Football has also embarked on the path of data analytics. The reading of biometric data, distance and physical effort already seem outdated. In 2021, Manchester City’s Pep Guardiola recruiting four astrophysicists to join the staff of data analysts made headlines. Their task, through a type of 3D technology used by the cameras, will be to track and monitor every action of individual players in order to improve their performance. Once what athletic trainers did.
A mixture of science and sport that this year also involved the bitter rivals of Liverpool, who have collaborated with a team of German neuroscientists who have helped to train the players on some specific aspects of the game, including penalties. In the training sessions preceding the Champions League final, Klopp’s team equipped the players with electrodes that measure the electrical activity of the brain, so as to establish whether they are “in the zone”, that is, perfectly focused on what they have to do during the match. execution of a pattern on a corner or free kick, or just on a penalty kick.
With surprising results: Liverpool are the Premier League team that has scored the most goals from dead ball action (15 excluding penalties, including 11 from corners and four from indirect free-kick).
A team game, the one between science and sport, which seems to have hit the target and which, in different ways, has benefited the teams, the fans and the industry in general. «More turnover means more data generated, disseminated and processed on different platforms. The enormous amount of numbers and statistics produced by different sources requires a centralized management system: the data integration it represents the future for those who want to make the most of this enormous treasure of data and information »says Francesco Borraccino, customer success manager of Primeur Group, an Italian company of data integration services present in 28 countries around the world.
The flow between the data management by the two parties remains central: those who produce the data and those who collect them by interpreting them. “Adopting a data integration methodology is extremely advantageous,” continues Borraccino. «To avoid that data is isolated from the surrounding world, the platforms of data integration, decoupling those who produce the data from those who consume them. A methodology that – as happens with us – allows to divide the business flow into three phases: data collection from sensors or applications, data aggregation or processing with artificial intelligence algorithms and finally delivery of the derived data to other applications, where the experts domains (mechanical engineers, electronic engineers, mathematicians, etc.) will be able to further analyze them to provide indications, for example to pilots, for a winning strategy ».