McRobert appointed Analysis Group Lead on UEFA Share Programme

McRobert will remain at LJMU, where he is Professor of Performance Analysis and has worked for more than two decades. He has helped to educate a generation of performance analysts, including Natasha Patel, who is now Director of Sporting Analytics for US Soccer. 

Speaking on Episode #61 of the TGG Podcast, Patel remembered how McRobert had pointed her towards performance analysis when she was a Sports Science student.

“I had a really good lecturer called Allistair McRobert,” she said. “He must have known that my scientific side wasn’t as strong as my interest in football and analytics, so he suggested I look at the analysis module they were doing. 

“This was around 2009/10, my last year of study, so I already had two years of Sport Science under my belt, and wasn’t sure where I wanted to go.

“We had a classroom of MacBooks and he said, ‘Why don’t you come in, have a look at what Sportscode is and start watching some games?’ He knew I had a passion and I would spend hours in there dissecting games. He spent a lot of time with me just reviewing games. 

“That was brilliant for me to just get a little insight into what analysis was and, potentially, a possible career.”

UEFA have been beefing up their performance analysis department under Supervisor Atle Rosseland. Last month Daniel Simpson left the Football Association to become UEFA’s Performance Analyst Co-Ordinator.