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Skillsnutmeg-learn

nutmeg-learn

Data & analytics

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Updated 10-15 23:25

About this skill

Learn

Teach football analytics concepts, recommend resources, provide a learning path, and answer questions about data provider documentation — all adapted to the user's level.

Accuracy

Read and follow ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/docs/accuracy-guardrail.md before answering any question about provider-specific facts (IDs, endpoints, schemas, coordinates, rate limits). Always use search_docs — never guess from training data.

When the user asks what a metric means, read its football-docs metric card with get_metric (list_metrics shows the cards) and explain that variants exist, naming their IDs; use search_docs for metrics without a card.

First: check profile

Read .nutmeg.user.md. If it doesn't exist, continue with sensible defaults (Python and pandas, intermediate level) and suggest running /nutmeg setup at the end.

Glossary of core concepts

The glossary is in ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/docs/glossary.md: chance quality (xG, npxG, xGOT, xA, xT), possession and pressing (PPDA, high press, counterpressure, build-up, possession value), passing, shooting and defensive terms, and per 90. Read it when the user asks what a term means, and explain at their level. The research workspace page links the same entries. For a provider's own definition of a metric or event, use search_docs; the glossary gives the general meaning only.

When the user needs to explain a concept to someone else, or keeps coming back to it, offer once to write it up as an explainer page they can edit and share; follow ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/docs/understanding.md section 2.

Per-90 normalisation

Always normalise player stats per 90 minutes, not per match:

per_90 = (raw_stat / minutes_played) * 90

Why: a player with 2 goals in 180 minutes (per 90: 1.0) is performing the same as one with 1 goal in 90 minutes. Per-match stats penalise part-time players.

Minimum sample: about 900 minutes (10 full matches) is a common rule of thumb for per-90 stats. Noisy stats need far more: a finishing verdict needs several hundred shots.

Learning path

Stage 1: Getting started

  1. Read: "The Numbers Game" by Chris Anderson and David Sally. Accessible introduction to football analytics.
  2. Watch: Tifo Football YouTube channel for visual explainers of tactical and analytical concepts.
  3. Do: Load StatsBomb open data and make a shot map. Just plot the x,y coordinates of shots, colour by goal/no goal.
  4. Understand: What xG is and isn't. Read StatsBomb's public xG methodology.

Stage 2: Building skills

  1. Read: "Soccermatics" by David Sumpter. Mathematical modelling applied to football.
  2. Learn: How to make pass networks and xG timelines.
  3. Practice: Analyse a full match. Write up what happened and what the data shows.
  4. Explore: FBref (basic stats) and Understat (xG) for season-level numbers. Compare teams across multiple dimensions.
  5. Tool up: Learn pandas/polars (Python), tidyverse (R), or D3.js (JavaScript) for data manipulation and visualisation.

Stage 3: Going deeper

  1. Read key papers:
    • Decroos et al. (2019) "Actions Speak Louder than Goals" (VAEP model)
    • Fernandez & Bornn (2018) "Wide Open Spaces" (pitch control)
    • Karun Singh (2018) "Introducing Expected Threat" (xT)
    • Spearman (2018) "Beyond Expected Goals" (pitch control + off-ball)
  2. Build a model: Train your own xG model. Compare with provider xG.
  3. Tracking data: If you can access it, explore player positioning data.
  4. Community: Join football analytics Twitter/X, and watch Opta Forum (formerly OptaPro Forum) or StatsBomb Conference talks (many are free online).

Stage 4: Professional level

  1. Statistical rigour: Learn about confidence intervals, effect sizes, Bayesian methods.
  2. Causal inference: Understanding what data can and can't tell you about cause and effect.
  3. Communication: Presenting findings to non-technical audiences (coaches, scouts, journalists).
  4. Domain expertise: The best analysts combine data skills with deep football knowledge. Watch matches, understand tactics.

Community resources

Resource What it is
StatsBomb open data Free event data, best starting point
Friends of Tracking (YouTube) University-level video lectures on football analytics
McKay Johns (YouTube) Python football analytics tutorials
FBref Free season stats. Basic stats only since January 2026, when its advanced (Opta) data was removed
The Athletic Journalism with analytics focus
Opta Forum (formerly OptaPro Forum) Annual analytics conference (talks online)
StatsBomb Conference Annual conference with published research
r/socceranalytics Reddit community
Football Analytics Slack Community workspace

Common misconceptions

  1. "More possession = better." Possession without purpose is meaningless. Quality of chances matters more.
  2. "xG is a prediction." xG is a description of chance quality, not a prediction of future performance.
  3. "This player has 0.8 xG per 90, so they'll score 30 goals." Small samples, regression to the mean, context all matter.
  4. "Data analytics replaces scouting." It complements it. Data finds candidates; humans evaluate fit, personality, potential.
  5. "All xG models are the same." They vary significantly by input features, training data, and methodology.

Provider documentation

When the user asks about provider-specific details — event types, qualifier IDs, coordinate systems, API schemas, field mappings, identity surfaces, or provider ID schemes — use the football-docs MCP tools.

Answering specific questions

Use search_docs with the user's query. Add a provider filter if they're asking about a specific provider.

Examples:

  • "What qualifier ID is a headed goal in Opta?" → search_docs(query="headed goal qualifier", provider="opta")
  • "How does StatsBomb represent xG?" → search_docs(query="xG expected goals", provider="statsbomb")
  • "What free data sources have shot-level data?" → search_docs(query="shot data free", provider="free-sources")
  • "Is Transfermarkt player ID safe to bridge?" → search_docs(query="identity surfaces player ID bridge quirks", provider="transfermarkt")
  • "How should I interpret Soccerdonna match reports?" → search_docs(query="identity surfaces match reports player profile", provider="soccerdonna")

Entity resolution

For entity-resolution questions, also read ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/docs/entity-resolution-routing.md. Keep the boundary clear:

  • provider facts and quirks come from football-docs;
  • public Reep ID lookup uses the Reep Register tooling where available;
  • reusable matching guidance, schemas and reference scripts belong in reep-toolkit;
  • private matching logic pack material is referenced only when the user has access or provides the relevant contents.

Comparing providers

Use compare_providers when the user wants to understand differences.

Examples:

  • "How do Opta and StatsBomb represent passes differently?" → compare_providers(topic="pass event types", providers=["opta", "statsbomb"])
  • "Which providers have xG data?" → compare_providers(topic="xG expected goals")

Discovering what's available

Use list_providers to show what documentation is indexed and its coverage.

Cross-referencing with kloppy

When comparing providers, also search for kloppy's mapping documentation. kloppy defines how each provider's events map to a canonical model, which helps the user understand what maps cleanly between providers, what information is lost in translation, and what becomes a GenericEvent (unmapped).

Response format

  1. Give the direct answer first (the qualifier ID, the field name, etc.)
  2. Add context about how it works in practice
  3. If relevant, mention how other providers handle the same concept
  4. Adapt technical depth to the user's experience level