Simon Kuper
Simon Kuper appears in How to win a penalty shootout (with game theory) as the football writer explaining how little systematic penalty data many teams had before the modern analytics era. The episode uses his comments to show why Ignacio Palacio Huerta’s database could matter: an outsider with disciplined records could sometimes know more about penalty habits than clubs themselves.
Kuper’s role connects the source to football economics and analytics rather than only to match drama. The episode points listeners to Soccernomics / 《足球经济学》, linking his broader work with Stefan Szymanski to the same effort to explain football behavior through evidence, incentives, and strategy.
22.足球经济学：读者不必是球迷 makes that broader work central. The 蜜獾吃书 discussion treats 《足球经济学》 / Soccernomics as a book that uses football to study Football Labor-Market Discrimination, Open Football Talent Markets, Football Manager Myth Deflation, club losses, national-team openness, and the non-GDP value of major sports events.
Connections
- Soccernomics / 《足球经济学》 and Stefan Szymanski - football-economics work related to the episode.
- Data-Driven Penalty Preparation and Penalty Shootout Strategy - analytics branch he helps contextualize.
- Chelsea FC, Manchester United, and FIFA World Cup - football contexts in the source.
- Football As Economic Laboratory, Soft-Budget Football Clubs, and Sports Mega-Event Welfare Accounting - broader book branch added by 蜜獾吃书.
- Planet Money and NPR - episode and network context.