Go Germany!
So, you’re on hot coals already? Is the beer already cold and is the big screen already ready in your company? Today, many of you will surely drop your paws at 4 pm and watch spellbound as our national football team beats South Korea. Our data analysis group has also provided chips and… Coke.
Football and data analysis? Big Data in professional sports? Oh, God, commentator Béla Réthy will soon “delight” us again with his useless statistics. Somehow he always sees a different game than we TV couch viewers, who are the better coaches anyway. And then also Oliver Kahn as a supposed expert in the TV studio…
Is Big Data the better coach?
Is Big Data the better coach?Did you know that the University for Applied Management (HAM) continuously provides this particular boat with analyses during the games? Big Data has long since arrived in the football world and it is impossible to imagine it without it. Space analyses, pass strength, how many opponents were killed with passes or dribblings – information that says much more than just possession of the ball and pass odds. At some point, no player will be able to avoid playing the game with lots of sensors, for example in order to be able to identify which of the players should be replaced.
But that’s not all. Data analysis is also becoming more and more important in scouting and player personality assessment to identify the most talented players and put a team together in a meaningful way. Driven by new technologies such as high-resolution cameras, but also diverse data from the Internet, this creates a huge data pool with lots of information about players and games, which can be analyzed by big data algorithms and thus provide additional impulses for tactical decisions.
So data analysis will soon replace the trainer?
No!
It takes experience and understanding of the game to draw the right conclusions from the data. And sometimes also the right gut feeling that our “Jogi” Löw hopefully has tonight (although of course ours is better).
Money is everything!
What’s with the data analysis? Doesn’t work in football?
Do you like watching a good film?
Then I have a tip here: Moneyball. Based on a true event, this is “only” about baseball, but it shows impressively (and entertainingly) what is possible in sport with a data analysis!
But back to football
Thank God, 40% of the time it is a coincidence whether a ball flies into the goal or not. So it remains exciting! So keep your fingers crossed and have fun watching!
By the way: If the eternally bad commentators annoy you, you can try it yourself under Be Béla. If you dare, please let us know and post the link here in the comments or twitter it to us!
