The ASL and Statzpack announced a partnership for the league to incorporate Statzpack into their program in 2012. The league managed out of Virginia provides top level clubs in the East coast region a high quality league to showcase both boys and girls supporting collegiate recruitment, incorporating clubs in 7 states including New York, Washington DC and Pennsylvania.

‘We are delighted to start working with Statzpack. Their product will make our game reporting so much easier, and with our mission to promote as many of our players to the college scene, its’ ability to support the job of tracking and recording player performance is unrivalled’.

Kevin added ‘It is rare to find a reporting system that is so easy to use, but our clubs will be able to gather performance specific data to support our player development mission, but also help the teams with the routine administration tasks they have to fulfil’.

Mark Roberts, founder of Statzpack senses this will be the first of many relationships with youth soccer leagues in the US. ‘During the NSCAA convention we had a lot of positive dialogue with both youth and adult soccer leagues. Where we have long heard that there is an ‘App for that’ the exciting development announced by Statzpack is that you are no longer required to be the owner of an iPhone or iPad to track your soccer stats.  ‘In addition to the Apple devices, you can now use our product working on over 400 Android smartphones or tablets, for example Samsung, HTC or Toshiba, but better than that you can track your stats at the game using a regular windows PC or a MAC. It means that our system is not just affordable, but also very accessible and still easy to use’. Mark added. This announcement is likely to be one of many in the near future as the company continues to establish further links to leagues and association in the US.  Visit the Atlantic Soccer League http://www.aslsoccer.net

Statzpack will be attending the yearly this coming January 11-15, 2012.  We will be joining up with the US Adult Soccer Association and you can come and meet us on Stand 1611, where you can test ride our product and pick up a Statzpack Stylus.  If anyone wants an individual meeting email us at Martin@statzpack.com.  Happy Holidays.

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.

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 We want to hear what you think about us?

At Statzpack we value the views and opinions of the soccer coach.  If you have a spare 2-3 minutes and can answer 10 questions, we’d really appreciate it.  Many thanks.

Take me to the Survey  > 
 

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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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

Analysis

Notational analysis is essentially a means of recording events so that there is an accurate and objective record of what happened in a sports game.  A record of what actually took place.  Spectators and parents will often see the game differently.  For the fan that aspect of subjectivity often makes following the sport as exciting as it.  Even the best coaches struggle to recall sequences of events accurately and often fail to recognise where a sequence of positive play originates, or where errors evolve and players’ view of the game can vary greatly.  Notational analysis gives the coach a factual record of data – of what does not lie.  Importantly, the method of data collection needs to be reliable, objective and relevant to the level of play.  Most importantly it must add value to the player and coach.

Collecting stats in sport originated in the US in basketball and baseball, soccer is a late comer to analysis, but nonetheless there are  a number of systems and tools available to the coach today.     The stats of athletes and participants in track and field events, swimmers and cyclists are easier to measure and produce metrics from – finish time, height jumped etc.  Analysis in soccer provides its own challenges, but with the right approach can yield great benefits to the entire team.  There is no one method to collecting stats, nor is there one method for each level of the game.

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