It’s how the sport’s analytics revolution got its start.īut so much of what matters in soccer happens away from the ball, through how players move and defend, continuously creating and denying space. It’s created by humans who watch in real time (or sometimes later for added precision) and log the timestamp, location and type of hundreds of actions, or “events.” This data is the basis for most familiar soccer stats, such as shot counts and possession percentages, and even FiveThirtyEight’s Soccer Power Index. Traditional event data, which Opta started collecting more than 15 years ago, is a line-by-line record of everything that occurs on the ball in a match.
And better data is changing how soccer measures itself. The good news is that new methods are starting to make it possible to see the rest of the pitch in a manageable way, without losing track of what’s happening on the ball.
No less an authority than Johan Cruyff once said the test of a good player is: “What do you do during those 87 minutes when you don’t have the ball?” For such a big, messy sport, that can be a problem. That’s basically what most soccer data looks like: clear information about what’s happening on the ball and a total blank everywhere else. You can see who’s making a pass or a tackle, but as for what the other 21 players are up to, you’re in the dark. Eventually someone rigs up a single spotlight and the game goes on, but the light can only follow the ball. Imagine you’re at a soccer game, and just as the opening whistle blows, the power cuts out.
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