In soccer, build-up play is when a team uses short passes to move the ball from the defensive third into the attacking half.

In many ways, the groundbreaking relationship between the sport analytics program in the Falk College of Sport and the Oldham Athletic Association Football Club in Oldham, Greater Manchester, England, has been a build-up play that’s resulting in unique “scoring opportunities” for sport analytics students and Oldham Athletic.

About four years ago, Sport Analytics Professor Shane Sanders met James Reade at a sports analytics conference in Spain. Reade is a professor of economics at the University of Reading in Reading, Berkshire, England, and a diehard Oldham fan.

Last year, when Sanders was working with Falk College student Ava Uribe and Associate Sport Analytics Professor Justin Ehrlich on soccer-related research, he reached out to Reade for help with collecting data and ideas on how best to mine that data for actionable insights. With Uribe, a member of the women’s soccer team, as lead author, the research was selected among thousands of entrants as one of seven finalists in the research paper competition at the prestigious MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference in Boston.

In advance of the conference, Reade visited Falk College and was amazed to learn of the work being done by sport analytics students with Syracuse Athletics and professional teams and leagues around the world.

Darren Royle, the CEO of Oldham Athletic who has a background in sport analytics, created an Academic Advisory Board that includes out-of-the-box thinkers and passionate football fans like Reade (Oldham is the only professional club in England with such a board). Reade passed the idea of working with the University to Royle, who says there was a “keen appetite on both sides” to create an innovative partnership by sharing knowledge and providing opportunities for sport analytics students to work with Oldham.

“What we found was a real pool of talent and a high level of skill by the students with what they’ve done so far,” Royle says. “They’ve been very diligent around this, and their work already has fed into our (player) recruitment process.”

The build-up play of the partnership progressed in early December at the second Football Analytics Conference hosted by Oldham in conjunction with the University and the University of Reading. Professor Rodney Paul, chair of the Department of Sport Analytics, sport analytics graduate Joshua Freson ’23, and Falk Director of Corporate Partnerships and External Engagement Francesco Riverso have been involved with the relationship from the start and played key roles in the conference.

“This was a rare opportunity to work with a club that combines deep tradition with a genuine commitment to innovation and education,” Paul says. “Oldham’s history gives the partnership immediate credibility, but what truly stood out was how deeply Darren and James care about education at every level, from young children to adults engaged in lifelong learning.”

“Their initiatives in Manchester have the potential to be transformative for the local community, and it was important to me that Syracuse and Falk College sport analytics be part of something that connects football, education, and social impact in such a meaningful way,” Paul says.

High-Level Insights

Starting in June, 15 sport analytics students embarked on a series of data analysis projects aimed at helping Oldham identify a player’s style of play, strengths and weaknesses, mindset and character (for example, how the player responds after a difficult match, proneness to injuries and salary expectations).

“Some of the work the students have been doing is novel; certainly, it hasn’t been done before in our league,” Royle says. “It has fitted as an extra resource for us since we had just got promoted back to the EFL and we didn’t have the structures and staffing in place that a team in the EFL might normally have.”

To oversee the students’ work, Riverso enlisted the help of Freson, a former senior data analyst for Oldham who is now an assistant data scientist for the Blackburn Rovers Football Club in Blackburn, Lancashire, England, and a data analyst for the Estonian Football Association. As a student in Falk College, Freson was the lead data analyst for the 2022 Syracuse University men’s soccer team that won the NCAA Division I national championship.

“James (Reade) and I created open-ended projects based on the needs of the club, and delegated groups of students to work on each project,” Freson says. “That allowed them to deliver high-level insights while developing their own skills and learning how to cater the end product to the end user.”

“Hopefully one day I’ll be working in a front office or with the analytics’ staff for a top club like Tottenham and this internship has greatly helped me prepare for that,” says sport analytics major Gavin Anderson ’28. “It has offered me invaluable insight into the day-to-day operations of a club and what teams value in players and potential targets.”

Paul says perhaps the biggest benefit for the students is that they’re operating at a truly professional level in terms of expectations and impact as they’re working with real data, real constraints and real decision-making timelines.

“While we have strong partnerships elsewhere, the scope and continuity of the work with Oldham is unique; students are not just completing stand-alone projects, but contributing to an ongoing analytics and strategy process,” Paul says. “That level of immersion accelerates learning, builds confidence, and prepares students to operate in global sport environments in ways that are difficult to replicate in a classroom alone.”

‘We See The Synergies’

The Football Analytics Conference in December provided an opportunity for the Syracuse contingent and Oldham officials to discuss short- and long-term opportunities.

“I see this developing as a long-term partnership that allows Syracuse University students to gain invaluable professional experience while also allowing Oldham to conduct analysis way beyond their means otherwise,” Freson says.

“You guys are unique because of your founder (Paul) and your model for students,” Royle says. “We really like the thinking around it. So we’ve kind of mapped ourselves to your culture, philosophy, and strategy and we see all the synergies.”