Johan Lange

[ChinlessWonder]

10 minutes ago, useless said:

Had a look on a Copenhagen forum last night and they didn't seem to be bothered about losing him, apparently they've made a few disappointing purchases of late and it seems they don't know what it actually is that he does, apparently it's someone else who spots the players, FC Copenhagen even said on their website that he wouldn't be replaced as they think they can continue doing what they're doing without him.

I guess we just have to judge him based on what he does with us, will be different circumstances really, there he was very limited in terms of who he was able to sign, and his strategy to attract players was to tell them that if they do well they can get a move to one of the big five leagues, here he will be able to sign a different class of player and they will already be coming to a club playing in one of the 'big five' leagues.

Marvellous.

[Zatman]

6 minutes ago, Digavilla said:

Am little worried about his appointment, have searched all over the net to find some of his successful signings or accomplishment , only a few unknown players sold for profit & the profile & type of those players are quite underwhelming. I am also not sure someone from the Danish league ,  can take us forward ... in this modern era football of the Wolves’s Mengdes / Leed’s  Bielsa or even Brentford etc , it’s hard to be excited about Lange .. let’s hope our owners knows things we don’t 
 

Brentford guys came from the Danish league

[useless]

To counter that a lot of their fans on twitter seemed very disappointed to have lost him, so maybe they just happen to have very negative fans that post on that particular forum.

I'm sure our owners wlll have looked into him and he will have done something right for them to have decided to appoint him.

Edited July 31, 2020 by useless

[VBM]

37 minutes ago, Johnnyp said:

Exactly. Brentford have access also to Matthew Benham's smartodds company for data and analysis. That's a pretty big company.

Which is the same with Brighton and Tony Blooms 'Star Lizard' football hedge fund. They have teams of PhD quants going working on football data.   

[Reivax_Villa]

Soo NSWE should purchase a bespoke Data company?

[NPDK]

As promised, here's some information about Lange on a few topics.

First of all, there’s a lot of waffling. He came across rather uncomfortable with a lot of mumbling and fast talking. The podcast was recorded in January of 2017, so some things might have changed.

There were also a lot of useless information that was Copenhagen strictly and not really about him. But there some information about what he does (and how he does it) as well as what Copenhagen need to do to continue developing and things like that. 

I’m paraphrasing btw.

What is it that actually does:
He said he’s mostly working three areas. 
1) He assists the manager (Ståle Solbakken) and his staff at tactical training sessions. He analyses upcoming opponents (which includes tactical discussions with Solbakken back and forth), both in Denmark as well as European. He’s the guy traveling to see European opponents up close while Solbakken stays back in Denmark. He’s also one of the primary guys at Copenhagen when it comes to presenting the analysis to the players either at meetings or individually. 
2) He’s in charge of the academy. He’s in charge of the overall strategy of the academy to insure that Copenhagen stays competitive
3) Optimizes the scouting process. Solbakken has final say whether Copenhagen signs play X or player Y, but it’s his job gather as much information as possible to present to Solbakken. 

Regarding transfers:
There’s a video on Youtube where he goes through how Copenhagen goes about their transfer business and the scouting process. There’s ongoing discussions within the management team and his guys about the squad assembling as well as how the squad would be looking in 12-18 months, so that they can prepare for anything. A big part of this preparation is the knowledge of the scouts. They all know exactly how Copenhagen wants to play and what kind of players fit that system. The further along they get, the less targets they get (some of them aren’t as good as they thought, some would be too expensive, some won’t come to Copenhagen and so on). Once they’ve slimmed down there list of targets, they start to do there due-diligence and get a feel for the players. They talk to teammates, former teammates, coaches, agents and so on to get a feel for the players mentality and to see if he would fit into the FC Copenhagen mindset. End the end Lange, and hopefully Solbakken if possible, will go and watch the players in-person. This is pretty standard, but I wanted to add it anyway.  

Career-planning:
A big part of Copenhagen is career-planning. Copenhagen know exactly who they are and where they belong in the pecking order that is European football. In order for them attract top talent, they have to present them with a long-term plan for the development, which is being discussed even before they sign the contract. He also mentioned that due to the way society has changed, it’s much more common for players to an actual career-plan for how they want to progress and it’s easy for Copenhagen to show how Copenhagen would be a great decision for them to make in terms of continuous development (they can leave more mature and mentally stronger, as well as a better resume with European caps in Champions League or Europa League). Usually Copenhagen plans for players to stay three years, before selling them (Benjamin Verbic spend 2,5 years at Copenhagen before being sold to Dynamo Kiev and Ludwig Agustinsson also spend 2,5 years before going to Werder Bremen, just two examples), which is pretty much the agreement when the player signs his contract. This, IMO, just shows that Copenhagen perfectly understands where they are compared to other European clubs and what they need to sell to potential new players.  

There aren’t a lot of ‘one club players’ anymore, which means that the squad in general is much younger than 5-6 years ago, which also means Copenhagen added a couple more coaches to their staff in order for them to continue help developing every young player in the squad. 
This strategic career-planning for players, also means that Copenhagen has a much bigger squad turnover than previous (which goes back to squad planning 12-18 months into the future). It’s also important to Copenhagen that the turnover isn’t too big and players leave after 12 months. They want those three year cycles to ensure some sort of continuity. 

Academy/player development:
I believe the rebranding of the academy (School of Excellence) came after this podcast, so there weren’t a lot of information. Copenhagen spends a lot of resources on developing the academy and continue making players for the first team. 

A few other clubs in Denmark, that made surprise runs in Europe, claims that the biggest part of their run were due to a great spine of homegrown players and the biggest part in their development were the amount minutes they got for the first team, something Copenhagen hasn’t been particularly good at. Lange claims that at Copenhagen, the best players play regardless of name and resume. He claims that’s why players like Thomas Delaney (Dortmund), Andreas Cornelius (Parma) and Zanka (previously Huddersfield) came through, was because they were simply good enough at a very young age. We’ve seen it lately with guys like Carlo Holse and Jonas Wind knocking on the door to the starting 11 at Copenhagen (Holse was sold to Rosenborg and Wind had some injuries, but he looks like a future star now). 

He’s a big believe of loaning players, as long as the loan is the right fit. Copenhagen has previously had a lot of success loaning out players and getting them back ready to be a part of there squad. Hopefully, that’s something we’ll see here as well.

[Dave-R]

Yeah there really is not much out there in regards to Lange, not even on YouTube, there a few vids of him but not in english.

It's tough getting into this guys history, whether that's a good or bad thing I do not know.

Have had a read of this just, it all sounds perfect and clear but only time is going to tell if we have made a bad choice or not:

https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/aston-villa-transfers-grealish-lange-18690294

We just have to trust that he is the right guy for the job and we arnt pulling in any tom dick or harry to these roles. Really experience would make us feel chilled about the new SD despite that nothing is ever Guaranteed in terms of success.

A good way Lange could start I think would be to make a statement saying Grealish has been secured for another five years, that Reina is staying with the club and that we are close to signing an incredible Striker or Winger.

[Eastie]

Seems he’s been used to dealing in the low market buys and selling on for profit , the standard of player required at villa is a lot higher than the danish league , I hope he has the coNtact’s To shop in a higher level market place than where he has been . 
 

the transfer budget at villa will be vastly higher than Copenhagen , I wish him well. 

[sparrow1988]

13 minutes ago, Dave-R said:

Yeah there really is not much out there in regards to Lange, not even on YouTube, there a few vids of him but not in english.

It's tough getting into this guys history, whether that's a good or bad thing I do not know.

Have had a read of this just, it all sounds perfect and clear but only time is going to tell if we have made a bad choice or not:

https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/aston-villa-transfers-grealish-lange-18690294

We just have to trust that he is the right guy for the job and we arnt pulling in any tom dick or harry to these roles. Really experience would make us feel chilled about the new SD despite that nothing is ever Guaranteed in terms of success.

A good way Lange could start I think would be to make a statement saying Grealish has been secured for another five years, that Reina is staying with the club and that we are close to signing an incredible Striker or Winger.

Nothing? Not even a compilation of him banging in Tonev style screamers? Lange out!!!

[hong0311]

1 hour ago, Zatman said:

Brentford guys came from the Danish league

In fact the DoF of Brentford - Rasmus Ankersen has a part time role as the chairman of FC Midtjylland, which is basically the other largest team in Denmark right now

Edited July 31, 2020 by hong0311

[Tomaszk]

1 hour ago, useless said:

Maybe they just happen to have very negative fans that post on that particular forum.

PAH! That doesn't sound very realistic.

[gwi1890]

2 hours ago, Eastie said:

Seems he’s been used to dealing in the low market buys and selling on for profit , the standard of player required at villa is a lot higher than the danish league , I hope he has the coNtact’s To shop in a higher level market place than where he has been . 
 

the transfer budget at villa will be vastly higher than Copenhagen , I wish him well. 

Same contacts as the big shot Suso?

[mikeyp102]

I really don’t understand looking up Wolves or Copenhagen fansites. 
No fan really knows what a Sporting Director does, or what has gone on in the background. The only thing we as fans can judge is transfer success and that could be a small proportion of the job they have.

The board seem highly ambitious and are very successful businessmen in their own right. I’m sure they’ve done their due diligence on the man.

[skarroki]

I don't think he'll have a big role in the transfer department, I think that'll be left mainly to Dean and the scouts. Sounds like a very supplementary role to different areas of the club and working to weave them together 

[useless]

Many fans do understand what Sporting Directors do, It's not some mysterious role, the duties are well documented, aleit they can vary from club to club, it's pretty understandable why someone would  look up the opinion of the fans of the last club a new Sporting Director was at, they will have a better idea than most if he's done a good job or not.

Edited July 31, 2020 by useless

[LondonLax]

2 hours ago, hong0311 said:

In fact the DoF of Brentford - Rasmus Ankersen has a part time role as the chairman of FC Midtjylland, which is basically the other largest team in Denmark right now

Brentford and Midtjylland are both owned by the same person. 

[useless]

I don't think we need a big name Sporting Director with contacts to attract an higher calibre of player, the well known players we will know about and they will know about us as a premier league club. Many clubs in the premier league won't have a big name DoF.

[romavillan]

2 minutes ago, useless said:

I don't think we need a big name Sporting Director with contacts to attract an higher calibre of player, the well known players we will know about and they will know about us as a premier league club. Many clubs in the premier league won't have a big name DoF.

If after Wes Edens' comments on getting the data analysis right have any weight, and I think they do, then he will be here to get us where we should be in terms of modern player analysis and identifying talent etc. Attracting high calibre players won't be his bag anyway, a well known and established talent doesn't need much in the way of scouting and analysis do they? They're already well known and proven at the highest level if they're a high calibre player. Trying to hook one of those is more Purslow's bag once Dean has identified what he needs and all 3 agree that this high calibre player will fit the bill, we can afford him and he might come.

I see this as a pretty astute signing if they've felt we're behind the times in our use of data to find players. It might take a little while to bear fruit if when he comes in we're been using old copies of Shoot and a zx81 to unearth players. 

[Muriel]

1 hour ago, romavillan said:

If after Wes Edens' comments on getting the data analysis right have any weight, and I think they do, then he will be here to get us where we should be in terms of modern player analysis and identifying talent etc. Attracting high calibre players won't be his bag anyway, a well known and established talent doesn't need much in the way of scouting and analysis do they? They're already well known and proven at the highest level if they're a high calibre player. Trying to hook one of those is more Purslow's bag once Dean has identified what he needs and all 3 agree that this high calibre player will fit the bill, we can afford him and he might come.

I see this as a pretty astute signing if they've felt we're behind the times in our use of data to find players. It might take a little while to bear fruit if when he comes in we're been using old copies of Shoot and a zx81 to unearth players. 

You can definitely use data for well known players. The point isn't just to find players but also being able to evaluate what they are actually worth and stay clear of people who are overrated. Liverpool is probably the market leader in recruiting based on data analytics, and I have known every single player they have bought in recent years. 

[Demitri_C]

Wonder if we will geta  friendly with copehagen eventually?

Dont think we have ever player them