Interesting article on the FC Midtjylland's Website...........Part of which is shown below:-
Rasmus Ankersen, FC Midtjylland's new Chairman, talks about his first meeting with a wealthy Englishman Matthew Benham and why FC Midtjylland will revolutionize the world of football. You can hear more of Ankersen in Radio24syv Monday morning at 8:15.
The first time I met Matthew Benham, was on a rainy day in March just to Brent Ford's training facility in West London. At that time, Brentford FC finished third in the English League One, and I asked which one of the first Matthew if he thought that the team would move up. Actually I was expecting either an optimistic "YES" or a more conservative "it will be difficult", but instead he looked only at me and said quite soberly: "right now, there is a 42.7% chance of that happening." At that moment it dawned on me that here was a man who thought quite differently about football than I had seen or heard of before.
Almost 16 months after my first meeting with Matthew Benham in March 2013 Brent Ford's training facility, we sit together at the MCH Arena in Herning to a press conference to announce that Matthew has just bought a majority stake in my heart club FC Midtjylland. The first foreign ownership of a Danish football club is a reality. What this will mean I will return to later.
Data beats gut feelings
In 2012, Matthew Benham bought his childhood club, Brentford FC - the club he passionately followed through ups and downs since he was 10 years old. Since then he will safely lead the team up in England's second division - and now controls just as sure hand directly at the exclusive company in the Premier League. Not by spending more money than the competition, but by thinking smarter and less irrational. It was more than anything my meeting with Matthew, who convinced me that some of the sharpest football minds do not work in football clubs, but in the betting industry, where he originates. Their decision-making is stripped of emotion and rooted in detailed rational analysis. The opposite is true for many football clubs.
The football world is in many ways dominated by people who make decisions on intuition and feelings, and they do what they do because they have always done it that way. They have spent most of their life in the world, they have a heartfelt passion for the game, but they've never really thought about questions like: What is the relative value of a corner kick against a post? Is it more effective in the long run to score many goals but to close get in? What percentage increase home advantage chance of victory? If a player scores 10 goals in the Dutch league, what corresponds to it in the English league? When is the statistically most effective to switch his striker out? And there is real evidence that it affects performance negatively to play two games instead of one match in a week?
It is however the kind of questions that people like Matthew has been obsessed answer, and that is why their decisions are rooted in a deep understanding of the football game's inner mechanics.
