![\"Team](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/team-styles-segunda-liga-2025-26-1024x658.jpg\")
<\/p>\nHaralabos Voulgaris
\nbought Spanish second division side Castell\u00f3n after leaving the NBA
\nand Dallas Mavericks. Now, he is slowly building a culture of
\ndata-driven decision-making.<\/p>\n
Haralabos Voulgaris has always existed on the margins of the
\nsports world.<\/p>\n
He witnessed the NBA\u2019s analytics revolution not at its vanguard,
\nbut just behind it. He built models, watched untold hours of
\nbasketball, and searched relentlessly for an edge to beat the
\nmarkets until the edges he kept finding started to draw attention.
\nHe took his analytical mind and those models to the Dallas
\nMavericks, where he became director of quantitative research and
\ndevelopment.<\/p>\n
Voulgaris eventually wanted to buy an NBA franchise and run it
\non his own terms, but billionaires kept outbidding billionaires,
\nand the goalposts (or hoops) kept moving. So, he turned his
\nattention to a place where he could find even more inefficient
\nmarkets: European football.<\/p>\n
From the sidelines to centre stage, Voulgaris now spends his
\ndays in Spain running CD Castell\u00f3n after becoming the club\u2019s
\nmaximum shareholder in 2022. An hour north of Valencia on Spain\u2019s
\neast coast, the club currently sit 11th in the second division
\nafter spending the last decade and more in Spain\u2019s lower leagues,
\neven dropping as far as the fourth tier.<\/p>\n
Volugaris spent years watching basketball like a codebreaker. He
\nstudied substitution trends, clock management, the rhythm of
\nin-game adjustments. His brain is trained to spot patterns the rest
\nof us experience only as vibes. In Castell\u00f3n, he\u2019s applying the
\nsame logic: rebuild the system, trust the data, ignore the
\nnoise.<\/p>\n
But he isn\u2019t doing the rich-guy-plays-football-manager bit. He\u2019s
\ntaking the long way around.<\/p>\n
Off the field, there\u2019s a new 23,000-square-metre training
\ncomplex in the works with pitches built like a mini stadium, a
\nspace for the women\u2019s and youth teams. There are new sponsorship
\ndeals and a renewed energy on the terraces as Castell\u00f3n fans ready
\nthemselves for a push up the Spanish football pyramid.<\/p>\n
On the field, the data has translated into something tangible,
\ntoo. Castell\u00f3n were promoted to Spain\u2019s Segunda Divisi\u00f3n just a
\nyear after the takeover. They play a high-energy, occasionally
\nreckless brand of football. Since their return to the second
\ndivision, they\u2019re inside the top three in a number of football\u2019s
\nmost important attacking metrics.<\/p>\n
Revolutions don\u2019t always necessary look like revolutions. This
\none is taking the form of a slow and steady march towards
\nprogress.<\/p>\n
Castell\u00f3n are on the move. And it\u2019s all being driven by
\ndata.<\/p>\n
Garbage
\nIn, Garbage Out<\/p>\n
With the proliferation of data in sports, it has become easy to
\ntune out. Too many dashboards, too many metrics, and not nearly
\nenough time to figure out what any of them mean. In football, as in
\nevery other industry that\u2019s been \u201cdisrupted\u201d, the assumption is
\nthat more data equals better decisions. And yet, as Voulgaris told
\nOpta Analyst, that assumption might be exactly what\u2019s
\nholding most clubs back.<\/p>\n
Data used in the wrong way is worse than not using data at
\nall.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the rush for clubs to use data without really
\nunderstanding sampling or variance can actually widen the gap. The
\nsharper clubs, the ones who understand how to work with data and
\nhave experience making decisions with data are the ones best served
\nto lean heavily on data, in my opinion,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
With that in mind, then, the objective isn\u2019t to specifically
\nbecome the most \u201cdata-driven\u201d club in the world.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe goal is not to get every decision right, because that is
\nnot realistic. The goal is to consistently make better decisions
\nthan your peers and to keep improving the process that leads to
\nthose decisions,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s an imperfect science.\u201d<\/p>\n
The
\nImperfect Science<\/p>\n
Much of Voulgaris\u2019 approach, and the things he is trying to do
\nright as the owner of his own football club, comes from knowing how
\ndysfunction looks up close.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I was with the Mavericks, the front office was, in my
\nview, far too disorganised,\u201d he said. \u201cThe culture of
\ndecision-making was chaotic. The owner was the de facto final
\ndecision-maker, but he wasn\u2019t directly involved in doing the work
\nbehind those decisions. Instead, he\u2019d constantly poll different
\npeople with varying levels of influence.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I did like, though, was that if you were willing to really
\ndocument your reasoning and show the work behind a player move, you
\ncould convince him. The downside was that you\u2019d often spend more
\ntime debating or trying to persuade someone who hadn\u2019t done the
\nanalysis than actually improving the team.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat experience shaped how I run things at Castell\u00f3n. I value
\nopen input, but decision rights are clear, and I avoid the endless
\ndebate loop that comes from unclear authority.\u201d<\/p>\n
But soccer brings up it\u2019s own set of problems that basketball
\ndoesn\u2019t have.<\/p>\n
\u201cResults dominate everything,\u201d Voulgaris said regarding the
\nchallenges that face him as a football owner.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd because matches are low-scoring and full of variance,
\npeople often judge decisions by outcomes and small samples instead
\nof process. In football, a single goal can swing the entire
\nnarrative around a performance. You can play well for five matches,
\ncreate more chances, control the game, and still lose two of them
\nbecause of a deflection or a missed finish.\u201d<\/p>\n
Results-Driven Business<\/p>\n
After five games this season, three defeats and two draws,
\nVoulgaris had seen enough to make a change. He sacked Johan Plat
\nfor Pablo Hern\u00e1ndez, who had been working for the club\u2019s second
\nteam and just been promoted into the Segunda RFEF (fourth tier)
\nwith them.<\/p>\n
So far, from a data perspective, Voulgaris has to like what he
\nis seeing. The former Leeds United maestro has improved Castell\u00f3n\u2019s
\nxG per game to 1.69 per game from 1.52. They were already high up
\nthe list in xG under Plat (7th) but Hern\u00e1ndez has given them the
\nthird-best xG per game in the league.<\/p>\n
Maybe more importantly, they now have the fourth-best xG against
\nin the league (0.78\/game). Under Plat, they were conceding double
\nthat amount per game (1.60) for the third-worst mark in the
\nleague.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s early days and Voulgaris won\u2019t be getting ahead of himself
\ngiven the uncertainty around small sample sizes, but Hern\u00e1ndez has
\nthem looking like genuine title contenders. They have the best xG
\ndifference per game under his watch (+3.66) and they are unbeaten
\nin four games (W3 D1).<\/p>\n
They play forward fast, as the graph below shows. And this can
\nlead to a lot of randomness in results even if the performances are
\ngood. That\u2019s why understanding the underlying trends is so
\nimportant.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cThat randomness makes it hard to separate performance from
\nresult,\u201d Voulgaris said. \u201cOver time, the noise can drown out good
\ndecision-making, because people are reacting to the last scoreline
\ninstead of the underlying trend. It takes discipline and conviction
\nto stay focused on process when short-term variance from casuals
\nare screaming at you to change direction.\u201d<\/p>\n
So when fans are baying for the manager\u2019s head and the media
\nrefuses to let it drop, it takes courage and calm to stay the
\ncourse. Voulgaris\u2019 convictions are rooted in an attacking brand of
\nfootball, a brand of football built to excite.<\/p>\n
He previously told The Guardian: \u201cI love our style: we
\ndon\u2019t play for ties. When we played Deportivo, they defended. We
\nwent ahead, they attacked. They scored, defended again. It was
\ncomical to me. That\u2019s the inefficiency. Three points for a win, one
\nfor a draw, zero for a loss, it\u2019s the most basic thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
They\u2019ve spent just 41% of their games with the scores level, one
\nof the lowest in the keague. This is a direct result of a simple
\nheuristic: it\u2019s better to try to win three points and end up with
\nzero than settle for one.<\/p>\n
![\"Castell\u00f3n](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/spanish-segunda-game-states-1024x665.jpg\")
\nA
\nSustainable Style<\/p>\n
The style, in itself, is productive even if the results haven\u2019t
\nfollowed because playing exciting, attacking football gives your
\nplayers a platform to shine, which in turn draws the eyes of scouts
\nfrom bigger clubs.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the NBA, losing is rewarded with a better draft position,
\nwhile in football, losing brings the threat of relegation,\u201d he
\nadded. \u201cPlayer trading is also a core function in European
\nfootball, both sporting and financial, whereas it doesn\u2019t exist in
\nthe NBA.\u201d<\/p>\n
Castell\u00f3n\u2019s style has led to player sales, enough to fund the
\nentire project. This summer they sold Daijiro Chirino, a player
\nthey signed from PEC Zwolle two years ago, to Almer\u00eda for a
\nsignificant profit. Jozhua Vertrouwd, whom they signed for free
\nafter leaving Utrecht U21s, joined Rayo Vallecano for another
\nmassive profit.<\/p>\n
The process of filtering players and highlighting potential
\ntransfer targets might be deductive but sometimes it can be
\nintuitive.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere have been several cases where I was watching video of a
\nplayer the data had highlighted, and another player on the same
\nteam caught my eye,\u201d Voulgaris recalled. \u201cSometimes that second
\nplayer ends up being the real discovery. The data leads you to the
\nright place, but you still have to stay alert when you are
\nthere.\u201d<\/p>\n
A Novel
\nApproach To Scouting<\/p>\n
The transfer market is a main pillar of Castell\u00f3n\u2019s model, and
\nit\u2019s no surprise Voulgaris has a novel, data-led approach to
\ndiscovering new talent.<\/p>\n
It is an almost heretical approach to scouting.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do not rely on in-person scouting. Our process starts
\nentirely with data. We identify players through our models, and
\nonly after that do we watch film to understand their style,
\ndecision-making and personality on the pitch. The data leads, the
\nvideo confirms.\u201d<\/p>\n
With clubs scouting traditionally, they are limited by their
\nability to watch players and it reduces the scope of potential
\nsignings. Castell\u00f3n have no such limitations. If you don\u2019t need to
\nworry about the logistics or travelling to and from games, the
\nentire world is open to you from a scouting perspective.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith reliable data feeds, you can effectively scout every
\nleague in the world,\u201d Voulgaris continued. \u201cThe challenge is not
\naccess, it is translation. Context is crucial. You need to
\nunderstand the role the player was being asked to play and how that
\nrole shapes the data.\u201d<\/p>\n
Voulgaris has not been shy in bringing in players from different
\nleagues. Castell\u00f3n have used players from 15 different countries
\nthis season, the most in the league. They continue to replenish
\ntheir squad with players just before or at their peak with an eye
\non potential future sales.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/castellon-squad-age-matrix-1024x819.jpg\")
\nCulture
\nClash<\/p>\n
Spanish football coaching has been exported around the world.
\nThere are more players from Spain playing across Europe\u2019s top five
\nleagues than any other nation. Four managers in the Premier League
\nare Spanish; no other nation has more representatives in the
\ndugout.<\/p>\n
Their methods work in that sense but it hasn\u2019t always translated
\nto innovation within Spanish football itself. A country that has
\nrenowned academies and produces world-class coaches at an
\nindustrial level doesn\u2019t really need to look outside itself for
\ninspiration and innovation.<\/p>\n
But that\u2019s not to say it works perfectly.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is easier to change minds when you own the club because you
\ncan set the culture from the top,\u201d he said, explaining how he deals
\nwith this culture clash. \u201cPeople either align with that approach or
\nthey tend to move on naturally. I do not force anyone to think a
\ncertain way, but embracing data and open-mindedness is part of how
\nwe operate, and that will not change.\u201d<\/p>\n
Voulgaris has a simple heuristic for how he thinks about
\neverything the club are doing: \u201cIf we weren\u2019t doing it like this
\nalready, is this how we would start?\u201d<\/p>\n
The professional gambler turned football club owner never
\nrealised his dream of owning an NBA franchise, but he is very much
\nin control at Castell\u00f3n, putting his data-driven theories to the
\ntest.<\/p>\n
Not every decision has been the right one, but Voulgaris\u2019 strike
\nrate so far is impressive.<\/p>\n
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