With this being Issue 250, I figured that for this one, I'd change it up a little as I usually do for "milestone" issues. This time around, I've decided to pull the curtain back and introduce you to some of the most important tools I use to craft my posts.
The first resource that gets a shout-out from me is Whoscored.com. Whoscored.com has just about everything. Even when I'm not making a blog post, I'll still go to Whoscored to get a rough idea of how each player fared in the matches I did not watch but in which I was nonetheless interested. Its player rating system is probably the most exact on the Internet, going all the way to two decimal places.
Beyond its in-depth player ratings, Whoscored provides detailed statistics on virtually every aspect of a football match. Everything from number of aerial duels won to player and team heatmaps to the trajectory of every shot taken and so much more - it's all there. On top of that, Whoscored even provides information on minor football leagues which almost no one outside their respective countries of origin follows closely.
I almost always take a large about of the quantifiable information in each of my posts from Whoscored because of how comprehensive and complete the website is. Even for someone like myself who already possesses a wealth of football knowledge, I can easily find myself going deep into the rabbit hole once I click on the home page. Although I would recommend Whoscored to just about every football fan, this is especially the case for "casual" fans intent on diving deeper into the favourite teams and players but not quite sure about where to begin.
Every transfer window invariably sees a flurry of activity as well as countless rumours to go with it. This being the case, many fans might not always be sure if a certain player is being overvalued or undervalued - especially if they have never watched that player before. This is where Transfermarkt.com comes in. Transfermarkt.com provides the most reliable estimates of what a player's transfer fee should be based on a combination of several metrics. All transfer fees are standardized because their values are given in euros regardless of the player's nationality or location of the player's club.
Transfermarkt also tracks any player's estimated transfer value over a given timespan. Thus, it serves as one of the ways to determine if a specific player has lived up to his transfer fee or fallen short. Players can also be sorted by position - a highly welcome feature since generally speaking, a player's transfer fee tends to increase the further forward he plays. As is the case with Whoscored, almost all leagues around the world and their players are tracked.
For other information, I usually shun big-name publications and newspapers. The clubs' own websites, sites such as SB Nation, and even Reddit have given me much material with which I can work. Additionally, many of the well-known newspapers and their analysts have been known to be biased for or against certain players and teams. While I won't provide any specific examples here, I'm sure we can all think of more than a few. Conversely, the sources I listed as those which I often visit as I write my posts tend to be much more objective.
Last but certainly not least, I'd like to give a shout-out to the YouTube channel Tifo Football. The videos on this channel cover just about every facet and nuance of today's football sphere. Content is delivered in a highly digestible yet informative manner, and even topics which are only tangentially related to football are covered. Tifo Football releases many tactical analysis videos which I often watch to add depth to my posts, particularly where strategic elements of football are concerned.
Tifo Football isn't just a useful tool for blog posts - anyone with even a passing interest in football should check out the channel. The sheer scope of topics within the football universe that it covers is remarkable. No matter which team you might support, you will come across at least one (and probably more than that) video which will be right up your alley.
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