🇾🇪 From Mercedes to Manchester: How Michael Sansoni is Revolutionising United's Data Strategy 🧵 In the high-stakes world of modern football, the difference between success and failure increasingly comes down to what happens away from the pitch. For United, a club that has spent over £1 billion on transfers since 2017 with diminishing returns, the appointment of Michael Sansoni as Director of Data in July 2025 represents a huge shift in how one of the world's most famous clubs approaches the beautiful game. 🔴 From Mercedes to Manchester Sansoni arrives at Old Trafford after 11 years with the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One team, where he served as Senior Performance Simulation Engineer (Trackside) during eight World Championships. His journey from trackside engineering to football boardrooms might seem unusual, but it reflects a growing trend of clubs seeking expertise from industries where data analytics has already proven transformative. Sansoni joined Mercedes in 2014 as the team began its dominant run in F1's hybrid era, working his way up from simulation roles to become Lewis Hamilton's Performance Engineer from 2023 to early 2025. In Formula 1, success is measured in milliseconds, with engineers tracking everything from brake disc temperatures through corners to tire degradation lap by lap. This precision-driven environment is exactly what Manchester United hopes to replicate. ⚪️ The Data Deficit To understand the significance of Sansoni's appointment, one must first grasp just how far Manchester United had fallen behind in the data revolution. In December 2024, Sir Jim Ratcliffe didn't mince words when describing the club's data analysis capabilities, stating: "It doesn't really exist here. We're still in the last century on data analysis. There's immense amount of useful data that we can get from data analysis and we're in the 'very poor' bracket with data analysis here". This stark assessment came during a period when United's recruitment had become a byword for wastefulness and poor judgment. The £86 million signing of winger Antony stood as a particularly painful example of how the club's traditional scouting methods had failed in the modern era. Sansoni replaces Dominic Jordan, who exited the club in summer 2024 after just over two years in the role, having been tasked with building up United's data department more or less from scratch when he arrived in March 2022. Jordan had assembled a small team including specialists in machine learning, decision science, and data operations, but the department lacked the resources and integration needed to compete with the Premier League's data-savvy clubs. 1/7 #MUFC #ManchesterUnited #Sansoni