A successful entrepreneur, Kaloyan Chaushev, sold his company to move into football over 20 years ago. As a youth coach, he took an interest in data and started tracking his own stats and metrics.
Hired as a cameraman, Kaloyan became one of the first real football analysts in Bulgaria. After a trophy laden 4 year spell at Ludogorets, he has worked with top flight sides Beroe and Dunav, as well as Watford Women in England.
Currently, based in the Netherlands with his family, Kaloyan does analysis at USV Hercules, who famously knocked Ajax out of the Dutch Cup this past season.
The interview has been condensed and lightly edited for grammar and clarity.
[ Can you tell me a little bit about your background and how you got into football? ]
It's a long story! My background in football goes way back, I was always connected to football. When I finished my graduate studies, I had two masters, one in marketing and another in banking, which are totally different fields from football but I always followed football closely. I grew up in a small city in Bulgaria. When I started my business career, my goal was to help the local football club in my city.
I had various businesses, the biggest was an internet provider in my city, probably one of the best at that time. This was over 20 years ago. Eventually, I sold the company to one of the largest providers in Bulgaria and decided to focus on football. I started with coaching. In Bulgaria, it's not allowed to work as a coach without a license. So, I went to get my UEFA B license at the Bulgarian Football Federation and the National Sports Academy (NSA). During this time, I was also coaching goalkeepers for small clubs in my city and later moved to a bigger city and started working in a small academy with kids, organizing training sessions and tournaments for children aged 4 to 7.
[ Then you started at Ludogorets. That’s quite a jump up, right? ]
Yes, it was. My background in business and my connections helped a lot. I realized there wasn't enough statistical data in Bulgarian football, so I ordered a small tool that could track basic game events like ball possession, corners, and more. This was before advanced software like Sportscode and LongoMatch were available. I used this tool to gather 5 or 6 match events per team and started meeting with coaches and discussing the importance of the data. Through a friend and a little bit of luck, I got introduced to the president of Ludogorets - who had just won their first championship - who liked what I said and saw potential to do something together.
They offered me a position to start (as a cameraman) with the academy. I developed a system to create personal files for players, tracking their performance and training sessions. In the beginning, some of the coaches weren’t so happy because it was ~1 hour more work for them (to input data & notes about the sessions) but after they saw how much information they could get out of this, they were very happy to do it. After 3 months though, the head coach of the first team asked me to work with the first team!
[ Tell us more about the job - are you usually analyzing opponents or your own team? ]
It depended on the coach's preference. Some coaches are focused more, or almost completely on their own team rather than the opponents.
It also depends on the level of the team. When I work with youth teams, especially under 14 or so, you don’t need to care about the opponents, you just need to build your team and play football the way you want, depending on the vision of the club because the result doesn’t matter.
There was an interview with a director at Barcelona who was saying all the teams under 12 lost almost all their games but they are playing in the style they want to play in the first team.
At Watford Women’s, we played a college in a friendly game and we went with our first and second team (U21). First the U21’s played and the opponent tried to play like Barcelona, tiki taka and playing out from the back. We pressed them and (easily) scored 3 or 4 times, but their coach didn’t change anything!
After, the first teams played and we couldn’t get the ball! I understood then - after winning by maybe 4 goals, we lost with our first team 3-1.
Sometimes the coach asks only for specific things. For example, how the opponent presses or builds up play, but I always add in all the throw-ins, corners, freekicks - I’ll never stop doing this.
One coach told me he didn’t want the throw-in info! I gave them anyway because we had a problem and I could show it. We were losing possession from 70% of our throw-ins! We were an amateur club, we didn't have enough training sessions to cover this. But, it turns out that in training matches, whenever the ball went out on the sideline, they were restarting with the goalkeeper! (So they never actually did throw-ins!)
We adjusted to have throw-ins during practice and emphasize keeping possession from throws. Now, they (the players and coaches) had to think about it and (our metrics) improved almost immediately.
So you need to give the coach what they are looking for first! But you won’t grow unless you look for other things too (and not just cutting video mindlessly).
[ How much influence can you have on the coach? ]
Most of the coaches that I learned a lot from, were not hiding any information - some even ask(ed), directly, what I think. Even though I only have UEFA C and they have UEFA Pro! So, sometimes I share information or opinions but the coach decides. A coach should listen to their assistants, consider their ideas but ultimately take their own decision. Some of the biggest coaches ask all the people around them and take the decision with a lot of information.
[ The top coaches seem to bring lots of staff with them from job to job, how important is networking? ]
Your contacts are so important. If you want to work in football, my first step would be to meet other people in football! And step by step this (an opportunity) will come for sure.
The first head coach I worked with at Ludogorets - after (he left), we would get coffee sometimes. I was in England at the time, and coming back to Bulgaria for holidays and I called him, asking if he had time for a coffee. He told me, ‘no, I don’t have time for a coffee, but tomorrow I’ll call you’. I said okay. The next day, he called, he was starting at a new club and asked if I wanted to join. He offered me directly as assistant coach, so even if it was a smaller club than Ludogorets, there was more responsibility, so I moved back to Bulgaria.
There is also another thing (to consider) when you are an assistant coach. When they fire, they fire all the staff! When the season finished, the coach, and all of us were fired. We played on Saturday, were told on Saturday night, we’ll be fired and to come in on Monday to sign our documents.
And then, on Tuesday my daughter was born! So, okay it’s not the moment to go abroad to look for a job and leave my wife and two kids at home! I have a good network in Bulgaria and the people know how I work so for me it took just 3 weeks and I found a (new) club. It was a small club but with good conditions and a good salary. This (stability) was important for me then.
Two years later, we decided to move again, this time to the Netherlands. I applied for a lot of jobs. I think it’s like this everywhere but when someone comes from another country almost no one cares about the previous CV. A head coach asked me more about the goalkeeper coaching I’d done in the Dutch 8th or 9th division! I thought, no, no, I was at Ludogorets (in the Champions League!), I’d been in the Netherlands where we beat PSV twice and knocked them out of the Europa League. For many though, it’s more important what you’ve done in the Netherlands.
"If you want to work in football, my first step would be to meet other people in football!"
[ Do you have a prediction for the future of football analysis? ]
There will be more AI. I don’t think that it will totally replace analysts but I think we will skip a lot of the (current) work. Now, to see all the throw ins, someone needs to watch the game and click different events and one of them is throw ins. But AI can make this analysis of basic events very easily.
I’m connected with a couple people who built something like this. Recently, I sent them one game. They do throw-ins, corners and shots data for both teams and this took about an hour. I send them the video, and they send back the results, all with AI - they didn’t watch the game! For me, this is the future.
At this moment, it’s hard for the AI to describe some things like pressing. But this will come too.
[ Any advice for someone who wants to start a career in football analysis? ]
I don’t know about advice. People just need to make what they want and if you like to do it, start doing it and search and never stop.
In my first meeting with a pro team, it was not Ludogorets, another team. When I explained what I can do, they told me it’s good but we know how the game will finish, why do we need you? This can stop some people and make them think ‘I don’t want to be in this industry’. I mean, the person directly told me they didn’t want me.
But I will not stop, I want to do this, so it doesn’t matter, I’ll continue.
And keep asking. If I want to understand something, I’ll just ask!
Everyone can say, ‘yeah but Wyscout or Sportscode are very expensive’. It’s true - but LongoMatch has a free version. Use that. Maybe it doesn’t have every feature but for me, I’ve used much older versions! Or, the regular one costs €150, you probably can set a few days' work (wages) aside and get it. Try it out.
Some say, there are few jobs. Yes, but start from the smallest division. I started in Hercules because I want to work, I don’t want to be out of the system. I want to meet with football people. I want to speak with football people. And when I work as an analyst it doesn’t matter if it’s voluntary or not, it helps keep you up to date.
Everyone needs to find their way to work.