weekly update #15

Once again, I would like to apologize for missing the presentation. I was slightly confused about the date. I am looking forward to the new date.

Since my research has been long over, maybe I can talk about how corona virus has continued to affect the world of soccer.

Among Europe's major leagues, the Dutch Eredivisie and the French League 1 have been called off a while ago. These leagues have ended their seasons and handed out crowns. The Premier League are still investigating whether they can start their league again whereas the German Bundesliga have planned to resume their season behind closed doors on the 16th of May. Elsewhere, the Korean K-league have actually started the new season.

In England, Premier League players were put under scrutiny by the British health minister Matt Hancock to take a pay cut and 'play their part.' In a nationwide statement regarding public health, he made a controversial statement that was rather uncalled for. Many critics have argued that Hancock was deflecting the government's inability to keep the virus from their borders onto the players. Despite this harsh statement, captains of the Premier League have come together to donate a substantial amount of money to the British NHS.

Many leagues will be looking towards the K-league that have already managed to begin their official season and the German Bundesliga who will effectively resume their season later this month. Successful launchings will potentially see other leagues resuming their leagues as well.

Leagues should not start if they jeopardize the common health in any way. We will see how this one pans out.

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weekly update #14

I am looking forward to the zoom call! I turned my presentation and product in.

In all honesty, there's not much for me to update you on.

Thank you Dr. Bill for helping me on this journey.

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weekly update #13

I have finished my analysis and also finished making the website. I have recorded my presentation as well. I am just waiting to send it in.

I thoroughly enjoyed this class. I have learned things that I wouldn't have had time to look into, and I will take the things I have learned to wherever I go from here. I have to admit though, I feel like I could have done more and I should have done more. I don't think I spent my time so wisely.

When I was coming up with my product, I realized that I really enjoy analyzing games and trying to interpret it. I think I will continue doing this from now on. It takes a lot of time, but I will try to find time for it. I feel like it could kind of be a portfolio for what I want to do in the future.

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weekly update #12

There is about ten days left until the presentation. I have to get going. As I said previously, I think I am going to have to settle with just the BIFF Final game and start on the website. After that I will quickly move onto making my presentation.

The website will be about our season and that put into numbers. Then, we will try to connect it to the stats of the individual game. We will try to analyze and interpret what this means.

I am looking forward to how this week pans out. It should be exciting.

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weekly update #11

I have made some progress from last week. I was actually able to sit down and pull through some data from our BIFF final game. I am still working on tackles though. I realized it takes a lot of concentration. I still have some work to get done. After I finish my work on this game, I need to move one to our state semi-final game. That should take many hours. Then, I would like to construct my website. I would like to get all of this done in the next couple weeks. It will take a lot of time for sure, but my hope is that it will all be worth it in the end. With the presentation on May 4th, I need to be thinking about that as well.

Although I would like to get all of this done, I realize I might need to cut back a bit. I might just finish the BIFF Final game and move onto the website.

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weekly update #10

I realize I haven't done one of these in a long time. Please let me know if I am missing any of them. To be completely honest, I haven't made much progress in these last couple of weeks. Now that I am settled in, I am looking forward to making more progress. I have access to the BIFF Final game but I still don't have the state final game. The good news is that I found our state semi final game that I can use as a replacement.

The bigger problem is that I have been struggling to get past this part of the project. I have been finding it difficult to stand in front of a monitor tracking these things down for 90 minutes. Soon enough, I just fall into watching the game and forget about what I was supposed to do. I guess I need to close in on what I need to get done.

There has been a lot of change in these last couple of weeks. However, there is still due to be a capstone presentation at the end of the day, so I must stay focused.

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weekly update #9

I have continued my work on loggerpro. It is taking me longer than I expected. I am still working through the two games. I have been finding it difficult to concentrate on the game for 90 minutes. I feel that breaks in between will be effective. I will have to find a way to get through this. I plan on spending some time on this project over spring break. I want to get as much as I can done until I start preparing my presentation. I will continue to move along.

I still need to get a recording of the second game. I need to find someone with a spectrum account. I know people who do so it shouldn't be that difficult. I look forward to continuing my work. I realize it won't be easy. I will put in the work though.

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weekly update #8

I have started to inch towards my final product. Right now, I am trying to download our BIFF final game as well as state final game vs. Kapaa. Once I have done this, I will be able to break these games down using longomatch, an analytics software. I am looking forward to this. I will reassess where to go once I have finished these things.

I am excited by the prospect of this. I have always wanted to do something like this. I have also thought about contacting opta about what I am doing right now and see if they can help me whether it costs money or not. Opta is a company that looks at stats in soccer.

There is also something I realize about myself. Because I love this game so much, I get too excited and this makes me irrational or unrealistic sometimes. I see myself blowing things out of proportion and overwhelming myself too often. I have to stop being so excited and be more realistic.

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weekly update #7

I have continued my reading. The chapter I am reading is about possession. The question is whether possession is as important as people make it to be. Most top teams like to keep the ball the themselves, thinking if they don't give the ball away, it is impossible for the other team to score against them. This might be the more exciting brand of soccer, the game played by teams like Barcelona and Man City. The truth is, possession is not a game for everybody. The book gives an example of Tony Pulis' Stoke City. Stoke were a team not afraid to give the ball to the opposition because they knew they didn't have the technical ability to play the game that teams above them. Instead, their game was based off of strangling defending and well rehearsed set pieces. Rory Delap would throw the ball into the box in throw ins and having strong players who weren't the most skillful try and score headers. This was incredibly successful despite the criticisms they faced for playing a rather 'philistine' type of football. The conclusion is that there is no right way to play the game. Everyone does what they are good at.

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weekly update #6

After the conversation with Mr. Schorn about spending class time more wisely, I have been working on that. I have been trying to spend most of class time reading my book. I didn’t read the book in depth last time and I have found a lot of interesting stuff in there. I think I will learn a lot from it. I read a chapter about the controversial topic of whether there is a correct way of playing the game. Some teams like to attack more whereas some teams like to sit back and defend. The authors did a thorough research into which playing style gives you more wins. Then it goes on to say that despite two goals giving you a better chance at winning than one, conceding zero gives you a better chance at winning than scoring one which is expressed in terms of 0 > 1. A lot of this stuff seems counterfactual. I look forward to continuing my reading.

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weekly update #5

What I took away from my presentation this time around was that I need to be more objective and channel my passion in the right way. Although I felt that I did well I felt like I was nervous when I didn't have to be. I think the nerves come from my love for the sport despite the fact that I know my material very well. I think this is something that I can work on in the future and I am already looking forward to the next presentations.

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weekly update #4

writing my model of implementation took a big chunk of my week but I have a better sense of where I am taking this project now. I will be spending the next weeks reading my books in greater detail and I will take the information I can get from it. I don't have much else to add. I also got a subscription to the athletic which is a up and coming sports journal. I find that they have a lot of good writers and thorough information. I should probably look at fivethirtyeight as well. I feel good.

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model of implementation

The overall goal of this project is to learn more about data analytics in soccer or just data analysis in general and make something of my own. Most of my initial research has been centered around familiarizing myself with the material and reading about case studies or other related materials on the internet(phase 1). I have moved onto doing more thorough and specific research into the material, addressing questions that I have and finding books related to this material(phase 2). After this I will moving onto doing work with the soccer team here. I think I will work on video analytics, collecting data and communicating with the coach to see how my findings can help improve the team(phase 3). Then, I hope to present my findings in front of an audience and get feedback(phase 4).

phase 1 - familiarizing material
milestone - browse about data analytics in soccer
just browsing through the net can help you familiarize the material and get a better sense of what you'd like to focus one
milestone - learn about opta
opta is a company that tracks player data for a variety of sports and they have different case studies as well
milestone - data analytics usage
learn about how data analytics is being used in soccer at this moment

phase 2 - detailed research
milestone - come up with questions you want to address
after the initial research is done I will have questions I would like to address and know more about.
milestone - find books and read
read books to figure out more about material
milestone - reassess questions
come back to questions had initially and see if they are answered

phase 3 - working with the soccer team
milestone - gather necessary resources and material
get clips of games and training sessions(if possible) etc.
milestone - edit and analyze videos
edit videos based on what you would like to look at and record observations
milestone - collect data
collect data on turn overs, interceptions, passes, etc.
milestone - communicate with the coach
communicate with the coach to see what can be made of this information

phase 4 - presentation
milestone - gather findings
gather your findings and what you have learned over the year
milestone - polish findings into a presentation
organize findings into a presentation to present in front of an audience
milestone - present
present in front of an audience of my findings
milestone - feedback
take feedback and see where you can take this in the future



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weekly update #3

This week I saw a really interesting video on a team called FC Midtjylland in Denmark. Their team has been using data to drive success on and off the pitch over the last couple years and has climbed up the table as a result. Their ambitious owner, Matthew Benham, who also owns the English club Brentford has been central to this success. He made most of his money through sports gambling by coming up with his own algorithms to try and break the odds of the gambling companies. He wanted to bring this mathematical approach to the teams he owned and has had great success doing it. I also met with Alex during the week and he gave me some advice on where to take this project as well. I have been continuing my research on sabermetrics and data usage in f1 as well.

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weekly update #2

I have been continuing my research. I have been looking into f1 metrics and sabermetrics to see how other sports are using data to enhance performance. I think that by looking at how other sports and businesses are using data, I can get a better sense of how data is being used in soccer and what more can be done as well. data has become a really important tool for f1 racing and baseball and I can expect that data will take a similar role for soccer in the future. In f1 racing, numbers of analysts sit in front of the computer during a race to track information about their respective cars and in baseball, coaches are constantly recording data to get a better sense of their players. To our bare eyes, it might not seem like all these complicated steps are being used to produce the best results on the track or the field, but a lot of work is being done behind the scenes and they are definitely producing results.

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weekly update

I have been making progress with my research. After being told to specify my research, I have been looking into how data is being used for injury prevention in sports because it can cost teams a lot of money when their best players aren't playing. I find that interesting. If you can find a way to accumulate data and predict when a player is going to go down based on where they have taken blows over the past month or etc, that can make a significant impact on teams. In fact, this technology is already being used in rugby by a team called Leicester Tigers. Case studies like these provide me with the necessary insight for me to then see if it can be applied to soccer.

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project

My project is performance data analysis in soccer as a tool to assess player performance. This is interesting to me because I love soccer and I like math so both things combined is like heaven.

This is a growing field that I am interested in and I want to get to know more about it. The goal of the project is to get a good understanding of what is going on at the moment and seeing what more can be done about it. It should be an interesting project for me and I am already having a good time exploring through this.


I plan on getting started by doing research. I have already started finding books related to the material and have started reading it. I could then find people to contact and find more about through the resources i have. Dr bill has told me that he knows a few people who could help and maybe that will do. I will have a better sense of what i want to do after i finish my books.


This project will help me because this is what i see myself doing in the future. Data analytics is something that I have been interested in for a while and I want to get to know more about it. That combined with my passion for the game made me think that this is what I should spend my time on. On the other hand, I hope my work can have an impact on the field and hopefully help develop it.


There are a couple sources that I found really helpful. I would say opta is a really interesting site and it gave me a bit of insight. I also found a couple youtube videos that I found really helpful. There are also articles on this subject because it is an emerging topic. I would say the collective of these gave me a good sense of what i am getting into and I just want to develop upon that.


This is what I anticipate needing for my project: a place to take notes and maybe a couple people’s contacts to know more about this topic. I will work hard to figure out as much about this topic as i can.


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research

what kind of data is being collected at the highest level?

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impact

the impact of my project
i see the impact of my project as looking deeper into something that all of us appreciate to some extent. I also see it as attracting more attention to a sport that is already so global and international. Hopefully it can do that to do the people here considering soccer isn't the primary sport here. Also, I want to show people sometimes what you see isn't exactly true and is exposed to bias and numbers can read straight through that. hopefully i can carry this work into future and develop on it and make a greater impact

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data analytics reflection

data analytics is the field that i want to explore in college and I am a big fan of soccer and I realized that this is a topic that I want to research and learn more about it. I have done some research into this before so I start with a little bit of an advantage I guess but throughout the year I hope to learn much more about this topic and hopefully be one of the most informed people on this topic and even make a career out of it, maybe even get an internship at one of the places i research. I have been watching this sport for as long as I can remember and I am excited to get an opportunity to research something that I love.

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