Our goal is to develop a real time tool that will support soccer coaches decisions DURING a game. The first version of this tool – I guess we can call that a mockup – will be based on the F24 data graciously shared by MCFC Analytics and Opta.

At some point I will provide technical information but one key aspect is that tool will simulate the clock while reading the events in the file in “real time”.

Another key aspect is the metrics that will be shown (progressing in time) and that will ultimately used to support in-game decisions. For the moment, we will stick at 3 metrics:

Possession of the ball

• Cumulative possession of the ball (inspired by great work done by Ravi Raminieri at analysefootball.com)
• Number of possessions
• Mean time of possession

Passes

• Success versus attempts ratio
• Number of passes (Did you see the stats of yesterdays Liverpool-Udinese game where Udinese won 3-2 with 4-5 times less successful passes ? This is a humility lesson for us socceranalytics fans 🙂

Quality of attack (lets call that QOA)

QOA is something I will try to develop and see where it can lead us. The idea is simple: every possession will be rated. The highest rate will mean that the “quality” of a given possession sequence is high. The goal for a team being to build succession of of high quality possession sequences or, conversely in a defensive perspective, the goal would be to reduce the opponent’s QOAs.

The recipe is not completely done yet but QOA rate (for one possession sequence) would be calculated based on this:

• number of passes
• length in time
• physical penetration of offensive zone
• total perimeter (total space covered)
• conclusion of possession sequence (goal, shot and so on)

Once again, the idea is to rate in real time a sequence of actions in order to quantify what a team is building (or not).

More to come on this!