There was a time when soccer dealt with experience and know-how. Coaches were always former players and rose through the ranks thanks to the success of their playing careers. The game was played a certain way, and brute strength played a major part – especially in the home of soccer itself, England.
There is still a sizeable percentage of supporters who still think that way. But if you take a look at any team – at every level – these days, you will find that they are run in a completely different way. If you have any experience with sports betting, you will know that it pays to do your research and take notice of the numbers. Professional sports teams think in exactly the same way.
The sideline used to be the domain of the coach, an assistant or two, and the subs. Now, you will see a whole army of coaching staff, huddled over monitors and screens. Many of them will be crunching the numbers and analyzing data to improve the team in real time. They will also have played a major role in the training leading up to game day. Soccer has truly embraced data and numbers.
Tracking and Training
If you watch any level of soccer on TV, you will have seen that, along with the team jerseys, all pro players also incorporate wearables into their uniform. They will also be used throughout the week leading up to a game, and use GPS tracking systems to record valuable data for the coaches to analyze.
There is so much information that can be recorded in this way. Coaches can discover what kind of distance is being covered during a game – as well as how fast they are moving. This can tell them a lot about the acceleration and fatigue levels of individual players, and game tactics can then be amended accordingly.
Injury Prevention
With so much money in the game these days, the top players are being traded for hundreds of millions of dollars. So, it only makes sense that these prized possessions should be tenderly looked after, ensuring that they will be able to perform and prove that they are worth all the money they were traded for.
Injuries are a fact of life in soccer, however. Accidents happen, and players will invariably get injured at some point or another during their careers. But there are lots of minor injuries that can be avoided by using data. By studying this data, medical staff and coaches can identify potential problems before they happen – and change things to ensure that the injury never happens in the first place.
In-Game Changes
There is obviously a lot of information that can be collected using wearables and other tech in the run-up to games that can help with preparation. But the coaches can still receive extra help once the game has kicked off, thanks to the wearables the players have. This real-time data allows coaches to make adjustments instantly.
It used to be the case that the only weapon a coach had once the whistle blew was his or her ability to shout loudly and hope that the players heard and understood what was needed. Now, the head coach is backed up by the data staff, who can monitor the ongoing performances and suggest changes based on the numbers they are seeing as the game happens.
Analysis of Opponents
Although the data that is taken and analyzed from a team’s players will always remain inside the respective clubs, there is also a lot that technological analysis of opponents can do to give coaches a helping hand. Watching the tapes of the opposing team has long been something coaches have done to prepare – but they now have much more scientific data to inform their own tactics.
Software tools can be used to record and analyze the strategies and tactics of opponents, which can then lead to the development of a way to deal with them. Anything can happen once the game starts, of course, but teams follow plans and tactics, and knowing how to counter them can provide distinct advantages.
Talent Identification
For the likes of Manchester City, Paris Saint-Germain, and Real Madrid, buying up the top soccer talent has become a tried and trusted way of remaining successful. Being backed by immensely wealthy owners gives these teams an instant advantage when it comes to adding the best players in the world to their rosters. But how do smaller clubs compete?
Again, numbers and data come to the rescue. Much like the celebrated “Moneyball” system made famous at the Oakland Athletics baseball team, soccer clubs can use data-driven scouting strategies to identify talent – from around the world – that may have been undervalued and overlooked.
Whole Club Strategies
It is not as though experience and know-how have been completely jettisoned in favor of data and hard numbers in the modern professional soccer world. But data analytics has become an incredibly powerful tool for coaches and entire clubs to use in the pursuit of success.
Coaches may be interested in acquiring data to inform tactical strategies, or even to identify a new young star in the making, but the clubs also use other types of numbers to increase productivity, reach, and sales. Greater fan engagement is the goal of all clubs these days, as they look to boost profits by merchandise sales and other income streams. Analyzing the sales data is just as important to the marketing teams at pro clubs as the training data is to the head coach.
Data and analytics have changed the way soccer clubs work from top to bottom. Skill and talent will always be hugely important – but the game has really embraced numbers as a way of staying ahead.
