Data-driven decision making is becoming more common in sports and football is not an exception. Insights into physical and video data such as the number of high-intensity sprints, distance covered, and information about heart rates have been used by professional football clubs for a while now, therefore, many clubs know how to use this data and gain valuable information out of it. However, as technology advances, an increased amount of professional football clubs will struggle to correctly implement the data to gain useful insights. To mitigate this, clubs are starting to hire external companies or set up internal teams of data analysts. Nonetheless, as the developments around data continue to advance, it will be interesting to observe how professional football teams will handle these changes.
Current developments in football focus on live match data. With this information, managers and other staff can examine the opponent’s strategy and formulate a game plan based on what they see. Additionally, managers can analyse data from live matches to make fast and educated strategic decisions while the match is still being played. Interest in these technologies grew rapidly as clubs recognized the competitive advantage they could create with live match data. A company that was one of the first to bring the technology to the market was Metrica Sports. Founded by three football fanatics with a science background, they quickly discovered that they should work with video analysis to identify key moments in matches. By using video, the coaches can explain their tactics and provide the players with real-life examples. It became a great success as more than 80 professional football clubs have adopted the technology.
The reason for Metrica Sports’ success doesn’t come as a surprise. Many clubs have attempted to collect, organize and analyse data themselves, however, the majority quickly discovered that this would come with many challenges. According to former Digital Business manager at Real Madrid, Oscar Ugaz, too many clubs are investing in fancy equipment while they lack the people able to understand it. The deficiency of talent can result in the inability to collect and organise the data properly. Furthermore, translating practical questions of managers and coaches into clear cut formal problems can cause difficulty.
Nonetheless, I believe that a data-driven approach in professional football is here to stay. As new technologies continue to be developed, more opportunities will arise for managers to improve their strategies. Additionally, advances in the use of data could give clubs new opportunities in improved player scouting and the identification of individual weaknesses. However, to ensure that most of the club’s challenges are dealt with accordingly, companies should allocate the majority of their data development budget to attract talented data analysts.
Sources:
http://sbibarcelona.com/test/data-analytics-in-the-football-industry/
