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From Billy Beane to the Bundesliga: Football’s Moneyball Revolution
2 Sep 2026 14:01 CDT |
6 min read
Analysis
There's a scene in Moneyball - the Michael Lewis book, not the film with Brad Pitt, but maybe also the film with Brad Pitt, it's been a while since I watched it - where Oakland A's general manager Billy Beane and his small team of computer nerds argue with the team's veteran scouts over which players they will draft in 2002 and end up focusing on outliers rather than the perceived scouting wisdom, much to the annoyance of all the old guys in the room who have done it their way for decades. Actually, that's probably the 'rebuild in the aggregate' scene in the movie, isn't it?
Other baseball teams were slow to emulate Beane's approach after Lewis's book was released, but since the film, everybody knows what a 'Moneyball' approach is. So much so, that sporting organisations in other codes have tried to emulate it. Chelsea's Todd Boehly thinks himself the Godfather of Moneyball in football, but he fails to take into account that the reason Beane and the A's took this approach is because they had less money than their competition. That is definitely not true for Chelsea. It is easy to rebuild in the aggregate when you have the cash to buy all the building tools in the first place.
Less wealthy teams have to be more clever with their approaches to recruitment, and some are using technology to do exactly that. In Germany, clubs are starting to use artificial intelligence for predictive scouting and algorithmic transfers. According to a recent study commissioned by the Bundesliga, it is expected that "by 2030, A.I. will accurately predict a young talent's professional footballing potential based on early performance indicators."
The study also states "A.I. can improve the speed, objectivity, and consistency of data-driven decisions by more efficiently identifying performance trends and suitability for the team." The 'by 2030' part of the study is the prediction and assessment that all clubs will be doing these things as some have already started, like Schalke and St Pauli.
Schalke are back in the Bundesliga this season and are one of Germany's traditional clubs, but have not won the domestic title since 1958, before the Bundesliga was even formed. Despite the club's huge fanbase, financial trouble has never been far away in the past decade. In 2020, the club admitted it was close to bankruptcy due to the coronavirus pandemic and as recently as 2024, Sky Germany predicted that if they suffered another relegation, Schalke as a club could be finished.
Luckily, things turned around on the pitch and now they are back in the top-flight. Part of that is down to their A.I.-powered scouting approach. They have called this model 'Schalke DNA' and uses two scouting platforms named after club legends Huub Stevens and Stan Libuda called HubStevens and StatsLibuda. These tools are used to assess which players to sign and how they will fit into the club's playing philosophy.
The tools identified Soufiane El-Faouzi as having 90% Schalke DNA, so they decided to sign him for €200,000 from 3. Liga side Alemannia Aachen. The midfielder played every 2. Bundesliga game in the 2025-26 season, helping them finish top of the table and return to the Bundesliga. That also did not go unnoticed by the Morocco national team who gave him his first cap in May.
Every major team around the world now has teams of scouts or video tools to watch every player. This makes it even more difficult for teams to find undervalued or underappreciated talent that might help them achieve their goals. But some clever clubs are finding ways around this.
Elversberg are the smallest team to ever play in the Bundesliga, coming from a town of just 13,000 people in Saarland near the French border. Their rise has defied all odds, playing in the fourth tier as recently as 2022. Elversberg do not have the budget or the staff of the big clubs in Germany, but the success that Nils-Ole Book brought as sporting director saw him earn a move to Borussia Dortmund, where he is now trying to find underappreciated players, just at a higher level.
Josef Welzmuller is the Technical Director at Elversberg, and the 36-year-old is one of the sharpest minds in German football today, holding a doctorate in sports management - a bit like one of Billy Beane's gurus in Moneyball. He is working with the smallest scouting department in the Bundesliga to try to keep the club in the top flight, and they got off to the perfect start with a stunning 3-2 victory over Bayer Leverkusen.
"We have a very small scouting team, just two people, to be honest," Welzmuller admits, when asked about how Elversberg exploit the market to their advantage. "This is probably one of my major tasks. We built a scouting profile, so position profiles for each position on our field and our formation, how we want them to play. We are very clear about what a player must bring to the table when he wants to play for our team in this formation.
"Obviously, we have some data, but especially we have very, very hard-working scouts. Those two know the league, the whole of Europe, and even overseas. They’re watching film the whole time, and they just love it. They’re so passionate about their job. We are clear about what we need. We are watching so many games, so many players. When they fit, then we go to talk to the agent and all that stuff. We are very clear about the profile, what we need in their playing profile, and then it's just like matchmaking."
The club smashed their transfer record to bring in American winger Cole Campbell from Dortmund for €6m, but only spent a total of €12m on players, preferring to stick to their tried-and-tested approach of loaning young talent from big clubs, such as Leverkusen's Francis Onyeka and Stuttgart's Noah Darvich.
So far, the matchmaking has proved a huge success. Campbell played just seven times at Dortmund and was considered surplus to requirements despite huge potential. Elversberg saw this and are already reaping the benefits. The 20-year-old scored their second goal against Leverkusen to give them the perfect start to life in the Bundesliga.
Beane's Oakland A's never won the World Series, but that was never their goal against the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox of the world. It won't be Elversberg or Schalke's goal either with Bayern Munich dominating in Germany, but they are proving that this approach will definitely be relatively successful. The Bundesliga has entered its Moneyball era, the only question now is 'Who will Brad Pitt play in this version?
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