Nigeria, Aug. 20 -- How Manchester City Used Data to Replace De Bruyne with Rayan Cherki It is called Moneyball, but that's only half true. I'll tell you more;

This Rayan Cherki recruitment clip has revealed one of football's biggest developments.

For decades, we imagined transfers happened like this: a scout watches a player, the manager likes him, the agent negotiates, and the club signs him.

That world still exists.

But what Manchester City (@ManCity) have just shown us is something far more fascinating.

When City began searching for Kevin De Bruyne's successor, they didn't start with YouTube compilations or agent recommendations. Sporting Director Hugo Viana and the recruitment department built a model using 43 separate performa...