Aug 30, 2022

Not just for pros: Personalized data and videos are out there for everyone

What DeBruyne started continues with amateurs and future pros

It seems like every football fan has already heard about Kevin De-Bruyne's case. Last year, the Belgian, one of the best midfielders in the world, hired the services of a data analytics company (Analytics FC) to produce a report proving his value to Manchester City. It showed he was underpaid in comparison to other top players in his position, and in return, he got a new 83 million pound contract from the Premier-League champions.

According to reports, the data De-Bruyne commissioned was personalized and included an extensive range of metrics. It marked him out as a huge contributor to the club's success. This incident joins another known one, where Memphis Depay commissioned SciSports to determine a new team to transfer to using extensive data on his skills and their needs.

These stories shouldn't be viewed as incidental occurrences. They are a part of a growing trend that started at the elite level and is now spreading to all levels of the game. A trend in which players (pros, youth wannabe pros, amateurs) are becoming end-users of data analytics and personalized videos and have multiple benefits to gain from using it.

In this article, we’ll zoom in on one professional player’s performance in one match, and use Track160’s football analytics fully-automated solution to illustrate the abundance of possibilities that are out there today for youth and amateurs that want to jump the data train.

***

Personalized videos of every action, pushed straight to your cellphone? Yes, please

Andrej Kramarić gave a very good performance in TSG Hoffenheim’s game against Bayer Leverkusen in February 2020. He scored his team’s first goal and was involved in the second. Both events were identified, tagged, and created automatically by our software that also generated the clip you see below automatically with no additional human involvement required.

Kramarić did more than scoring and assisting, though. The Croatian striker was involved in 63 passes (34 as a passer, 29 as receiver) and recorded 40 sprints (21 offensive and 19 defensive). He can easily view automated clips of each of these actions, or choose to filter them more according to how the events were formatted or their final outcome. At the end of the process, he can also download and share them with whoever he wants. The same goes for other actions such as dribbles, shots on target, and more.

Not just the videos are personalized, but the data as well

Personalized videos are a true gift to every player who wants to learn by visualization and be in control of the content derived from his data. But pure events don’t give you the whole picture. The performance analysis section in Track160’s platform fills in the blanks. This is the place where every player can get a full performance overview chart, based on his position on the pitch throughout the match and his physical function, and filter it to sub-categories such as the average position (including heat maps), distance covered, acceleration, deceleration, and more.

All the metrics are laid out in graphics that allow access to their respective videos with one click. To get a sense of this feature’s benefits to every player who will use it, check out Kramarić’s report in this video here.

Players who seek to find their physical and tactical data collected in an easy-to-read report layout will also find what they are looking for in the Sport science section. All the personalized data can be filtered into in and out of possession situations, and by a required time frame (1st/2nd halves, full time). Any player with access to the platform can download the reports in multiple formats - PDF, CSV, XML. Below you’ll see a rundown of Kramarić’s sports science accumulated stats.

Now imagine that Andrej Kramarić is an academy youth player who wants to turn pro

Let’s go back to where this article began. Kevin De-Bruyne’s case should not be considered rare anymore but the symbol of a trend. The videos, the data, the abundance of metrics, and stats that Andrej Kramarić and his coaches can derive from a solution like Track160’s are now available to more and more players, and will soon be available to everyone. And when it comes to solutions that are fully automated and help aspiring pros to track their performance, manage the content they produce (and even monetize it) - players, parents and academies must consider their benefits.

A world in which wannabe pros and even amateurs get personalized insights, data, and videos right to an app on their phones and share them with friends, family, coaches, scouts, and more isn’t the next stage of the revolution. It is today’s reality.