Since its passage under the Canadian flag, DATA has taken a major part in the daily life of ASSE. Starting with recruitment. A recruitment criticized by Damien Perquis in After Foot this Tuesday evening. Clear opinion!
Damien Perquis (Ex-ASSE) : “I read un article from the Team this morning (Tuesday). Phrases caught my attention. It is “In their eyes, the workforce built this summer from Data which should allow the Saint-Etienne promotions to maintain themselves. All you need to do is help the recruits progress. This mission of trainer in Ligue 1 falls to Dall'Oglio. These sentences disturbed me.
Using numbers, you went looking for players. With the data, you went to find players based on figures on passes, on races,… But that means that through figures, we bring you these players and we tell you you are going keep up with these players. These are not the numbers that will decide whether to maintain it! Dall'Oglio is asked to help the recruits progress. As if ODO didn't already have enough work! He has to take care of the 18 guys in his group and keep his locker room running. He must also take on the role of trainer or post-trainer because it is often young people who are brought in who are 19 years old and who must know Ligue 1.
Dall'Oglio initially asked for professional players. Players trained at this level to be able to maintain and be more solid. Today, we impose players through numbers. But do we really know these players? Maybe they had to watch videos. But you have to know the boy's character, his private life… Constantly relying on data bothers me. We're talking about a generational effect where new coaches are extremely focused on data and like it. I have nothing against it but when you are going to recruit players just on the data to say that they will maintain your club, it starts to bother me.
On top of that, we brought back Abdelhamid who has more than 300 professional matches. We bring back a player like Stassin who played 15 matches in Belgium. We invested a lot of money. In the end, it is the simple image of the new football that emerges. Cit's about business football where we take young people whose numbers are very good, but about whom we have no certainty for the future. With the data, we assume that the player there will be good.
We don't necessarily think about the club. ASSE would perhaps need much more experienced guys to be able to save themselves.”
An above-ground workforce for ASSE?
Elton Mokolo (Generation After): “In tworking only with the data, you have the impression of having found the Coca-Cola formula. So to say, it's going to work every time. I have the feeling there are a lot of clubs who want to be the new Brighton. But there is only one Brighton. They took a long time to establish themselves, before becoming a reference in the field. We underestimate something that is very important, and that is the importance of the environment and the context. We are talking about ASSE and Strasbourg. Two clubs which are on national soil, very important clubs. This is not quantifiable in the data. Your relationship to pressure, how the player will integrate in particular into these clubs… In the case of ASSE, we are talking about a club which has a very important historical dimension, and which is engaged in a race to maintain. The pressure is even greater. Be careful, this is a warning. Be careful not to build workforces that are above ground only because there is DATA.
