Meet the Team USA sports science guru transforming Everton FCDr Peter Vint believes methods used by the most successful Olympic nation will help revolutionise English footballIn the aftermath of every Olympics, a critical gaze is fixed on English football and the question asked why our players can’t match the standards of our medal heroes.
Everton took the radical step of appointing one of the chief architects of Team USA’s success to decode the winning formula.
Eight months ago, Iowa-born Dr Peter Vint was finalising his country’s preparations for Rio. As the United States Olympic Committee’s Senior Director of Competitive Analysis, Research and Innovation, his research was credited with identifying the kind of ‘marginal gains’ separating the history makers from the also-rans.
While his former colleagues celebrate their table-topping medal haul in Brazil, Vint – now Everton’s Academy Director - sits in his office in Halewood on Merseyside explaining how a call from chief executive Robert Elstone convinced him to ditch the forensically analytical pursuit of gold and make a pioneering move to find and nurture England’s next internationals.
“It was the biggest professional decision I have ever made,” says Vint.
“Robert told me he wants Everton to be the world’s best Academy. We already have a viable pathway, with 42 youngsters who’ve made their first team debut. But we should challenge ourselves to go further. While we’re good, there are elements that could be better. I like these challenges and I like it when an organisation can be candid about where we are and where we want to be.
“We wanted to look at performance through a different lens and see what the world had to offer with the development of elite performers.”
English football has dipped its toe in this pool before, employing those who’ve excelled in other sports with varying degrees of success.
To give a sport scientist such a position of responsibility and authority is – as the club puts it – ‘pioneering’.
Vint began his professional career in Academia before moving into the aviation safety industry, assisting the decision making of pilots. He was then headhunted by USOC in 2005, rising through the ranks as they implemented his sport science, technology, and performance research methods.
Vint's professional background is in the world of Academia
He openly admits he is ‘not a football man’ and knows traditionalists within the game may view his appointment with cynicism.
“Oh, I have experienced a bit of that,” he admits.
USA topped the medal table at Rio 2016 with 46 golds
“I think it comes from some uncertainty and curiosity and perhaps even some discomfort people have about having someone who comes from such a different background being put in this position. Who is this guy? What does this mean? Is he going to ‘Moneyball’ us? I’ve heard this used as a verb. I chuckle at that because it’s not something I have ever said.
“I’m a fan of the game but I recognise that I know only a fraction of what the guys down this hallway know. They’ve lived it. They’ve played at the highest levels. They’ve earned their scars and their coaching badges and they know the intricacies of what happens at a level I never will. My challenge is taking what they know and combining it with what I know to get disproportionate gains.
“I have to avoid the perception that I’ve come here from Olympic sports - with a Ph.D. - and know a lot more than they do. That isn’t the case at all. We have simply come to this place from different paths. Our work has to be collaborative, not competitive.
“The important parallel with the Olympics and here is to be as clear as you can be with the footballers, as you are with elite level athletes, about where they need to be at given points. When they have that information they are more responsive.
“Often there is an assumption that because the coaches know the standard required to play first team football, their athletes must know it too. This is not an assumption we need to make. We are going to work to bring clarity to our players about everything that is required to reach the highest levels of the game.”
Vint says he is an advocate of the research of Hungarian physicist Arpad Elo
This brings us to the question 'how?'
In Olympic sports, Vint’s data analysis enabled competitors from a broad range of disciplines to recognise if a performance trajectory is of Olympic medal winning standard.
“We described three classes of sports,” he explained.
Everton are attempting to uncode Team USA’s success
“There are the objectively measurable sports such as weightlifting, swimming and athletics where best annual performances can be compared. Head to head sports (team and individual such as football, wrestling and hockey) and multi-competitor sports like BMX, luge, bobsled, and skiing where conditions might change from one competition to the next.
“The methods we used were different across these classes and were derived entirely from outcomes.”
The American was headhunted by USOC in 2005
For head-to-head sports, including football, Vint is an advocate of the research of Hungarian physicist Arpad Elo.
“We used a method originally developed to assess skill among international chess players (a USOC-modified version of the Elo method),” he explained.
“The Elo method took into account both how you did in the tournament, but also who you competed against. All things considered, it did terrifically well at identifying the most internationally competitive athletes and teams.
“Some sports were relatively easy to understand from a performance standpoint. We could describe pretty clearly how far you needed to throw the shot put to compete for a gold medal, for example. We documented the historic progressions of each athlete in each event in each of the Summer and Winter Olympic sports.
"We could show what was needed to win and we could track an athlete’s or team’s progression against that. It became clear which athletes were most likely to compete for Olympic medals.
“For the first time ever in the USA it gave us a clear picture of who was competitive enough to win a medal. We were able to answer two important questions: ‘were we competitive enough to win a medal?’ and ‘were we getting any better?’ We later extended this to the point where we could associate a given performance level with the statistical likelihood of winning a medal.
“With the likes of Michael Phelps or Katie Ledecky it was easy. Their performance trajectories made it clear that they had progressed to deliver world-leading marks.
“Where it gets tough is when high performing athletes suddenly take a right turn and their trajectories plateau. It was in discussions with coaches and athletes who may have believed they are performing well when, in reality, they’re not doing so well relative to the ‘medal band’, where we brought real change. We were tracking every single athlete in each of the 300 plus Summer Olympic disciplines and nearly 100 Winter Olympic disciplines.
"With such depth of research, we could explain to governing bodies and athletes why we could or could not endorse their funding recommendations. Some administrators were quite open to it and some were less so but the data and our analysis enabled a more honest conversation.”
Yannick Bolasie in action for Everton against West Bromwich Albion
Can such methodologies really be applied to football with its many variables ranging from run of the ball, injuries and that other thorny topic post Euro 2016, mental strength?
Vint offers a qualified ‘yes'.
“Our coaches and recruiters already have a strong sense of which attributes are most important for footballing success,” he said.
“We’ll work to describe those in ways that both recognise and capture these expert perspectives and complement them with additional sources of information. This will help us to more clearly identify areas of strength and areas for improvement which, in turn, will guide our individualised training programs. I believe more information can improve every aspect of our player recruitment and development systems.
“Parents, players and coaches will better understand our standards and our expectations.”
Determining and collating the correct skill sets to make such calculations is the heart of the issue. Speed, stamina, physical development and biochemistry can be measured and compared. Suffice to say, the primitive days of players being released by Academies at 14 simply because ‘they are not big enough’ are over as science seeks to identify the ‘late developer’ – the Jamie Vardys of the Premier League - before they develop.
“This is not about quick fixes. It is about long term development toward exceptionally high performance standards. While attention to detail in our daily work matters - a lot - we have to take long-term view of this,” says Vint.
Everton are eager to uncover the next Jamie Vardy
“In the short-term we can have a constructive conversation about where our players are relative to where we think they need to be. We want our conversations with players and parents to be more constructive, more informative, and more evidence based. The parents’ role in development is too often overlooked. It is vital. We’re going to provide our parents with more resources, information, and programming to support them in all aspects related to their son’s development.
“Everything we do will be geared towards four strategic pillars – recruitment, development, retainment and converting that talent into first team success.
“In my mind, retainment does not just refer to the challenges of losing players to competitor clubs. It refers to anything that could lead to a player’s premature departure from the Academy. This could be from injury or from being unable to cope with the pressures or sacrifices that are associated with trying to become an elite performer. It could result from the Academy making a premature release decision.
"Unfortunately, it could also result from behavioural and lifestyle choices such as inappropriate use of social media, substance abuse, promiscuity, or simply getting involved in a situation which leads to a really negative outcome. We have to remember that these are young people with bodies and brains that are maturing at different rates and over long periods of time.
"We’ve seen it too often – including a few stories from the Rio Games – where athletes at the top of the game make a bad decision that puts them out of the game for a year or forever. We will continue to put resources in place to support players during their journey with lifestyle education and mentoring programs.”
Vint feels it is possible to be more informed about young taltent than ever before
Vint does not claim to be on a quest for absolute certainty when it comes to identifying and nurturing talent, but he feels it is possible to be more informed than ever.
“When someone says a player or an athlete will get to the top, it is my job to ask questions like, ‘how do we know?’ ‘how sure are we?’ ‘what evidence do we have?’ ‘are we doing everything we can to support them?’ ‘what’s really in their way?’ ‘Is it really working?’” he says.
“The Everton board should insist on holding me accountable to demonstrating measurable improvements to all things related to the Academy. Any analysis that is devoid of the insights of coaches or recruiters will miss an essential part of the bigger picture. All data needs context, but we must be informed as we can be and we need to seek and bring on board whatever sources of information will help us in our work. I am an advocate for anything that can help us reduce our uncertainty about the things we feel are most important.”
Telegraph
