On this week's Journal Club session, Edward Wakelam will give a talk entitled "Exploitation of footballer analytics".
There is growing on-going research into how footballer attributes, collected prior to, during and post-match, may address the demands of clubs, media pundits and gaming developers. These attributes include static, such as age and height, or dynamic, such as pass completions and shots on target. Many are objectively measured, such as goals scored or pass interceptions, but in some cases they are subjectively measured by observers, such as quality of passing or athleticism. A handful of databases are available to clubs to be used to assess transfer targets or to assess their current players, however even elite clubs are failing to exploit this data. Additionally, there is limited application of AI and Machine Learning methods to exploit the wealth of data available. Critically, very few of the attributes address character traits, despite their use by the commercial world for 130 years and some well publicised problem player recruitment. I will present an analysis of the data available collected from available research over the past 25 years, identifying the mix of static vs dynamic and objective vs subjective data, and draw attention to the limited character trait content of the data. I will discuss the likely reason for this and how clubs may develop this dimension of their player analytics.
Papers:
- E. Wakelam, V. Steuber, J. Wakelam, "The collection, analysis and exploitation of footballer attributes: A systematic review", 2022, Journal of Sports Analytics, 8, 31--67
Date: 2024/02/16
Time: 14:00
Location: C258 & online