Everything in sport is analysed. It’s backed up with research, with numbers and figures. Whether it’s a graphic on live TV, a post on Instagram, or a match preview article. Everywhere you look in sport, there’s analysis. With its dominance in the sporting world, comes possibilities for new employment opportunities. Football analysts are becoming more and more common in the industry with the increasing demand, leading to new doors opening for sporting fanatics.
Sound good to you? It might be worth reading a little bit more…
Just how important is data analysis in football?
Data and analytics in all sports have become a key element of preparation and training for athletes and teams. Particularly in football, we now see figures and statistics used in every element of the game, from xG in a match, betting odds, a player’s heart rates in training to the most expensive pie at a football ground. Everywhere in football, are numbers.
This has only become more prominent in the last 30 years with improved technologies so analysts could find easier ways to watch back and analyse match footage. Developments in the 1990s of software allowing automated data collection have helped to pave the way for current advancements in data collection and studying.
And it is an incredibly beneficial element of the game. There are so many factors to a football game that can’t all be considered without evaluation. By analysing moves, player behaviour and patterns through the 90 minutes can help identify trends and tactics, which can help make future decisions with statistical backing. It adds a whole other depth to preparations and training, and has proven to help many teams advance in identifying strengths and weaknesses.
These aren’t the only ways we see data analysis in our game: it can also be used for identifying fan preferences and patterns, help with player scouting and evaluation, as well as to improve injury prevention as other examples.
Some of the most successful coaches in football, Pep Guardiola, Jose Mourinho, and Carlo Ancelotti, to name a few, have all had to use in-depth match analysis to progress their coaching approach and achieve their success.
Think about when you turn on Sky Sports to watch Manchester City v Arsenal. On the screen are already new stats in fancy graphics that have been accumulated for ages building up to the game. Every time those teams have played each other, a comparison of Guardiola and Arteta, their head-to-head record, impressive stats on their key players. In that half an hour to an hour pre-match show, there are countless stats used for the pundits’ discussions. And that doesn’t even include after the game when already every goal, every player’s movements has been completely analysed down to every detail.
An example of just how big stats and analysis in football have become is looking at the company Opta. A name familiar to many football fans, Opta Sports was founded back in 1996 as analysis for Premier League matches, and in the 1996/97 season, the company were contracted by Sky Sports for their TV broadcasts. By the following year, Opta was the official stats provider for the Premier League, and has been a prominent part of the game since.
Opta operates a data system which is collected and delivered in real-time by human expert analysts, merged with digital technology and AI. It’s now recognised across the globe in the sporting world, and as football fans, we see it everywhere. With more emerging data analysis companies and jobs like at Opta, comes more opportunities for careers and possibilities to get into analytics. It’s another massively growing sector of the sports industry that we may not always notice.
Football analysis at GIS
If the idea of combining analytic skills with sports is something which interests you, then GIS have the gateway for you to engage with those opportunities. Master’s degrees including MSc Performance Analysis in Football and MSc Football Coaching & Analysis can give you the platform to do so.
As mentioned, analysis is highly valuable to those in coaching and management roles, as it can help identify so many further details within a tactical approach, player performance, and finding weaknesses in the approach. It’s clear that analysis is highly beneficial for taking your coaching understanding of the game to the next level.
How would you feel about modules in Applied Football Match Analysis? Or maybe Football Statistics and Data Analysis? You could like the sound of Talent Identification and Recruitment because if you’ve read this far, you’re someone who finds the idea of learning more about analysis a possibility.
Could you be the next analyst assisting Pep Guardiola? If analysis has sparked that interest in you to take your coaching game that step further, then have a look at our degrees to find out more, and see how you can become a part of one of the most valuable sectors in the football.
Article by The Woodwork
