Information (more importantly statistics) is what is at the heart of analyzing game data.  We, as coaches tend to rely on our gut instinct when dealing with players, and deciding how they performed in a match, but that is far from a fair way to rate a player’s performance.  Participation in sport is driven by an individual‟s enjoyment of the sport, but also by a keen desire to improve performance. Teams, coaches and individual athletes are all motivated by a common goal of increased excellence in their designated sport, e.g. improving their league position next season, running a new personal best or winning at a major championship.  One of the key elements in achieving improved performance is the provision of feedback. Feedback involves sensory or perceptual information relating to an action or series of actions and comes from one of two sources: intrinsic or extrinsic.

“You can drive a car without a dashboard, without any information, and that’s what’s happening in soccer. There are excellent drivers, excellent cars, but if you have your dashboard, it makes it just a little bit easier. I wonder why people don’t want more information.”

-Jean-Pierre Meersseman, Soccernomics

Our goal at Statzpack is to provide you with the dashboard in your car.  A simple to use match analysis software system.  To enable coaches with the tools to judge a player’s performance on tangible numbers and figures, while combining it with the gut-feeling that we as coaches have all too often.  Maybe you know that a player had a shocker of a game, but if you look at the stats for that player, you very well may be wrong.  The opposite is also true.

For so long, soccer has lived in the dark ages in terms of statistics, while sports in the US like Basketball have thrived on statistics.  During my days as a high school basketball coach, I had instant statistics on all my players, including Free Throw Percentage, 3-point percentage, fouls per game, travels, every stat I could have asked for.

During soccer matches, I’m lucky if I know who scored the goal and had an assist. And one big headache I have is making sure that the younger players get equal playing time where required.

How do you collect soccer stats currently?  Pen and paper?  In your mind?  Another way?

A quick google search for ’soccer statistics’ pulls up an interesting article in the New York Times from 2008.  With quite an impressive comment section as well.

According to the by-line “Carl Bialik examines the way numbers are used, and abused.”  The article is somewhat well written, explaining how teams are using much more advanced statistical tracking programs such as Pro-Zone, and what the right applications are for those programs.  Also, chalking up pure luck to the success of many soccer teams (which is completely false in my opinion.)

The benchmark for sports statistics is Sabremetrics, and the book Moneyball, written by Michael Lewis.  In it, Lewis describes the rise of the Oakland A’s baseball team through the use of complex statistical analysis to best predict the outcome of a match.

Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game is a book by Michael M. Lewis, released in 2003, about the general manager of Major League Baseball’s Oakland Athletics, Billy Beane, and his rather unconventional approach to running that organization. The central premise of Moneyball is that the collected wisdom of baseball insiders (including players, managers, coaches, scouts, and the front office) over the past century is subjective and often flawed. Statistics like 60 yard dash times, RBIs, and batting average that are typically used to gauge players are relics of a 19th-century view of the game and the statistics that were available at the time - ArmChairGM

The divide between soccer and baseball is the fluidity of the game.  Baseball can be determined by a few variables (pitcher, batter, count for instance) whereas in soccer, there are hundreds of variables which come into play each time a statistic is kept.

Critics state, “Statistics cannot accurately predict the score of a game, because numbers alone cannot predict a player’s performance.”

Exactly, we all know that.  Anyone who thinks stats can predict the outcome alone is foolish.  Soccer is a game that is often decided by a few events which result in a goal or a defensive lapse conceding a goal to your opponent.

If you know your right back is not able to string passes out of the backfield to the midfielders, then maybe it is time for a switch.  Most teams do not keep track of stats, so they don’t know the time to replace a player, and when to keep him in.

The important idea to remember is a combination of statistics and a coaches intuition can greatly improve your chance at winning, or fielding the most successful team out of your given options.