What Football Club Should a Gheorghie Support

Dave is a polymath, the Copernicus of the Raritan. He's a voracious reader, a deep thinker (when he's not a derp thinker), a man who reads physics texts for fun while also sporting a Ween tattoo. 

Dave's also a soccer coach, a tactical innovator who invents his own drills and adapts his style to meet the
unique needs of his team. He needs to root for a side that's stretching the game's limits, embracing modern training and tactics, viewing the game through a different lens.

Matthew Benham is a polymath, educated as a physicist, trained as a banker, wealthy from a statistics-aided run of success as a gambling entrepreneur, owner of multiple European football teams, including the fun to spell and say Danish club FC Midtjylland. (Dave should support them, but that's not why we're here.) 

Benham made much of his considerable fortune applying computational analytics to sports gambling, and when he purchased the football team he rooted for as a child, he set out to use the same approach to drag that team from the depths of the English pyramid. In 2012, when he became majority shareholder, that club languished in League One, the second-lowest full-time professional league in the country.

Around that time, Benham became friends with Rasmus Ankersen, a Danish entrepreneur with a passion for football and innovation. Ankerson applied statistical models to player acquisition and club management, and found a fellow traveler in Benham. Ankersen is the chairman of Midtjylland and the co-director of football for Benham's English club. And he gives a mean TEDx Talk.

Since that time, Benham's team has risen steadily through the ranks, seeking market inefficiencies to identity and acquire undervalued players and playing an attacking style that hopes to maximize expected goals (xG) over the course of a season on the theory that over the long run, teams that create more chances will more often be rewarded. After falling to Fulham in the Championship playoff final in 2019, Benham's team defeated Swansea in 2020 to gain promotion to the Premier League for the first time.

In their first seven games at the highest level, the team has made a mark. They defeated Arsenal, 2-0, intheir first match in the top flight, and currently sit in 7th place with only a single loss on their record. They just played a barnburner at Anfield, getting an 82nd minute goal from Yoane Wissa to tie hosts Liverpool. They're fun to watch, and there's a whole lot that suggests they'll stick around for a while.

Dave should root for Brentford, the Premier League's smartest and most interesting team.

Up the Bees! Up the Dave!