BeSoccer: The mathematics of football is solved in Malaga

Manuel Agustín Heredia played futsal in Malaga. At a good level. The time he did not invest in football, he did in another of his ‘hobbies’: computing. Son of the 90s, he saw the beginnings of computers at home, a thing that took up more than half a room and had less power than the mobile phone that you, the reader, are using right now to enjoy this text.

Active football was removed by a serious knee injury. The triad. A word that just hearing it causes a tremor in the legs. A tear of the anterior cruciate ligament, of the medial lateral and with involvement of the medial meniscus that had a year of absence. Before that, he repeated at the institute a couple of times, he did the selectivity, he enrolled in computer engineering, he left the career, he did a FP, he went through Ireland and he worked in a couple of companies already back in Spain developing different types of webs. He, who was also a video game player, started creating them before starting his career. I already knew how to program. There, the lightbulb lit up and he put all his hobbies into one while he recovered from the injury. That was the seed of BeSoccer.

“It was called Soccer Results. It was 2006 and there were no social networks yet. The best thing was Google and Wikipedia. I saw Málaga in the Second Division and it was difficult to find information beyond the result. My idea was a collaborative philosophy, as with Wikipedia: users entered the results and then they could comment. Like a forum. It cost the start, but it grew fast. While I was undergoing surgery and I was recovering from the injury, I was developing the project and at the beginning of 2007 I had to go back to work where I was on sick leave. I had an important offer to do a soccer vertical from Barcelona, ​​but due to personal situations I wanted to stay in Malaga. From there, I got to various media to develop their websites, but at some point they wanted me to go to Madrid. So, LaSexta was born and they subcontracted to a company here in Malaga. I worked with them for almost a year and decided to start just with my project. I was earning well, but I was not doing what was my dream. I left everything and started with the project 'full time' ”, he acknowledges in an interview for AS.

From there to the current BeSoccer, years and many phases have passed. They experienced exponential growth, they faced the challenge of smartphones and developed their application, they continued to grow and increase employees, of which several are friends. Now, they have a website among the most prominent in the football information sector, the “database with 95% of all those on the Internet”, as Manuel explains, and one of the most powerful tools in football: BeSoccer Pro. As if that were not enough, they are trying to create a 'brain' so that, out loud, it can ask you, for example, How many goals did Messi score on Tuesday (which has to play so many Champions League) with his right foot (make it more difficult) against English teams. That artificial intelligence will ‘dive’ into an ocean of data and will receive your answers shortly. That data could be more than a curiosity, but, now think about the use you could give it if you were a sports director. That machine bring the data to your screen or sing it to you just by asking. Or coach and tell him the records of his rival while he has breakfast …

All these projects did not go unnoticed even by the world of football, where they collaborate with clubs from Málaga (male and female) Cádiz, Huesca, Celta de Vigo, Elche, Granada, Real Betis (male and female), Madrid CFF, Leganés, Espanyol, Girona, Las Palmas, Tenerife, UCAM Murcia, Badajoz, Atlético Baleares, Real Murcia, Melilla, Recreativo, Extremadura, Illueca, El Palo, Pozuelo, Millonarios and even their 'own' team, the BeSoccer UMA Antequera officially. They receive inquiries from many parties, such as Real Madrid, the Premier League or Pochettino, who are among those interested due to the influence of data analytics in the game.

That Results-futbol.com, now BeSoccer thanks to Bruce Lee and his ‘Be water, my friend’, was a leading team in Europe and Manuel, as founder, received millionaire offers. First, it was seven million euros. I reject her. Yahoo, the search engine, which is a benchmark in sports information in the United States, put up to 15 million euros on the table for the company. “There you start to think about other things. So, I went to the US for a month to get to know the world of investment funds, company valuations and see what to do with the offer. Dfter much thought, I decided not to sell the company. I thought that having that money in the clean bank did not change my life, but not having my project if it changed it. My whole day to day was based on that. I rejected it “, sentence for AS.

If this had not been the case, he would not be able to hang up the shirt that, he confesses, makes him more excited today in his new 4000 m2 headquarters. Always in Malaga. That treasure is none other than Málaga's own shirt that appeared for the first time with the BeSoccer logo on matchday 38 of 16/17. The same day that the spotlights pointed to La Rosaleda because Real Madrid were crowned League champions with a 4-2 on the last day. Zidane's first League and BeSoccer's first time. An idea that started from the house of a humble family from Malaga and that now moves to a beautiful state-of-the-art building. “I started from my home. Then we went to an office in the center of Malaga, although they offered us to go to the technology park. There we shared space with other companies. From there, we went to an office just for us, but small. Then, we came to where we are now, which is from 2014 to this day, and now we move to a 4000 m2 headquarters. A gigantic glass building ”, Heredia tells us.

The founder, almost a One Club Men like Raúl, Maldini or Puyol, is loyal to his team and the team in his city. It has already given them a new image, a new stadium and they are looking to grow to 100 million in value with a team they hope to expand. Everything, while pampering their ‘Pro’.

What is BeSoccer Pro?

BeSoccer Pro could be simplified to a Wikipedia of football history data but the qualifier would be far from doing it justice. Not because of the comparison with Wikipedia, which has its awards and recognitions there, but because BeSoccer Pro appears as something more than an encyclopedic knowledge for soccer professionals: players, coaches and, mostly, sports directors. It is a tool where you can access analysis of almost any aspect of world football. A mix between the encyclopedia and a great search engine.

“In 2008, we already had the largest soccer database. We grew up and that made soccer people approach us to ask us about players they were looking for. For profiles, for example, a right-back, who is under 25 years old, with experience in Second and collect more or less 1 million euros. I could search for similar profiles in that database. There, I came up with a tool that could serve soccer professionals and BeSoccer Pro was born “, says Heredia, who has worked on this project hand in hand with Enrique Salvatierra, whom he constantly cites and refers us to, along with the rest of the team.

They took all their data and evolved what the different soccer video game companies always offered us and those of us who played to be ‘managers’ of the different teams. But for reality. BeSoccer Pro offers complete profiles with a numerical performance evaluation (ELO), the market price according to CIES and Transfermarkt, a price calculated by them on the performance currently offered, the REAP, a numerical data that compares the players with their peers in age, position and league, all the official matches that he has played in his career with data, almost all the data that you can imagine that can be extracted from a footballer on the green and also dispatch information, including his salary, estimated if in case it is not public. A tool that collects all those numbers and offers a tangible point of view including that of the good scouting eye that will measure the sensations, the intangibles, the personality and various factors that also play their role.

The signing process begins with the consultation, where the sports directors will be able to narrow down by criteria that estimate a list of about 25 players that fit the profile they are looking for. From there, all your data can be found easily collected in BeSoccer Pro plus all the important statistics to analyze: how and how much you spend, shoot, defend, dribble … Everything will provide absolute numerical values ​​for easy comparison. This is how Manuel himself explains it. “In a sporting direction, the first thing scouting has to do is what matches it wants to see. What we do is screen those matches according to the players who can really be targets for them and those who fit their search. Once they have seen that player, they have to gather information. They waste time reviewing numbers, their market valuation, reviewing results … With BeSoccer Pro, we have managed to put all that data into the tool and see it at once when you want to look at a player's profile. The skill of scouts and sports directors is to watch football. We want to facilitate the rest of things “, he assures. Thus, they have changed the perception. There are those who saw their data as a threat. Now, they are perceived as one more part that simply provides information to secure investments and sign the best player that could be signed.

The tool serves, of course, to sign but also to analyze possible rivals. Thus, Xisco, Watford coach, did not hesitate to contact his staff to get this tool that he has used to analyze his rivals and close his promotion to the Premier League.

The application also generates graphics that AS readers have been enjoying for a few weeks to complement the information that comes directly from the largest football database. This way you can observe the ‘mathematics’ that Benzema's performance of the season shows right after his magnificent goal against Chelsea or understand why Atlético de Madrid is leading this year. One more step to understand the magic of football. A passion that his knee took from him in one way and returned him in another.