Posts Tagged ‘Football’

Intelligent Data Visualization – FIFA 2010 Balon d’Or

Monday, January 10th, 2011

Data visualization solutions have increased in complexity in the recent years. Tremendous advancements in information technology and the wide adoption of the Internet had a positive effect on communication, data interchange and visualization across networks, businesses and social communities. Driven by the business need of analyzing large volumes of data and presenting them in a concentrated, transparent and easy to read form, data visualization instruments such as dashboard solutions register nowadays an increased level of adoption in several activity fields.

One of the fields that have started to be revolutionized by data intelligent visualization tools bringing more complex and up dated information closer to reader and fans in an easily understandable format is sport.

As a matter of fact what we are witnessing today in the data visualization field  is sort of an “echolocation effect”: ideas bounce back from business to sports and business again.  Such complex data visualization applications, can be used now back as sources of inspirations for a more creative business data visualization solutions.” (Enhancing business performance with intelligent data visualization – Ideas from sport)

Such an interesting and powerful visualization application that can be used in the future by businesses as a source of inspiration for data visualization purposes is presented below. It was built by the specialists of the Marca sport magazine, in order to celebrate FIFA 2010 Ballon d’Or event.

The application presents comprehensive information of this year’s winners as well as interesting details and statistics across the entire history of this prestigious individual football award, enabling closer and easier connections with fans. To closely view and explore the application click on the image listed below.

Source: Marca, 2010

The application is also interesting if viewed from a performance management perspective. The KPIs used portrait a rich and complex image of the 2010 best football players performance, Lionel Messi, the winner of Ballon d’Or but also of Andres Iniesta and Xavi Hernandez players who came  second and third.

  • % Votes received
  • # International games played
  • # Football games played
  • # Games played in the first team
  • # Goles scored
  • # Assists
  • # Recovered balls
  • # Wrong passes
  • # Winners of Balon d’Or by country or club

For more information on Key Performance Indicators for football or other listed sports visit the smartKPIs.com KPI examples Industry section – Sport – Football.

References

Marca.com (2010), Ballon d’Or 2010 interactive application, available at http://www.marca.com/2011/01/07/multimedia/graficos/1294419079.html, (accessed 10 January 2010)

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Castrol Edge penalty analysis. Players will have to think from now on twice, before taking a penalty!

Sunday, July 4th, 2010

In a previous blog post we have presented a new Castrol football application, the World Cup Predictor. Using performance data from every international match played by the World Cup 2010 participating teams in the last ten years and simulating the tournament more than 100 000 times, to minimize the error rate as much as possible, the Castrol team of performance analysts calculated each team’s chances of progression through the competition.
As it proves, the application has its validity,  Brazil the team identified by the Castrol Predictor as the most likely winners still running in the competition, while England the team that was predicted to win the world cup competition by the JP Morgan analysts is already out being eliminated by Germany.

To find out more about what are your favorite team chances to win the next match from the knock out rounds use the Castrol Match Predictor application by clicking on the image below.

Source: Castrol Football, 2010

Additionally, for the knock out stages Castrol Football just launched a new application that proves to be of great interest among fans, but also among players and goalkeepers still involved in the knockout stages of the World Cup competition.

As Peter Schmeichel, one of the official Castrol ambassadors acknowledge, the Penalty Analysis application gives complete historic information about the way and style a field player takes a penalty, but also about the strategy each goalkeeper use when defending a penalty. To view more details you can listen the complete interview with the ex goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel in the podcast below.

Castrol EDGE Penalty Analysis Podcast by Castrol Football

For developing the new application, the Castrol team of performance analysts has studied every penalty taken in the last 4 seasons of the top five European Leagues and UEFA Champions Leagues, as well as a number of international matches and they compiled the results in an application that can be accessed by clicking the image below.

Source: Castrol Football, 2010

More than that, especially for the World Cup 2010 tournament, the Castrol team of performance analysts analyzed each penalty taken in the last 5 World Cups both during matches and penalty shootouts by all teams who qualified for the South African competition to better understand the psychological impact the penalty shootouts pressure have on field players and goalkeepers. The results are truly surprising:

  • 81% of the penalties taken during the matches are converted while only 66% during the penalty shoot outs
  • Players who go first in penalty shootouts are 7 times more likely to score than those executing the penalties last
  • The older a player is the less likely he will score – only 71% of those above 28 years scored
  • Right foot players have a 69% penalty conversion rate, while left foot players only 50%
  • Goalkeepers wearing green jerseys let through 62 % of the penalties, those wearing black 65%, blue 69%, while goalkeepers wearing red jersey couldn’t save any penalty
  • Strikers with a penalty conversion result of 74% are most likely to score, followed by defenders with a 69% success rate, while midfielder are the most unlikely to score with a 58%  success figure attached.
  • Finally, only 40% of penalties are converted by players if the team final survival depends on that penalty, while 92% of penalties are converted in the opposite situation, when the penalty is to decide the winner.

To view a full video presentation of the Castrol performance analysts research you can follow the Castrol Football official site here.

References:

Additional resources:

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Sport Management Performance Case Study: Competitive balance in the major football european leagues

Thursday, July 1st, 2010



Several months ago, Ernst & Young Global Media & Entertainment center launched the 6th edition of the ‘Football meets finance study’. In this latest edition the analysts from Ernst & Young are continuing a much debated topic in European football, the media rights and the impact on competitive balance.

According with the Ernst & Young analysts, competitive balance or CB in team sports refers to “the equilibrium of the sporting competition between different leagues of one sport or within a league or competition”.

The importance of competitive balance for team sports, as proved by a multitude of empirical studies comes from the fact that the uncertainty on the match results has a positive impact in the number of spectators coming at stadiums as well as television viewers. An unbalanced competition will have a negative impact on keeping the excitement of the competition at high levels and thus it will not be able to maximize the number of spectators and viewers. This in turn creates a double negative impact both on clubs who will earn less from their tickets sales and TV rights and for the public, as football is one of the most followed sports by people.

In order to determine the level of competitive balance in the five major European Leagues and rank them accordingly by computing an average score, the analysts from Ernst & Young based their study on a set of 7 unique Key Performance Indicators. The indicators analyze:

• # Level of excitement - based both on seasonal and teams components

• # Standard deviation of the top 5 clubs over 15 years

• # Competition for the title

• # Champions League qualifications

• # Swift relegation

• # Volatility among top five and bottom three clubs – from each analyzed league

According with the overall ranking that can be viewed in the figure below, Germany has the most balanced football competition, followed at a very close range by France. The football leagues from Spain and Italy trail well behind on the third and fourth spot, while the English football league was the lowest rated. This means that English league is the most unbalanced and predictable in terms of match results expectations.

Source: Ernst & Young, 2009

One of the main impact factors for the unbalanced competitions as identified by the Ernst & Young analysts is the growing gap between clubs in terms of their financial earnings.

While top clubs participating in rich competitions such as the UEFA Champions League strengthen their power and achieve more constant results, small clubs become more and more fragile. In this case one solution could be to level up the earnings from European Club Competitions. A step was already taken in this direction by rebranding the UEFA Cup competition in the UEFA Europa League and by increasing the prize money of the competition.

Another problem is the decentralized marketing versus centralized marketing policies for the broadcasting rights. While teams in leagues with centralized marketing of broadcasting rights earn about half of what the strongest club win (France, Germany), small clubs in leagues with centralized marketing of broadcasting rights earn only 6%- 7% from what the big clubs earn. This is the situation for clubs in Spain and Italy. The indicator used to measure these aspects is:

• # Ratio of minimum to maximum revenue within the league

Source: Ernst & Young, 2009

As the graph above shows, England is a special case. While rated as the most unbalanced league, it has the most leveled distribution of earnings for broadcasting rights. This level distribution of earnings is associated with the large amounts of money injected into clubs by their owners, mostly at Premiership level (the name of the first echelon for the English Football League).

Ultimately, the main effects of the balanced versus unbalanced leagues is on how the team’s performance is distributed between the internal and external competitions. Teams from leagues with an unbalanced competition (Spain and Italy) have the most to gain from the external competitions, as they are generally winners of the UEFA Champions League. Clubs coming from balanced competitions usually stop in the first knockout rounds of the competition.

There is one questions that decision makers will have to continuously analyze: “What is best for the teams and the public?” A balanced internal competition with a centralized marketing of broadcasting rights, or an unbalanced one, with decentralized marketing of broadcasting rights and huge success on the international stage.

References:

  • Ernst & Young, 2010 – Football meets finance, Edition VI, Global Media & Entertainment Center, available at http://www.ey.com, (accessed 01 July 2010)

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The financial performance of world’s top football clubs – a “Deloitte Football Money League” special report

Wednesday, June 30th, 2010

Deloitte Football Money League reached its 13th edition, once with the launch of its latest report on March 2010, under a striking headline: “Spanish Masters Football Money League”.

The report, profiles the highest earning clubs of the world’s most popular sport, football, and was released nine months after the end of the 2008/2009 season.

The measure chosen for assessing the clubs performance is $ Club revenue, as it offers according with Deloitte analysts “the best publicly available financial comparison”. Other measures such as # Fan base, # Broadcast audience, or # On pitch success, though good candidates for assessing club strength and performance, were not considered for the purpose of the current investigation.

Source: Deloitte, 2010

Thus, according with the latest club financial performance results, Real Madrid is the first sports team to record revenues in excess of 400 million Euros in a financial year. What strikes out is the fact that this astronomic revenue was generated in the conditions of a relatively disappointing season, with poor performance results for the team, both in the internal arena, where they were overpowered by their life time rivals, F.C. Barcelona, but also on the international stage, where they suffered a six consecutive loss in a Champions League knock out stage. Despite all these misfortunes the matchday, broadcasting and commercial revenues, where all in triple figures at the end of the reporting period, maximizing club’s revenues.

Source: Deloitte, 2010

Even more impressive, the report reveals that the revenues of the Spanish top 2 clubs, Real Madrid and Barcelona, have tripled in the last 10 years as the graph below shows. This is mostly due to a tremendous increase in the revenues generated from broadcasting rights. Thus, the two clubs significantly ascended in the Deloitte Money League Rankings, Real Madrid from the 6th position up on the top spot and Barcelona from the 13th position on the 3rd place.

Revenue growth of selected Money League clubs 2000/01 to 2008/09  (Euros/millions)

Source: Deloitte, 2010

As the report further reveals, the top 20 of the world’s most successful football clubs is entirely dominated by major European clubs. Most of them, as regular participants in the richest football clubs competition, the  UEFA Champions League, are also generating impressive revenues from it, both from the tickets sales and TV broadcasting rights but also from the match-day prize money. According with Deloitte analysts, the revenues generated by the most prestigious European football clubs competition over the last 18 years increased more than twenty fold, from 45 million Euros in 1992/93 season to a staggering 1, 090 billion Euros in 2009/10 season.

Source: Deloitte, 2010

These figures, are further proof that  football has become indeed a major industry. Club performance is no longer measured only by the form showed on the pitch by teams during competitions, but  is becoming more and more dependent on the clubs leaders ability to manage “a real business”, one in witch marketing campaigns are as important as football transfers, and leadership over the entire club is as important as the leadership that the football team captain has to show on the pitch.

For more Sport Management KPIs visit: http://www.smartkpis.com/kpi/industries/sport-management/

References:

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Enhancing business performance with intelligent data visualization – Ideas from sport

Monday, June 28th, 2010

Data presentation and visualization solutions have increased in popularity in the recent years. Tremendous advancements in information technology and the wide adoption of the internet had a positive effect on communication, data interchange and visualization across networks, business and social communities.

Driven by the business need of analyzing large volumes of data and presenting them in a concentrated, transparent and easy to read form, data visualization instruments such as dashboard solutions register nowadays an increased level of adoption in several activity fields.

Sport is one of them, and particularly those competitions with a large following all over the world, such as football, basketball, tennis, cricket, baseball or golf. These sports are benefiting from a wide variety of data presentations and visualization applications which enable a closer and easier connections with fans.

Only in the last month, once with the start off the World Cup South Africa 2010 a variety of presentation and visualization solutions were launched, slicing and dicing all competition details and data. An excellent visualization solution is presented by Marca.com:

Source: Marca.com, 2010

What is interesting though, is that what we are witnessing today in the data visualization field  is sort of an “echolocation effect”: ideas bounce back from business to sports and business again.  Such complex data visualization applications, as the one presented in the image above, which were first inspired from business visualization and representation solutions can be used now back as sources of inspirations for a more creative business data visualization solutions.

References:

Marca.com (2010), World Cup South Africa 2010 interactive calendar, available at http://www.marca.com/deporte/futbol/mundial/sudafrica-2010/calendario-english.html, (accessed 25 June 2010)

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World Cup 2010 and social media performance – England goalkeeper Robert Green’s mistake attracts social media attention!

Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010

A shocking error from the England’s goalkeeper Robert Green, earned the U.S.A. squad a 1-1 draw in the first match of the South Africa World Cup 2010 group stage.

The goalkeeper blunder, as outlined by one of the latest Nielsen (2010) analysis, triggered unexpected levels of reactions in the social media from England and USA, but with however contrasting effect in the overall buzz level changes from the two countries.

The analysis outlines the share of online buzz, in English language social media talks surrounding U.S and English national team players related to the 2010 World Cup squads. (Nielsen Wire, 2010)

The analysis is based on two performance indicators:

• % Player buzz in the social media

• % Change in overall buzz levels

USA and England Soccer Player Buzz Rankings, at  14 June 2010

Source: Nielsen Wire, 2010

As the Nielsen analysis  outlines, two major reactions were registered in the social media talks after the England vs. USA game from the World Cup 2010, both having english goalkeeper Robert Green’s stunning mistake as a trigger point.

On the one hand, the mistake, who upset almost 50 million English fans, pulled the goalkeeper out from obscurity in the social media spotlight (Nielsen Wire, 2010). Newspaper titles such as “hand of clod”, “cock –up keeper Green wrecks dream start” “tainted glove” or “worst howler ever”, triggered a storm of discussions on social media forums that earned Robert Green an 11.4 % buzz share and the first spot in the Nielsen rankings ahead of more famous team mate Wayne Rooney.

On the other hand, this unfortunate and costly mistake for the England soccer team produced a 21 % drop in the overall social media discussions around the squad, reflecting the general disappointment of the English nation. In stark contrast, same mistake  produced a 250% increase in the social media discussions round the USA team, as the Nielsen analyst suggest.

Overall, it appears that a simple mistake from a goalkeeper has the power to ignite, through social media channels, the hearts and minds of USA fans, bringing this sport into spotlight in a country where baseball, ice hockey , american football or basketball are the major sport attractions.

References:

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Econometrics and the most significant World Cup performance value drivers

Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010

In two previous blog posts we have presented different methodologies incorporating a variety of correlations, constructed by consultants from Goldman Sachs and J.P Morgan to determine the most probable winners of the World Cup 2010.

Today we will bring to your attention a third perspective, an econometric model adapted by PricewaterhouseCoopers consultants for analyzing the most influential drivers of World Cup performance and determine which are the most likely national teams to win this year’s World Cup edition.

For calculating the econometric model 2 broader measures for national performance in football were taken into consideration:

• Total World Cup Points ever gained at a final tournament, where one victory counts for 3 points and a draw for 1

• Total FIFA World Ranking points

Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers, 2010

These 2 main measures were than separately correlated in the econometric model developed with what were considered to be three of the most important external drivers of world cup performance.

• Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita

• Population size

• Host country advantage

The results of the econometric analysis showed out that while population size and gross domestic product are statistically insignificant for determining the most probable winners of the World Cup, the two constants from the model, the historic World Cup performance and the FIFA world ranking together with the host country advantage driver demonstrated to be the most important factors that count for determining the World Cup winners.

More than that, the advantage of the host country seems to have a highly significant positive effect in determining the teams who will have good performance at the World Cup. Host crowd support and familiar climate conditions are probably two significant factors in that respect.

As the table below shows, only the Spanish team outperformed at the 1982 World Cups, the hosts of the other World Cup editions having decent, if not even brilliant performances. Thus, countries such as Ghana, Nigeria or South Africa are likely to have good performances at the World Cup 2010 edition, even though it is hardly believable that they will be able to win the tournament.

Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers, 2010

Finally, according with the three most important drivers or determinants of World Cup performance, as showed by the PricewaterhouseCoopers econometric model, Brazil is the most likely team to win the World Cup. It is ranked on the first place both in the Historical World Cup performance ranking and in the FIFA World rankings and is the only team who has ever won a world cup title outside of its own continent.

References:

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Castrol Index and the World Cup South Africa 2010

Saturday, June 19th, 2010

In a previous blog post “Performance in sport: a new era has began” we reviewed the ascent of sport in popular culture, bringing together entertainment, business and healthcare. Football in particular became in the last two decades a veritable industry that started to attract increased attention from analysts and media.

The Castrol Index and Ranking System is the world’s first ranking program based on the actual performance of football players. Using the latest technology to objectively analyze each player’s performance on the pitch, the Castrol Index tracks every move of each player during a game and assess whether it has a positive or negative impact on a team’s ability to score or concede a goal. In doing so, an index of more than 20 performance measures, such as: assists, blocked shot, duels won, minutes played, passing accuracy or shots on target are used.

Being an official partner of the  World Cup South Africa 2010, Castrol through Castrol Football have recently launched a  several new features that were added to the old Ranking System. Fans from all over the world are able now to assess the performance of their favorite players and teams present at the World Cup.

Source: Castrol Football, 2010

Additionally, FIFA World Cup Predictor functionality allows fans to visualize each team’s chances of progression through the tournament, providing with insights into how a particularly team will fare in the group, who they will face in the knock out stages and ultimately their chance to win the World Cup.

To give an example we have choose England as a case study for a complete presentation of the FIFA World Cup Predictor  main features or characteristics. However, while being into the online application you can view predictions for any of the 32 participating teams at the World Cup 2010.

1. Success Predictor: How far is your team likely to progress in the 2010 World Cup?

Source: Castrol Football, 2010

2. Group Predictor: How will your team perform in their group?

Source: Castrol Football, 2010

3. Match Predictor: What are your team’s chance of beating its World Cup rivals?

Source: Castrol Football, 2010

4. Opponent Predictor: Who is your team most likely to play with  in the knockout stages?

Source: Castrol Football, 2010

5. Tournament Predictor: Which teams are likely to progress to the later stages and who will they play with?

Source: Castrol Football, 2010

6. World Cup 2010 Winner Predictor: Who is most likely to win the 2010 World Cup?

Source: Castrol Football, 2010

The Castrol Index and Ranking System makes football performance measurement easier. Debates such as who is a better player or which team payed better now have an analytical based answer…In the new edition of the Castrol blog post series we will present a new feature of the Index, which is about to be released soon, by Castrol Football, during the knock out stages of the World Cup 2010: the Castrol Edge Penalty Analysis!

References:

Additional resources:

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Investment bankers views on the 2010 World Cup South Africa – England likely to win the World Cup

Thursday, June 17th, 2010

In a previous blog post we presented the Goldman Sachs Investment Research Division report on “The World Cup and Economics 2010″. Besides forecasting football scores and rankings, the report also presents some interesting correlations between the FIFA world rankings and two economic indicators: Gross National Product (GNP) per capita and Growth Environment Scores (GES).

In today’s post we  present a second report on World Cup 2010, currently released by J.P. Morgan Europe Equity Research Division.

The J.P. Morgan report “A Quantitative Guide to the 2010 World Cup” predicts that according to the forecasting algorithm used, England is likely to win the 2010 World Cup edition.

Although the initial World Cup Model Score shows Brazil as the strongest team taking part at the tournament, further correlations with the fixture table give England as the World Cup winners, followed on the 2nd place by Spain and on the 3rd place by Netherlands.

Source: J.P. Morgan 2010 – A quantitative report to winning the World Cup 2010

The forecasting algorithm used is based, according with the JP Morgan experts, on a successful Quant Model developed by J.P. Morgan over the years, which combines in its current adapted methodology: market prices, FIFA rankings, historical results and the J.P. Morgan team strength indicators. All these metrics, but also many others that were not mentioned above, are grouped in what is called the J.P. Morgan Cazenove Quant World Cup-Picking Model presented below.

Source: J.P. Morgan 2010 – A quantitative report to winning the World Cup 2010

Three of the most interesting and flavored metrics used in this model are:

• Consistency in Market Sentiment: Average (Probability of Winning) / (Max (Probability of Winning) – Min (Probability of Winning))

In terms of this metric, Brazil, England and Ivory Coast provide less risk in terms of the results surprise.

• J.P. Morgan Cazenove Success Ratio Indicator: it is calculated by computing the Win Ratio (Proportion of wins from the total number of games played) and scaling it by FIFA World Ranking

In terms of this metric, Netherlands, Spain, Chile and Brazil should be preferred, when picking a winner for the World Cup 2010.

As the model in its current structure takes in consideration only fixture results from the normal playing time interval, a new metric was decided to be introduced in order to cover the probability of a drawn match in the knockout phases.

• Penalty shootout metric: combines ability to score with goalkeeper ability using the formula shown below.

In terms of this metric, England, Spain, Netherlands and Germany are the favorites to win the World Cup.

Other noticeable facts that are outlined by the report are the World ranking vs probability of winning correlations which show that there are a few disagreements between FIFA World Ranking and the low probability of winning, in the cases of Portugal, Netherlands, Greece or high probability of winning, in the cases of England, Argentina and Ivory Coast.

Source: J.P. Morgan 2010 – A quantitative report to winning the World Cup 2010

Additionally to these findings, a final aspect that the J.P. Morgan report indicates is that the 3 favorite teams, as outlined by the World Cup Model Score:  Brazil, Spain and England represent a 52, 5% probability of winning the World Cup.

However, despite all these predictions, football fans should still keep up in mind at all times that the “ball is round” and that football is by its nature an unpredictable game.  No later than last night, Spain, the European Reigning Champions were defeated with 1-0 by their Swiss opponents, which started as outsiders, in a game from the first round of the group stage at the South Africa World Cup 2010.

References:

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Investment bankers views on the 2010 World Cup South Africa – The World Cup and Economics 2010

Tuesday, June 15th, 2010

The 2010 report on the The World Cup and Economics was recently released by the Global Investment Research Division of Goldman Sachs. Besides forecasting football scores and rankings, the report presents an analysis regarding the correlation with other types of indicators within the World Cup context, such as:

  • Gross National Product (GNP) per Capita – measures the dollar value of the outputs (goods and services) produced within a country, divided by the number of its citizens (smartkpis.com, 2010)
  • Growth Environment Scores (GES) – represents a composite measure of growth conditions for 170 countries, aimed at summarizing the overall growth environment. Goldman Sachs introduces the GES in 2005, to rank countries according to their ability to achieve their growth potential. (Goldman Sachs, 2006)

After testing statistically both GNP per capita and GES with the current FIFA rankings, the conclusions were:

  • The correlation between GNP per capita and the current FIFA rankings is –0.17, lower than the correlation in 2006 (–0.41), this being an indication of a weak relationship between GNP per capita and a country’s FIFA ranking.

FIFA World Cup Rankings vs GNP per Capita (Goldman Sachs 2010)

  • Overall, the correlation between GES and FIFA rankings is also weak, only –0.07. For developed countries, the correlation is 0.29, while for developing countries it is –0.004. A reason for this low correlation level is Brazil and Argentina, for which, their GES cannot explain their high ranking.

GES and FIFA Ranking correlation score (Goldman Sachs, 2010)

Improvement in GES and FIFA Ranking (Goldman Sachs, 2010)

  • For the smaller emerging markets, the improvement in GES could conceivably be associated with better infrastructure and funding facilities for football. For example, Algeria has improved the most among developing countries, in both its GES and FIFA ranking. (Goldman Sachs 2010)

At its fourth edition, World Cup and Economics 2010 report presents also football statistics and odds for each country, offering even an intriguing exercise that calculates probabilities for the likely winner of the Cup.

References:

Goldman Sachs 2010, The World Cup and Economics 2010, available at: http://www2.goldmansachs.com/ideas/global-economic-outlook/the-world-cup-2010-doc.pdf (accessed 7 June 2010)

Goldman Sachs 2006, You Reap What You Sow: Our 2006 Growth Environment Scores, available at: http://www2.goldmansachs.com/ideas/brics/book/BRICs-Chapter6.pdf (accessed 7 June 2010)

smartkpis.com (2010), Gross national product per capita, available at http://www.smartkpis.com/kpi-key-performance-indicator/gross-national-product-per-capita-2902.html (accessed 14 June 2010).

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Performance in sport: a new era has began

Friday, November 13th, 2009

It is acknowledged that performance activities have been a necessary part of the human life for as long as there have been organizations. Thus performance is a fact of life.

The same is in sport, as performance is the most important goal to be achieved by each and every single “athlete” from this world no matter of the sport activity it is involved in. More than that, performance in sport has a very old history, and can be traced back thousands of years ago when the first official edition of the Ancient Olympic Games took place in Greece in 776 BC. Since then, sport activities evolved tremendously both in form and complexity and nowadays they became an important part of the human beings life.

Along with these developments, performance has increased its importance exponentially, part as a natural consequence of the human society development and civilization, part because of the commercialization of sport in many of its branches. Therefore, performance in sport became today one of the most intensively monitored phenomena.
One important sport activity that has attracted much attention from the perspective of performance monitoring and measuring is football. Considered by many as the king of all sports, mostly because of its popularity but also because of its huge commercial benefits, football became today a veritable industry, whose performance in all of its aspects is an important phenomenon to watch and measure. Therefore, in this sense more applications and programs have already been built.

A good example of such a program is the Castrol Index and Ranking system. The Castrol Rankings is the world’s first rankings based on the actual performance of every football player across Europe’s top five leagues. Castrol’s team of performance analysts use the latest technology to analyze and measure each player’s performance in every of these leagues matches.

The Castrol Index objectively analyses player performance, tracking every move on the field and assessing whether it has a positive or negative impact on a team’s ability to score or concede a goal. At the end of each game, players are given a score out of ten. Some of the most important measures that compose the index are:

Assists

Blocked shot

Chances created

Clean sheet

Clearance

Cross

Dribbles/Take-ons

Duels Lost

Duels Won

Fouls Won

Interception

Mins/goal conceded

Minutes played

Passing accuracy %

Save %

Shooting accuracy %

Shots off target

Shots on target

Tackle

Then Castrol Rankings combines the individual Castrol Index players’ performance measures and weights them, so each player can be ranked to find out who the world’s best performer players are.

As the famous german football coach Ottmar Hitzfeld declared: “…data and stats have radically changed football over the past 10 years. Whether it’s at club or international level, managers and their staff use statistics and insights on player performance to help improve the team and deliver the best results“.

For more details about how Castrol Index is calculated visit www.castrolfootball.com .

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