Telegraph Sport uses WyScout, the professional platform for football analysis

Match preparation begins early for those in charge of analysis at the biggest clubs in the world. Backroom staff study match after match of the team's next opponent to identify strengths and weaknesses, establish patterns of play, figure out whether they defend corners zonally or man-to-man, and everything else down to the minutest detail that could help gain even the slightest advantage on the pitch.

Before online scouting databases became available to anyone who paid for a subscription, this sort of in-depth analysis would have been carried out by teams and individuals trawling the country, and Europe, on big budgets to watch games in person.

Now, lower league clubs and those with limited scouting budgets have access to a staggering amount of match footage and data. Wyscout is one of a number of scouting platforms used. Logging into the app is akin to accessing an entire scouting network from a laptop and with no need to travel, initial research on opposition or potential transfer targets can be done from the office, or in today's coronavirus crisis world, the home.

Their huge online database of matches, detailed in-house data and various software tools has made a subscription essential to many football clubs, which is part of the reason Hudl, a leading global sports video and analytics company widely used in the game, recently acquired them.

Hudl already provided analysis support in the form of coaching software, and with Wyscout, now offers its paying customers, who range from elite Champions League clubs to high schools, real opportunity to gain the same kind of competitive edge that wealthier outfits have long enjoyed.

Borussia Dortmund are one example of a club that utilises this. In a video on their YouTube channel, Dortmund's 'game analyst for BVB youth teams', Sebastian Sommer, is shown piecing together an edit of that day's training session, placing markers, making notes and creating reference points for coaches to view and subsequently act on. It's like doing a live edit on Final Cut or Premier Pro to make a session available immediately after the last training-pitch whistle.