Mark Simpson brings an evidence-based approach to Charlotte FC.

The head of analytics and U-14 academy coach who joined the club in March spent 15 years in Winston-Salem with Twin Cities Soccer and NC Fusion, where he met Charlotte FC technical director Marc Nicholls. Both wound up in MLS with the Seattle Sounders, and now Charlotte FC. Simpson was a scout for the Sounders, where he would introduce new evidence-based ideas to the club’s academy program.

“I want to work with the best people possible, and I certainly think Marc is that,” Simpson said. “It was a wonderful opportunity in how it all fit together in North Carolina.”

While Simpson brings a modern approach to the game, he still holds fast to traditional elements of selecting players, such as character values.

“That should never leave the game, but I always wondered as a player and when I started my coaching career, ‘is there a more effective way of playing soccer?’” Simpson asked.

Simpson grew up in England, where he played for Nottingham Forest from age 14-18 and went on to Rutgers before returning home to finish his degree. A coaching opportunity brought Simpson back to the New Jersey/New York area before he made his way to North Carolina. Now he’s molding future members of Charlotte FC’s first team.

“I’m very excited to bring ways to improve performance through data and to very importantly, quantifiably measure individual and team performance,” Simpson said. “Soccer is a very emotional game and that’s a wonderful part of it, but also afterward, can we identify things that will provide a guide to whether we played well or poorly, or are we just remembering one or two specific moments? I find that very exciting, the progressive nature of the leadership, the data-driven approach, [and] the things that I can bring to the table.”
The ultimate goal is to use analysis to influence player decision-making. Simpson breaks analytics into pregame, in-game and postgame.

“Pregame, I think I can have a very positive influence on the game plan,” he said. “Going into it, I can provide direct feedback to players about who their individual opponent is. During the game, we’ll have systems where it’s updating data throughout the game, and at halftime I can help possibly take some of the emotion for the coaches out of the game, and show them specifically whether we’re playing well, whether we’re playing poorly, are we hitting our key performance indicators? Postgame, I think feedback is so important to players.”

The process has already been introduced to academy players, who began training in July and are participating in the inaugural MLS NEXT competition, which began this month. Charlotte’s U-17 side beat Southern Soccer Academy 10-1 on Sept. 19 in Marietta, Georgia. Their group also includes Atlanta United, Orlando City SC, Jacksonville FC and FL Rush. Charlotte also competed in the U-15 competition against SSA, winning 2-1 on Sept. 19 in Georgia as well.

Simpson’s goal is to develop a learning culture designed to help players understand how to improve their performance.

“I think you do that visually and via data,” Simpson said. “A lot of things with the analytics I’m going to provide, the visualization of what I’m providing to help the players understand it is going to be so important and ultimately I’m here to support the players and the coaches, and provide what I believe are the best practices to make us effective, to make us efficient and win games.”

Charlotte FC, the league’s 30th franchise, was announced in December. Their inaugural season was postponed to 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but it’s building a foundation from the academy to the first team.

“We’re just at the early steps of this, but we believe in the Carolinas there is a large pool of talent that we would like to develop and foster and nurture,” Simpson said.

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