Ligue 2 (32nd day). EA Guingamp – Toulouse, Saturday (3 p.m.)

They are called Branco van den Boomen, Rhys Healey, Mikkel Desler, Ado Onaiwu or Rafael Ratão. They have two things in common: they were unknown in France two years ago and they are now the delight of Toulouse FC in Ligue 2. How did the TFC, now very close to a return to the top flight, find , in the space of two seasons, so many talents from countries (England, Netherlands, Slovakia, Japan, etc.) of which we see few representatives in the French championship? Players not evolving, most of the time, in the first division.

The takeover of the club by the American fund RedBird Capital Partners, in the summer of 2020, and the arrival of Damien Comolli as its president have revolutionized a recruitment policy now based above all on the analysis of statistical data. The principle: “Analyze data to extract the best players according to certain criteria. It allows us to have lists, ”explains Vincent Davasse, independent data analyst specializing in recruitment.

The pioneer Comolli

More than by the sports director (the position no longer exists in Toulouse) or the recruitment manager, it is by Comolli himself that the “data” revolution was triggered. The native of Béziers, who has worked as a recruiter or sports director at Arsenal, Liverpool or Tottenham, is a pioneer in this field and in the end, in Haute-Garonne, only reproduced what he had already put in place elsewhere, but which had never, until now, been tested in France to such a degree.

“In Ligue 1, there are clubs that have worked with data: Rennes, Lens, Reims, Marseille… but not with the same methodology as Toulouse”, continues Vincent Davasse. In a recent interview with So Foot, Damien Comolli illustrated his working methods as follows: “I refuse to compromise. If we assume that a player must be rated 8 or 9/10 on such and such a criterion, it is out of the question to take one who is only 7.9 “.

“They are not very wrong”

Players’ agent Sébastien Ranc confirms the rarity of this type of policy in France. “98% of the time, it works the old way: a phone call or an email, ‘Come see my player and tell me what you think.’ Data is another way of working which is special, but we see that they are not very wrong”. Even if it means complicating the work of the agents: “The Toulouse recruitment manager (Scotsman Brendan MacFarlane), I knew him very well when he was in Brentford. But now he is unreachable. I think they have decided to talk less with the intermediaries and to solicit only the players they find with their machine”.

However, out of the question, for Damien Comolli, to limit himself to the figures and to ignore the state of mind of the targeted players. “Our role is to optimize the connections between the players, and that goes through the data but also through a substantial exchange time with the targeted footballer. We don’t want to be mistaken about human quality. “The numbers don’t say everything, there is the personality of the player, approved the data analyst, Vincent Davasse. And this criterion is felt in the team in Toulouse: they made very good choices at the level of the men, it “stinks” of serenity”.