Guidelines to using Statzpack      

1. First off, if you dislike reading and prefer viewing there are tutorial videos available on each of stages are on Youtube.  Watch a couple and hear our very own Jenny, the voice of Statzpack.
2. SIGN UP.  First step is to sign-up to Statzpack as a Free Trial user here:  http://www.statzpack.com/soccer_web/soccer/amember/signup.php 
3. ORGANISATION NAME.  As you sign up when you enter your Organisation Name, use the name of your club, for example ‘Beach FC’ or  ‘Jersey United’.  Do not use for example ‘Beach FC U16 Boys’.  You can add team details later on.
4. SETTING UP:  After you log into Statzpack, the first thing to do is go to Team Management and add your team and player details. 
   Team Level:  Teams level names are based on their level or age, for example ‘U18 Colts’.  The Team Levels are based on gender, so there is no need to add the sex of the team in the name of the Team Level, so for example if your Team Level is a girls team, there is no need to add this, for example do not add ‘U18 Colts Girls’.  The system will note that this is a female team throughout and name it accordingly.   Nor should they be named based on the year  – say 2012, or a campaign.
   Adding a Campaign:  A Campaign refers to a string of related games, for example ‘Spring Season’, ‘North County League Fall 2012’ or ‘Invitational Tournament’. 
   Adding Players:  This is where you add your players.  When adding your players they must be assigned to a single team.  You can add one at a time, or import a list in .csv file format.
   If you get fed up with this process, email us at players@statzpack.com, attaching the player details in any format.
   Adding a Game:   You cannot add a game on the website without adding the previous data.  At this stage simply follow the drop down options, adding the game date, time, opposition name and your team selection.
   What stats to record?  You can record any action/stat you want, and you can make your own set of action, into a Custom Set.  For your first game stick with our ‘Default’ set.
    
   You can edit this game data before a game on the website and the app.   GETTING THE APP.  Depending on what device (iPad etc) you choose to use, the Statzpack app is free to download. Read More

Well today is the official first day of winter and using an iPhone or any touch screen smartphone outside in cooler temperatures can be a nuisance when you have to wear gloves.  Tracking your soccer stats on Statzpack in all conditions can be a struggle in the very cold – the screens on most devices don’t work with the touch of a regular glove. 

But of course like all problems, they get solved with some ingenuity and bright sparks ignite and create….  The Smartphone Glove.

If you fancy a pair of these fancy Smartphone Gloves, drop us an email at  smartgloves@statzpack.com answering the simple question.  How many past games are currently stored on the Statzpack App in Match History?

A shot in soccer can be a slow roller by an under-6 player that somehow finds the back of the pint-sized net used for the smallest players. Or, it can be a sizzling shot taken by a pro like Inter Milan’s Dejan Stankovic, who volleyed the ball over a rival keeper from midfield in a 2011 Champions League match in Italy. Immediately called “the goal of the season” by expert commentators, Stankovic’s rocket showed the value of being prepared to shoot just 25 seconds into a high-stakes game.

Definition

A shot in soccer is a ball that is kicked or headed towards the goal. The NCAA defines a shot in Section 3 of its Official Soccer Statistics Rules as an attempt taken with the intent of scoring that is directed toward the goal. This excludes crosses, or long kicks typically taken from the side of the field near the goal line that feed the ball into the penalty area in front of the goalkeeper.  A goalkeeper who grabs a cross does not receive credit for a save. An exception to this would be a cross that the goalie stops that would have otherwise entered the goal.

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German legend Franz Beckenbauer is aiming to change the offside rule to make it simpler for referees to interpret.  Yep, he got that right.  Likely to be the most confusing and often most frustrating rule for coaches and players to understand.  Countless hours trying to explain the rule to a child of 12+ and better still the soccer mom, frustrating. 

Take yourself back almost 150 years and you would witness the birth of the offside ruling.  Though seeing a number of changes over the formation of the rules of the game in the 19^th Century it still leaves many soccer coaches, players and parents confused and bewildered many years later.

Offside Explained

“A player is in an offside position if three conditions are met: first, the player must be on the opposing team’s half of the field. Second, the player must be in front of the ball. And third, there must be fewer than two opposing players between him and the opposing goal line, with the goalkeeper counting as an opposing player for these purposes. It is not necessary that the goalkeeper be one of the last two opponents”.   

Ah give me strength what does all that mean?  Never mind, watch this short video to find out exactly what Offside is. 

An excellent job, but still requires over 7 minutes of your life.

Let’s list it out Read More

The heart breaker for the soccer coach, and sometimes the game maker.  If you look at the stats for the English Premier League over the past 10 years you can see a marked upward trend in the number of penalties  awarded, with 2001-2 only seeing 39 awarded, to the 101 awarded in the past season.  And no wonder it can be such an important moment in a game, as around 80% of penalties (in that league at least) result in a goal.  Last year it was Arsenal who gave away a whopping 9 penalties, though not an uncommon tally over the past decade, there has only been one team to concede 10, which was Blackburn Rovers in 2006-7.  Five years previous they conceded or won zero penalties. Times have changed. 

What do the stats look like?

Which club is more likely to concede a penalty? Well if past history is an indicator of future behaviour (and we know it is not…but bear with us) then Aston Villa are a safe bet. Looking at those teams currently in the EPL who have played there for the past 11 years.  They have managed to give away 55 penalties, an average of 5.5 per season.  And which team does the analysis show that manages to be awarded the most penalties?  Manchester United I hear you cry – most of them in the last 2 minutes at Old Trafford, right?  Wrong.  It’s Arsenal, who have accumulated 56 penalties, converting 46 of them since the beginning of the 2001 season. Check out all the stats here, at this wonderful website myfootballfacts.com. Including the fact that Matt Le Tissier in his career at Southampton scored 48 times from 49 spot kicks. All in the top flight of English football.  Awesome.    

A penalty kick may be awarded when a defending player commits a foul punishable by a direct free kick against an opponent or a handball, within the penalty area (“the box” or “18 yard box”).  

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I wanted to share an article I came across that details who must be the grandaddy of soccer analysis, Charles Reep.  As we use modern technology to help coaches and players improve their game, we are certainly not new to the task of recording stats.   Reep started to carry out match analysis in 1950 (long before many of us were born) and centrally believed that most goals were produced within 3-5 passes/moves.

“Not all revolutionaries are fondly remembered. Barney Ronay examines the controversial legacy of Charles Reep, football’s first tactical statistician.  Published in June 2003 in When Saturday Comes - which in itself is a fantastic journal for all things soccer related (be warned – visit that site and prepare to see an hour of your day leave you…)

Soccer Analyst

Wing Commander Charles Reep has been called many things. Twenty years ago the Times dubbed him “The Human Computer of the Fabled Fifties”; an obituary described him more simply as “a football ana­lyst”; while a slightly empurpled Brian Glanville once declared him a member of FA coaching director Char­les Hughes’s “band of believers and acolytes”, the arch­angel of “a fanatical credo, a pseudo-religion”.

Few figures in English football history have attract­ed as much vitriol or as much ideological zeal. The loth­ario of the long ball, Reep has remained unfathomably seductive to a roll-call of many of the most influential coaching figures in post-war domestic football. He is the national game’s deep dark secret; we know he’s bad for us, but we just can’t help ourselves.” 

Read the full article here.

Set yourself up on Statzpack
 Overview of the Dashboard on Manager
 

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I was struck by how open Mondays night game was, and how there seemed to be so much space when attacking (particularly for Man United, and particularly towards the end of the game).    Gary Neville mentioned that the pitch is really big at Old Trafford in his recent biography, and anyone who has been lucky enough tovisit it will tesify it is a large field.  This made us want to investigate…. according to this website (though dated in 2007.. gives us an idea):    http://soccerlens.com/premier-league-pitch-sizes/3683/     – it’s the second-biggest pitch in the league… in fact, it’s 786 square yards bigger (by area) than White Hart Lane where Tottenham, the defeated team play!  Spurs ground is small, close, intimate – probaby more theatre than the Theatre of Dreams.  I don’t think it’s a coincidence that United tend to drop off rather than press when they’re not in posession, and are so effective on the counter-attack using all that space with quick decisive, youthful, direct attacking soccer. 

Soccer Standards?

And this to a US sports coach may seem odd, where standard field sizes are more defined, for example American football fields are a set  360 by 160 feet.  Rugby league is played on a field 112-122 by 68 metres. In Rugby Union (yes there are two variants) the field of play on a pitch/field is as near as possible to a maximum of 144m long by 70m wide. In Lacrosse, the field of play is 110 yards (100 m) long and 60 yards (55 m) wide.) 

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What’s the difference between a direct and indirect free kick? How many strikers are in a 4-4-2 formation? And what’s this “injury time” business all about? Before you start tracking stats on your iPad.. .. ..

Against the run of play: When one team scores after launching a counterattack soon after it regains possession of the ball, that team is said to have scored “against the run of play.”

Attacking third: The third of the field where one team is trying to score on the opposing team’s goal.

Bicycle kick: A shot on goal taken by a player who has his back to the net and kicks the ball while both of his feet are in the air.

Booking: A term used to indicate when the referee has cautioned a player with a yellow or red card. A player is said to have been “booked.” Also known as a caution.

Cap: A recognition earned by a player whenever he plays in an international game for his country. A player becomes “capped” each time he plays for his country.

Caught in possession: A player who doesn’t move forward with the ball or passes to a teammate after receiving the ball, and who is then tackled by an opponent is said to have been “caught in possession.”

Caught square: When a through ball has beaten two or more opposing defenders because they were positioned square to one another (in a straight line across the field parallel to the goal-line) they are said to have been “caught square.”

Chip pass: A pass lofted into the air from one player to a teammate. Used primarily to elude a defender by kicking the ball over his head.

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From time to time when we talk to new customers and partners, we are often asked ‘so who uses yur product?’ or ‘where are your customers at?’.   When we were asked this last week by a new user in the mid west of the USA we decided to actually take a few minutes to list it out.  Well we all know that soccer is the truly global game, and the internet has no bounds so it really be no surprise (but it was..) to see that we have customers in the following countries: USA, UK, Ireland, Canada, Turkey, Spain, Netherlands, Sweden, India, Italy, South Africa, Malta, Cyprus, New Zealand, Malta, Australia and Malaysia.  

Global Soccer App

We have users who are high school teachers, semi-pro coaches, professional analysts, parents, even international scouts using our product.  What amazes us and equally motivates us a company is the enthusiasm of the soccer coach – wherever they are, or whatever age group or level they are coaching and we try to plough that right back into our products.

If you’re a Statzpack user you can help spread the word and by making referrals you can get extra free time added to your subscription, check it out here.   Hello world. Greetings Statzpackers