceroo, is the latest such example to have been plucked from relative anonymity and parachuted into a crucial posting at Brighton. He was appointed five months ago as head coach of their Women’s Super League team, and they have been the surprise packets of the season thus far – to the point where Vidosic was named the competition’s manager of the month for October, with the Seagulls dropping only two of their seven games thus far to sit third on the table, above Manchester United and Arsenal.
A long-time admirer of Brighton’s footballing philosophy, and particularly of previous coaches Roberto De Zerbi and Graham Potter, being inside the club has brought Vidosic no closer to understanding the numbers that underpin it. “It’s one that I’ve asked, and I’m never going to be to.
