Football Hackers: The Science and Art of a Data Revolution

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Football is like chess, but with dice." - Peter Krawietz, highlighting the game's unpredictability. Many sporting directors or managers prefer to rely on their network of agents as far as signing new players is concerned. Biermann adds that data will also play a crucial role in the automation of visual game analysis. ‘A situation on the pitch is codified, data gets searched along these parameters and the corresponding video sequence gets played out.’

Football Hackers: The Science and Art of a Data Revolution

While the bigger clubs increase their myriad advantages through the funding of cutting-edge research, the smaller ones are still at the stage where they’re trying to understand what all these numbers are useful for. The data revolution in football is gaining momentum – but at the same time it’s not. If you do nothing, you will be auto-enrolled in our premium digital monthly subscription plan and retain complete access for 65 € per month.On the surface it’s this clear-cut David-and-Goliath story where a complete outsider gets some very resourceful people in trouble through quite a simple method,” says Borchert Holm. “It’s unbelievable how much Rui Pinto has revealed about the football business. But when I read about some of the other things that he had done, that’s when I thought: ‘This really adds another dimension.’ It becomes less clear who is the hero and who is the villain of the story.” As Biermann explains, Niemeyer’s recollections are part of the myth that has developed around one of the sport’s most respected thinkers, and Niemeyer goes on to says that Guardiola, in his view, has changed the job description of a football manager in the process. Prior to the modern era of ubiquitous digital footage of thousands of games and the availability of cheap computing power coming up with better football statistics has not been possible. Charles Reep's simplistic counting of passes being the best known failed example. But today with annotations available for thousands of games a year being done more sophisticated analysis has become possible.

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Niemeyer notes that coaches such as Guardiola or Paris St-Germain Head Coach Thomas Tuchel have also made the game more tactical, with increased focus on positions, passing lanes and pressing patterns. The question for data and analytics, then, is to be better represent these fields in numbers that provide answers and insight while promoting greater understanding. LastRow — Similar to SkillCorner, but for a handful of goals scored by LiverPool. Good dataset for coming to terms with creating videos, working with tools like pitch control, or calculating simple metrics like velocity. There is no escaping from narrative, period. Humans are hard-wired to make sense of things by telling stories. Es un poco extraño que este libro de Christoph Biermann llamara mi atención cuando me topé con el en la sección de remates de mi librería local. No soy, ni por accidente, un aficionado del fútbol. Los goles no me inspiran ninguna sensación sublime ni tampoco me apasiona discutir las mejores estrategias en la cancha, por lo que suelo esquivar las grandes polémicas del balón, como la reciente decisión del árbitro en el partido entre Perú y Uruguay en Montevideo.

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Many experts in football – coaches, officials or chairmen – were football professionals themselves at one point. It is an advantage for them to have experienced many potential issues themselves, no doubt, but their previous roles might also increase their difficulties in reaching sound conclusions and making accurate predictions. Introduced a new perspective on the importance of narratives, both human and data-driven, in shaping the football world. For me, a good coach is also an analyst,’ he declares. ‘After working with the kind of brilliant teachers that we have had, you, as an analyst, start thinking like a coach, too. Not in the sense that I will direct the players to do some exercises from the touchline or explain to them how they should cross the ball – but in the way you understand the game.’ The Tifo Football Podcast — This has great interviews and discussions about tactics. It is mostly about the English Premier League, but do go over other areas of interest.

Football Hackers by Christoph Biermann | Waterstones

The author also shows why football's complexity makes it extremely hard for a Moneyball-like model to dominate to the level that it does in other major sports. Yet that very scenario faced Ottmar Hitzfeld throughout his stint at Borussia Dortmund between 1991 and 1997. During that timeframe, BVB reached the Uefa Cup [a forerunner of the Europa League] three times, twice competed in the Champions League and won the competition in 1997. This is one of those books I expected to love. I love football and data, after all. I really liked it in the end, but it didn’t start great.The head coach of Dortmund’s supremely successful women’s handball side of the era had instructed the team’s analyst Markus Schultz and a team of sports science students, to edit video material that had been painstakingly acquired from abroad. Henke now approached them for help doing the same with foreign opponents of the men’s football team. It goes without saying that the increased prize money available and the fierce competitiveness within the sport has lead to clubs seeking to eke out any possible legal advantage to get an edge over their rivals. Biermann states that numbers could be useful in the field of fitness but that: ‘data’s usability for devising successful strategies with the ball and tactics was less clear-cut.’