Víctor Muñoz, the Inlier
When you don't pop in the data.
So after going on holiday just 24 hours before Liverpool signed him, I kinda feel like I’ve arrived late to the party regarding Víctor Muñoz. As crazy as it sounds, he’s almost old news already.
For that reason, I’m going to overlook Distance Covered tradition by writing an overview piece on him on this occasion. You guys already know plenty by now, and I recorded this little scouting report on him just a few days ago.
Instead, I’m going to use this post to delve into the whole data-driven signings narrative. The Reds are known for running a bit of a Moneyball operation on Merseyside, but Muñoz doesn’t really pop in the numbers.
What gives?
So scouting attacking players is generally pretty easy using data. Think of a football pitch as a minefield for a second. Well, within the context of using data to recruit players, most of the mines are situated in deeper areas of the field.
It’s hard using numbers to find a new centre-back, it’s a bit easier to find a central midfielder, and it’s child’s play to find an attacker. That’s because offensive players are tasked with delivering. It’s about product in the final third. Everything else is mostly noise.
So when scouting forwards, it’s almost a simple case of the more, the better. High numbers tend to be good. Low numbers tend to be bad. I mean, I’d prefer 845 goals over 12, wouldn't you? Although if you apply that same approach to signing defenders, there’s a chance you’ll end up in a bad place.
The more is more rule generally applies across the board when it comes to forwards. Guys who dribble a lot. Tons of progressive carries. Lots of shots, lots of chances created. We want big numbers. Kindergarten stuff, right?
So when we’re using data to compare players, the outstanding offensive talents are usually outliers. They separate themselves from the pack. If you want an elite dribbler, for example, Jérémy Doku will make himself known to the uninitiated man on the street. He won’t need to use particularly elaborate data. He won’t need a meticulous process, either. He’ll just find the Belgian pretty quickly on WhoScored.
Due to the growth of analytics in the modern game and in football fandom, it’s almost impossible for a hidden gem to remain hidden for very long nowadays. I still laugh at how Mohamed Salah somehow drifted under everyone’s radar in 2017. Nobody bothered to check the numbers back then.
But things have changed over the past few years. Today, if you’ve got any sort of extreme strength, you’ll pop online. We probably shouldn’t know that much about Yan Diomandé, but we do. Decades ago, he’d arrive at the current World Cup as a relatively unknown quantity. But not in 2026.
This brings me to Muñoz. Now, I realise Liverpool haven’t exactly signed this guy from Mars. Like, he’s in the Spain squad at the moment. Labelling him as unknown might be a bit of a stretch.
But it’s interesting that he doesn’t leap off the page like your typical outlier. He’s more of an inlier, if anything. If you assess him using conventional metrics, he’s kinda nowhere to be seen. Indeed, I conducted that exercise in January.
I’ve attached two visualisations from that piece below. The sample of players was simple. Over 2,000 guys whittled down to just 82 after installing a few basics filters.
No players aged 27 or over
Forward and midfielders only
Minimum 800 minutes played
Minimum one successful dribble per 90
At least 0.2 non-penalty xG + xAG per 90
