Posted by

Aaron Nielsen ,

June 19, 2014 Email

Aaron Nielsen



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@ENBSports

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In its opening week there has been a consensus that this has been one of the most exciting World Cups, and so far the amount of goals scored per game is similar to the tournaments of the 1950s and 1960s. Soccer in general has seen a slight increase in the amount of goals scored, especially in the more high profile leagues around the world. The reason for this is a number of things, including better equipment, different styles of refereeing, and slight but influential rule changes. However, I feel one the biggest influences has to do with players being tactically aware through new player development procedures, including performance analysis work and general analytics. Tactics have always had a huge influence in soccer as teams try exploit weaknesses in their opponents or fix problems the team might be facing in particular situations. Most of these are done as the game is being played, or changed via half-time and substitutions. Great coaches have gained their reputation through these actions, while countries who adapt well to tactical changes are regarded as smarter and in many ways the most successful soccer nations. A great example of this was the most recent confrontation between Italy versus England. England, a country not known for being tactically astute, instead of starting the game with their traditional 4-4-2 formation started the game playing 4-3-3 with two wingers. These wingers caused Italy plenty of trouble, almost like they didn't expect it, and England were almost rewarded right off the start with Raheem Sterling just missing with a shot after getting free on the wing. The rest of the first half was fairly even, although Italy continued to have trouble with England’s wing play. In order to adjust, in the second half Italy had a player playing as a 5th defender, which meant in the final forty-five minutes England didn't have the breaks or the ability to cross from the wings that they had in the first half. So Italy, after taking the lead early in the 2nd Half, were able to hold on to and win the game 2-1. Italy adapting, as I say, isn't a surprise as Italian players are used to playing multiple positions. Traditionally defenders are recruited based on athletic ability, while Italy will risk using older, shorter or slower defenders based on intelligence instead, and in the case of the Italian national team most of the defense plays with Juventus, who over the last five years have averaged only allowing a half goal a game. The greater story, and one I feel has been significant this whole World Cup, was England’s willingness to experiment with a formation that might take advantage of Italy’s slower and older defenders. With this added speed on the wing through starting Sterling and Danny Wellbeck, over higher profile players such as Frank Lampard, England looked like a more progressive and adventurous side, and it nearly paid off. I feel the reason for this is that there a greater awareness of what teams and individuals do, and are capable of doing, than ever before. The main source for this is what in the industry is called Performance Analysis, where basically video is recorded for every game played and touches are documented using editing equipment. With this information you can have access to every player's pass, tackle, shot, turnover or even run off the ball. In one database I received access to for an EPL season, an individual player had over 20,000 plays just involving him documented, which is incredible since an English Premier League season is only 3400+ minutes in length. This shouldn't be new to most North American sports fans, and anybody watching an NFL game will sometimes see on the sidelines players looking a photocopies or videos of previous plays trying to figure out how to take advantage of similar situations that might happen later on in the game. This is what is shown on camera, but away from the game many NFL teams hire up to 20 people to breakdown game film and every minute of each play of not only their team, but their opponents as well. This process of analysis started becoming popular in the early 90's with a combination of video and statistical analysis, not only for Football but all major team sports. Like soccer, now it has seen a drastic increase of performances as teams who did analysis well, were able to exploit opportunities and in the greatest sports story of the past decade allowed the Oakland A's to become a team competitive, if not better, than other teams who have five times the budget. Although almost as important, it has given athletes a much greater awareness of what was happening around them and how to adapt, which has also been noticeable in this World Cup. One of the criticisms of past World Cups has been the naivety of the smaller countries in the tournament. Now with many players playing in larger leagues, no matter what country they represent, these players participate in different forms of education with their domestic club teams to a great benefit of their national team, especially for players playing in leagues who have embraced the greater form of analytics such as England, Germany, Spain, France and of course Italy. Countries who have taken to technology the most have seen their soccer programs become more competitive against with what would be regarded as the traditional power houses. Japan, South Korea and the United States have all been a leading participant in this new technology with it being a key component in their local domestic leagues, while these teams have also put a greater emphasis in scouting players who are not playing domestically. Even in traditional soccer regions such as South America, because the value of players on the transfer market, countries are doing much more detailed analysis in evaluating past performance and potential of players. Soccer, in my view, is still far behind what we call the big leagues in North America. A great example of this is how many people knew of Costa Rican keeper Keylor Nevas, who has been one of the top keepers in the Spanish La Liga and leads the league in save percentage. Nevas had as many saves this past season as Spain's trio Victor Valdes, Iker Casillas, and David De Gea combined. Just prior to the tournament, I posted the career league statistics of all players in the World Cup and the most common response was surprise that the extent of this information even existed. It was not only fans, but I have talked to people involved in the game professionally, even players who I documented, where I knew more about their own careers then they did. For me, other than general interest, I do see analytics as the great equalizer in sports since we live in a world where no one is perfect and people naturally, through experiences, tend to repeat the same actions, especially ones where they succeed or got away with in the past. It's also the assumption that greatness in sports is based on instincts, where in reality it’s more experience and success comes from people being so comfortable with their actions they can instinctively do things, or even takes risks, with the confidence that they will succeed. Closer to home, in a previous RNO article I wrote how it’s imperative that Canada Soccer takes advantage of this. In that article I wrote of my awareness of the Danish Soccer team and how Canada lost the game because the Danish team excelled in their performance, in part because Canada wasn't sure what to expect and were taken advantage by the Danish team’s strengths. In this World Cup one could argue England should have expected Italy to adapt and they didn't have a counter, which would have been during the second half bringing in your traditional target man and taking advantage of the centre now that Italy was covering the wings. Soccer is known as the beautiful game where kids from the streets started to dribble a ball and do 'keepy uppy' all the way to fame and World Cup glory - until coaching and tactics try to put an end to this. While today, with new technology and more open minds, clubs are using coaching and tactics not only to stop their opponents, but also create scoring opportunities and create many new levels and ways of understanding the game.