… It was a sign that many USMNT supporters wanted the national team to turn the page on the “old guard” and go all in on the future of U.S. soccer.
Berhalter, though, doesn’t see it that way at all. He thinks Bradley brings value that’s essential to a squad full of players getting their first taste of USMNT experience.
“One thing I imagine with Michael is he can share his experience,” Berhalter said. “He’s played in so many big games. He’s been around for multiple World Cups, so he can share both good and bad. I think that’s important.”
U.S. Open champion Naomi Osaka may be best known for her fierce power game but her coach Sascha Bajin believes the Japanese 21-year-old’s fitness and mindset should give her an edge in the women’s final against Petra Kvitova.
… Every week supporters get their metaphorical kicks pretending they are watching Zaha acting when they know full well he is not. Usually, in fact, Zaha is receiving literal kicks, on top of verbal abuse. He will probably be subjected to both with particular relish on Saturday, when Watford visit Selhurst Park.
Zaha is one of the Premier League’s most persecuted players, partly because lots of people pretend he is not persecuted at all. Eden Hazard – and only Eden Hazard – is fouled more often than Zaha, who, in the last four seasons, has been booted, shoved, pulled or whacked 387 times in the Premier League, nearly 100 times more than the next most assailed (Alexis Sánchez). And that only includes the times the referee has spotted the offence. Yet every time Zaha hits the ground he is accused of making something up, even when fans know their man has attacked him. They just pretend, for titillation or for illegitimate gain, that they are watching something other than what they are watching.
At Molineux last week Zaha was booed after being taken out by Ryan Bennett, who became the 66th Premier League player since 2014 to be booked for fouling the Crystal Palace winge
… The Gronkowski story before Super Bowls used to be how the Patriots would deploy one of the most physically dominant players in football history. Now it’s how much longer the NFL will have him — and his unpredictable behavior — to enjoy.
“This is the beginning of the end,” said Nate Burleson, an NFL analyst for CBS. “Just being realistic: How many more pieces of equipment can you put on your body before it literally stops you from being who you are?”
To date, athletic performance has been extensively assessed in youth soccer players through laboratory and field testing. Only recently has running performance via time–motion analysis been assessed during match play. Match running data are often useful in a practical context to aid game understanding and decision making regarding training content and prescriptions. A plethora of previous reviews have collated and appraised the literature on time–motion analysis in professional senior players, but none have solely examined youth players. Objective
The aim of the present systematic review was to provide a critical appraisal and summary of the original research articles that have evaluated match running performance in young male soccer players. Methods
Following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses (PRISMA) statement, literature searches were performed in four databases: PubMed, ISI Web of Science, SPORTDiscus and SciELO. We used the following descriptors: soccer, football, young, youth, junior, physical performance, running performance, match running performance, movement patterns, time–motion analysis, distances covered, activity profile, work rate, match analysis, and match performance. Articles were included only if they were original articles written in the English language, studied populations of male children and/or adolescents (aged ≤ 20 years), were published/ahead of print on or before 31 December 2017 and showed at least one outcome measure regarding match running performance, such as total distance covered, peak game speed or indicators of activities performed at established speed thresholds. Results
A total of 5801 records were found. After duplicates were removed and exclusion and inclusion criteria applied, 50 articles were included (n = 2615 participants). Their outcome measures were extracted and findings were synthesized. The majority of the reviewed papers covered the European continent (62%) and used global positioning systems (GPS) (64%). Measurement error of the tools used to obtain position data and running metrics was systematically overlooked among the studies. The main aims of studies were to examine differences across playing positions (20%), age groups (26%) and match halves (36%). Consistent findings pointed to the existence of positional role and age effects on match running output (using fixed running speed thresholds), but there was no clear consensus about reductions in activity over the course of match play. Congested schedules negatively affected players’ running performance. While over 32% of all studies assessed the relationships between match running performance and physical capacity, biochemical markers and body composition, ~ 70% of these did not account for playing position. Conclusions
This review collated scientific evidence that can aid soccer conditioning professionals in understanding external match loads across youth categories. Coaches working with youth development programs should consider that data derived from a given population may not be relevant for other populations, since game rules, match format and configuration are essentially unstandardized among studies for age-matched players. Despite limited evidence, periodization training emphasizing technical-tactical content can improve match running performance. Occurrence of acute and residual impairments in the running performance of young soccer players is common. Prescription of postmatch recovery strategies, such as cold water immersion and spa treatment, can potentially help reduce these declines, although additional research is warranted. This review also highlighted areas requiring further investigation, such as the possible influence of environmental and contextual constraints and a more integrative approach combining tactical and technical data.
This investigation examined the effects of a congested match schedule on gait complexity in collegiate female soccer players. Participants were 7 female collegiate players. Each day, training and match loads were recorded during a six‐day period that included two competitive matches (separated by 66 hrs) using a GPS, acceleration, and heart rate monitoring and perceptual recovery scores. Gait was examined before each training session, during a 400m run at comfortable pace. Spatiotemporal characteristics were computed using continuous wavelet transform and gait complexity was assessed with detrended fluctuation analysis. High match load (HML) players played more minutes than the low match load (LML) players (78.6 ± 4.9 vs 15.8 ± 4.9 min, p<.05). and covered more total distance (TotDist) between the initial and final session (31,970.5 ± 13190.9 vs 22,905.5 ± 1673.1 m, p<.05). During this period, greater accumulated TotDist and recovery scores were associated with decreases in the gait fractal scaling index (r = ‐0.5 to ‐0.83), despite little change in spatiotemporal characteristics. This study indicates increased load during a 6‐day period of training and matches alters gait complexity. It is possible that some aspect of central and/or peripheral fatigue alters motor control leading to less structured gait variability. [pdf full text available]
Central nervous system fatigue is frequently discussed in the fitness industry. However, like many scientific topics, it is often misrepresented.
Many strength coaches think that central nervous system fatigue is something that happens to a greater extent after heavy deadlifts than after back squats (although it probably doesn’t). Few realize that central nervous system fatigue is a natural occurrence during every set of a workout, and is actually far more pronounced during and after aerobic exercise compared to during and after strength training.
Even so, muscle damage that is caused after certain types of exercise can trigger a large and sustained increase in central fatigue that lasts from one workout to the next, and this has very important implications for planning strength training programs, especially those that involve maximal eccentric contractions.
… Look at Manchester City now and they have 24 staff at every game. There’s so much tech and data available that I think you have to pick out what’s relevant. That’s a big skill. You have to choose what you will functionally use and be able to make decisions on, not just make a document and fill a folder to say “this player has this score”.
Everything I do for screening and testing is clinically based. It’s linking the stats and assessments to what’s relevant in the actual game. That’s the important thing.
I remember when Graeme Souness came in at Blackburn (in 2000), he wasn’t keen on GPS. His line was that when he was coaching at Sampdoria the players spent more time worrying about the numbers than concentrating on the football.
… Leaders and teammates often tell us that their team is “dysfunctional” (their word, not ours) and ask us to help identify and fix the issue. When we dig deeper and ask them to describe what they are observing in detail, we typically hear that certain team members are problematic and need to change their behavior. We also hear vague statements about “them” (everyone else) not knowing how to operate effectively. As experienced team development practitioners, we know that these are not accurate or helpful assessments of the situation.
Teams are complex systems of individuals with different preferences, skills, experiences, perspectives, and habits. The odds of improving that complex system in a meaningful and sustainable way are higher if every team member — including the leader — learns to master these three foundational capabilities: internal self-awareness, external self-awareness, and personal accountability.
The Bucs announced their strength and conditioning staff under new coach Bruce Arians Thursday, and track and field fans will immediately recognize the name Roger Kingdom, the former 110-meter hurdler who won gold medals at the 1984 and 1988 Olympics.
… There isn’t an established idea of how improvements to running economy translate into performance. Kipp, Kram and Hoogkamer, working from the US and Canada, took it upon themselves to “quantify how metabolic savings translate into faster running performance”. If you’re using less energy to run a certain speed, how much faster does that actually mean you can go?
The findings were very interesting. The faster the athlete, the less benefit there is from their improving running economy. Not that the benefits aren’t still there but the faster you are, the lower the effect for any given percentage.
If you’re going slower than three metres per second (<10.8kph) then the benefit is greater than the improvement in running economy. If you improve running economy by two percent then you’re going to go slightly over two percent quicker. Wonderful.
Valencell and Sonion select Maxim component to reduce size by 66%, combined with market leading accuracy, design flexibility, and advanced biometric measurements from Valencell tech in Benchmark BE5.0 biometric sensor
… Though it had a very small sample size of eight women, a recent study found that using a fitness tracker could lead to an over-reliance on the devices and feelings of self-loathing.
Carnegie Mellon University researchers have found ways to track body movements and detect shape changes using arrays of RFID tags. RFID-embedded clothing thus could be used to control avatars in video games — much like in the movie “Ready Player One.” Or embedded clothing could to tell you when you should sit up straight — much like your mother.
RFID tags are nothing new, which is part of their appeal for these applications, said Haojian Jin, a Ph.D. student in CMU’s Human-Computer Interaction Institute (HCII). They are cheap, battery-free and washable.
What’s new is the method that Jin and his colleagues devised for tracking the tags, and thus monitoring movements and shapes. RFID tags reflect certain radio frequencies. It would be possible — but not practical — to use multiple antennas to track this backscatter and triangulate the locations of the tags. Rather, the CMU researchers showed they could use a single, mobile antenna to monitor an array of tags without any prior calibration.
… In a recent article published in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, informaticians used a mixed-method approach to develop a deeper understanding of Fitbit user longevity to guide future development of activity trackers used for improving health.
What did they discover? Two stages were revealed: The novelty stage, where users discontinued use after three months, and the long-term use stage, when users continued use after three months.
The EuroLeague Players Association has greenlighted its athletes to wear sensor-laden smart shirts during live games. The data will be used exclusively on the HEED social platform to engage fans.
The players’ association, which was only recently formed to represent players rights in the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague, voted to support the new wearable initiative as one of its first voting decisions since its June 2018 inception. HEED said there was “widespread support among players.”
A London football club has appointed an artificial intelligence coach to select its team’s formation and tactics.
Non-league Wingate and Finchley FC, who play in the seventh tier of English football, partnered with AI firm The Big Bang Fair to install the AI coach in an effort to get an edge over rivals.
The smart speaker will be linked to a computer and use information spoken to it by coaches to make tactical suggestions and even provide Kevin Keegan-style inspirational quotes.
MbientLab, a company building the next generation of sensors and tools for the healthcare industry, has announced the availability of its MIOTherapy (MIO) wearable technology for physical and occupational therapists. MIO is the first wearable technology platform that integrates the effectiveness of traditional physical therapy with smart sensors, therapeutic exercises, games, and 3D visualization technology to personalize and improve outpatient rehabilitation and accelerate recovery.
… A study carried out by the University of Warwick has found that Sweatcoin, an app which incentivises users to exercise by offering cash rewards, can result in users increasing physical activity by up to 20 per cent.
Researchers from the university’s Warwick Manufacturing Group (WMG) department monitored the daily step counts of 6,000 Sweatcoin users for six months after they downloaded the app. This data was then compared to users average physical activity three months prior to the study, with results showing that physical activity increased by an average of 19.5 per cent.
Furthermore, the study found that those typically lacking motivation to exercise, particularly participants with higher BMIs or sedentary lifestyles, were more likely to increase their step count. This suggests that instant reward programmes, such as Sweatcoin, could be key to tackling a number of societal health issues.
Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury is one of the most common knee injuries among adolescent athletes. Majority of the ACL injuries occur due to pivoting, sudden deceleration, and direction change without contact with any player. Preventive interventions can reduce risks of the ACL injury, thus developing a clinician friendly biomechanical assessment tool to identify athletes with such risk factors is crucial. In this study, the authors investigated the concurrent validity of a commercially available depth sensor, Microsoft Kinect, as a cost-effective alternative to the gold-standard 3-dimensional motion analysis systems in noncontact ACL screening for adolescent athletes during side-cut maneuvers. Study participants performed 45° side-cut maneuvers while collecting data from both systems concurrently. The sagittal and frontal plane kinematics were analyzed during the full stance phase and the first 20% of the stance (early deceleration). Absolute agreement (range: ICC = .767–.989) and consistency (range: ICC = .799–.992) were excellent for all measures except early deceleration frontal plane hip angle, which displayed good absolute agreement (ICC = .643) and consistency (ICC = .625). Findings showed that the Kinect has the potential to be an effective clinical assessment tool for sagittal and frontal plane trunk, hip, and knee kinematics during the side-cut maneuvers.
Earlier this month, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) announced a data privacy bill that would direct the Federal Trade Commission to write new privacy recommendations that overrule state laws. Similarly, a prominent technology think tank, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, has suggested a “grand bargain” of a new federal data law that would not only preempt state laws, but entirely repeal sector-specific federal privacy laws like the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule (COPPA) and, of course, HIPAA.
These proposals are in very early stages, but experts agree that having an overarching federal data privacy law makes more sense than the current mix of sector laws and state-level laws. “Data travels freely across state and continental lines, so to have a patchwork of state laws makes no sense,” says Kayte Spector-Bagdady, a bioethicist at the University of Michigan. To avoid getting in trouble, every institution needs to follow the policy of the state with the most restrictive laws. The result is that California, with its tough new data privacy law, is essentially setting the national policy.
Ohio State University has completed the next step in its Athletics District, a high-profile part of the school’s Framework 2.0 master plan.
The Schumaker Student-Athlete Development Complex officially opened in December, giving athletes a new hub for training, nutrition and rehabilitation as well as a community gathering space on campus.
Dallas Morning News, SportsDay blog, Evan Grant from
The Rangers have decided to do what no MLB team has done in the last 30 years: Open a brand new stadium with an artificial playing surface.
On Thursday, the club announced a decision to go with a new synthetic product, manufactured by Shaw SportsTurf of Calhoun, Ga., when Globe Life Field opens in 2020. The last stadium opened primarily for baseball with an artificial turf was Toronto’s Rogers Centre, which opened as SkyDome in 1989.
The Rangers believe the product, marketed as “B1K” (as in batting 1.000), will create a safer, more reliable playing field than if they tried to maintain grass in their new retractable-roof stadium. The announcement culminated nearly two years of sports science research into grass vs. next generation turf.
… Changing practice routines is another way to make sport safer. Coaches who insist on competitive conditions in training may end up harming their players. Under Eddie Jones, the England rugby-union coach since 2015, the number of days lost to injuries incurred during skills training has risen fivefold.
Again, youth sports may show the way forward. The West Lafayette American football team, at a high school in Indiana, uses data to spot the practice drills that involve the most contact between players, and then refines them to reduce the danger of harmful collisions. The side undertakes only one full-contact training session in the entire season (the rest of the time players practise tackling on dummies filled with air). From next season, every player will be fitted with sensors to track blows to the head. “Safety is our number-one priority,” says Shane Fry, the side’s head coach.
Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise journal from
Purpose Active youth are vulnerable to knee injury and subsequent osteoarthritis. Improved understanding of the association between health-related outcomes and history of joint injury could inform osteoarthritis prevention strategies. The purpose of this historical cohort study is to examine the association between youth sport–related knee injury and various clinical, physiological, behavioral, and functional health-related outcomes, 3–10 yr postinjury.
Methods Participants included 100 individuals who experienced a youth sport–related knee injury 3–10 yr earlier and 100 age-, sex-, and sport-matched uninjured controls. Outcomes include the following: Knee Injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score (KOOS), Intermittent and Constant Osteoarthritis Pain Score, body mass index (BMI), fat mass index (FMI), weekly physical activity, estimated aerobic capacity, hip and knee muscle strength, and dynamic balance. Baseline characteristics were described. Multivariable regression models (95% confidence interval [CI]) were used to evaluate the association between injury history and each outcome, considering the influence of sex and time since injury.
Results Participant median age was 22 yr (range, 15–26 yr), and 55% were female. The injured group demonstrated poorer KOOS subscale scores, more total and intermittent pain, higher BMI (1.8 kg·m−2; 95% CI = 0.9–2.6), higher FMI (1.1 kg·m−2; 95% CI = 0.5–1.6), weaker knee extensor (−0.18 N·m·kg−1; 95% CI = −0.33 to −0.02) and flexor (−0.21 N·m·kg−1; 95% CI = −0.30 to −0.11) muscles, and poorer balance than controls. In the previously injured group, female sex was associated with poorer KOOS quality-of-life scores, knee flexor strength, and greater FMI, whereas longer time since injury was associated with poorer KOOS symptoms scores, knee extensor strength, and balance outcomes.
Conclusion Youth that suffer a sport-related knee injury demonstrate on average more negative health-related outcomes consistent with future osteoarthritis compared with uninjured matched controls 3–10 yr after injury. These negative outcomes differ by sex and time since injury.
Return to running (RTR) is considered to be an important point in rehabilitation post ACL reconstruction, as it marks the transition from ‘impairment-focused’ to ‘functional’ or ‘activity-specific’ rehabilitation.
Conventionally, clinical decision making for RTR has been time-based (i.e., 8-16 weeks post-operatively). In more recent times, there have been increased sightings of assessment-based progression of rehabilitation.
The purpose of this review was to look for the criteria used to progress to RTR after ACL reconstruction and to identify any changes in trend of the criteria over time.
The NFL says the number of concussions in games and practices dropped 23.8 percent in 2018.
According to figures the league released Thursday, there were a combined 214 recorded concussions in 2018 during the preseason and regular season, compared to a record-high 281 in 2017. League executives said Thursday that they were still analyzing the data but were hopeful that their wide-ranging “call to action,” issued in response to the 2017 numbers, had put the league on a better path regarding one of the most significant challenges the league faces.
… If the pressure to be thin doesn’t seem like a big deal in itself, consider that kids who are dissatisfied with their bodies are more likely than others to become depressed and develop eating disorders or other dangerous habits. We constantly discuss the need to tackle the crisis of childhood obesity, and rightfully so—but we need to remember that more kids today have eating disorders than Type 2 diabetes. Nearly 1 in 3 high school girls, and nearly 1 in 6 high school boys, have disordered eating patterns serious enough to warrant medical help; one study found that 1 in 8 girls have made herself vomit at least once in the past three months.*
With all this in mind, I often wonder how to talk to my kids about body size and stigma, both to minimize the chance that they will grow to dislike their bodies and to ensure that they treat people of all body types with respect. These questions don’t, at least for me, have obvious answers. A few weeks ago, I heard my 7-year-old describe someone as “fat,” and although my mom antennae bristled, I had no idea what to do. Should I chastise him for using that word? Ignore the comment? Use the opportunity to start a conversation about weight stigma?
Protein recommendations are provided on a daily basis as defined by the recommended dietary allowance (RDA) at 0.80 g protein/kg/day. However, meal-based, as opposed to daily, dietary protein recommendations are likely more informative given the role of the daily protein distribution pattern in modulating the post-exercise muscle protein synthetic response. Current protein meal recommendations to plateau post-exercise muscle protein synthesis rates are based on the ingestion of isolated protein sources, and not protein-rich whole foods. It is generally more common to eat whole food sources of dietary protein within a normal eating pattern to meet dietary protein requirements. Yet, there is a need to define how dietary protein action on muscle protein synthesis rates can be modulated by other nutrients within a food matrix to achieve protein requirements for optimal muscle adaptations. Recent developments suggest that the identification of an “optimal” protein source should likely consider the characteristics of the protein and the food matrix in which it is consumed. This review aims to discuss recent concepts related to protein quality, and the potential interactive effects of the food matrix, to achieve optimal protein requirements and elicit a robust postprandial muscle protein synthetic response with an emphasis on the post-exercise recovery window. [full text]
… Haslam is dazzled by the promise of new ideas. In meetings, he listens more than he talks. “He has a big ego,” says a former confidant, “but when you talk to him, you don’t know it’s there.”
His conversations often feel like interviews. In a league of absentee owners, Haslam is accessible, walking the halls of the facility and stopping to converse with coaches and staffers regardless of rank, which is both charming and problematic. He will lean in — he’s a close talker — and ask open questions, wanting the unvarnished truth. Each answer leads to more pointed queries. If you’re a position coach, he’ll ask how you rate the talent the scouts have drafted. If you’re a scout, he’ll ask how the coaches are developing talent. You realize he has no true football compass and is pitting you against your peers, sometimes even your boss, but in the moment it feels like you’ve got the owner’s ear.
“You think you’re the one he trusts,” says a former high-level member of Browns management. “By the time you realize that he confides in everyone, it’s too late. You’re gone.”
… “There needs to be more balance to the game. Now we’re working on how do we get that balance, but still be able to disorganize the opponent. It’s still based on positioning, it’s still based on spacing, it’s still based on the principles of the game. When we’re coming up with this game model, a lot of principles are the same but the formation will be different.”
Berhalter’s reasoning is two-fold. Not only does he have a different set of players at his disposal, but this is a national team that, by its nature, has a limited player pool. That point was driven home when the name of Columbus playmaker Federico Higuain was brought up. There is simply no one like him available to Berhalter here, a point he not only agreed with but expanded upon. He added that in the Columbus midfield he also had Artur, “who could make up for people’s mistakes alone.”
Winnipeg Jets right wing Patrik Laine honed his powerful right-handed shot as a youngster in his backyard in Tampere, Finland, where he would fire pucks at soda cans after watching YouTube clips of his childhood idol, the Washington Capitals’ Alex Ovechkin.
And like Ovechkin, Laine has found offensive potency on the power play. Since the start of last season, Laine, 20, leads the N.H.L. in man-advantage goals — even if his powerful shot has become detrimental to special-teams practice in morning skates.
“It’s why we rarely work on our power play in practice, because we have three guys run away from the net, and rightfully so,” Jets Coach Paul Maurice said. “The goalie sometimes, too.”
… Oladipo’s numbers were down over the last month, but the team was just hitting its stride, winning 11 of its previous 14 games with the NBA’s eighth-best offensive rating over that time. Oladipo was finding his way. The team raised their aspirations. And then, his right knee buckled.
Was this preventable? With major injuries to a star like Oladipo, there is an inevitable wave of Monday morning quarterbacking from media, fans and, to be sure, teams themselves. Oladipo’s injury did occur during his third game in four nights, but that chunk of the schedule was part of a long Pacers homestand that saw them play just five games in a two-week span. That’s a cushy vacation at a five-star resort by NBA’s standards.
One trainer for another NBA team, who regularly assesses player load and injury risk based on player-tracking data, told NBCSports.com that Oladipo’s metrics looked consistent and that there weren’t any red flags in his minutes or workload. His outside opinion: “Freak thing.” The Pacers also have a sterling track record in injury prevention.
Sir Alex Ferguson would always claim that the best way to participate in the January transfer window was from the outside, looking in on those clubs who had allowed themselves to be dragged into what the former Manchester United manager described as the “chaos” of the month-long, midseason transfer market. Jurgen Klopp, who persuaded Liverpool to spend a world-record fee for a defender by completing the £75 million signing of Virgil van Dijk from Southampton last January, might beg to differ with Ferguson’s long-held view but generally, the biggest and best-run clubs avoid the January market at all costs.
Van Dijk has been a huge success for Liverpool during his 12 months at Anfield and is, perhaps, the exception to the rule that states the January window is dominated by panic buying and expensive mistakes. Having banked the £75m for Van Dijk, Southampton invested £19.1m of their windfall on Argentine forward Guido Carrillo from Monaco. After just five Premier League appearances and no goals for the Saints, he was shipped out on loan to Leganes as a costly flop.
Carrillo is an example of why Ferguson, and many big clubs and leading managers, have been so reluctant to sign players in January. The biggest clubs now spend months working on prospective signings, scouting them and diving deep into their backgrounds off the pitch. Sometimes, circumstances dictate that they have to do deals in January, but for the top clubs, it is all about the summer window instead.
The aim of the current study was to analyse performance differences of football players 2-years prior and the year after signing a new contract (the following year) while taking playing position, nationality, player’s role, team ability, and age into account. The sample was comprised of 249 players (n = 109 defenders, n = 113 midfielders; and n = 27 forwards) from four of the major European Leagues (Bundesliga, English FA Premier League, Ligue 1, and La Liga) during the seasons 2008 to 2015. The dependent variables studied were: shooting accuracy, defense (the sum of defensive actions, tackles, blocks, and interceptions), yellow cards, red cards, passing accuracy, tackle success, and minutes played per match. Two-step cluster analysis allowed classifying the sample into three groups of defenders (national important, foreign important, and less important players) and four groups of midfielders and forwards (national important, foreign important, national less important, and foreign less important players). Magnitude Based Inference (MBI) was used to test the differences between player’s performances during the years of analyses. The main results (very likely and most likely effects) showed better performance in the year prior to signing a new contract than the previous year for foreign important defenders (decreased number of red cards), national important midfielders (increased number of minutes played), foreign important forwards (increased minutes played and defense), and national important forwards (increased minutes played). In addition, performance was lower the year after signing the contract compared to the previous one for less important defenders (decreasing defense), national less important midfielders (decreased minutes played), and foreign less important forwards (decreased defense). On the other hand, the players showed better performance in defense and more minutes played the year after signing the contract for less important defenders, national less important midfielders, and foreign less important forwards. These results may assist coaches to decide on when a new contract should be signed or the duration of the contract.
Spread offenses are breaking all the normal rules of engagement in order to create favorable matchups for their top receivers. To adjust, defenses are going to have to throw out the rules as well and embrace the matchup game.
… The reigning Ballon d’Or winner Luka Modrić is a controller, but he does this through his dribbling ability and deceptively good work ethic without the ball as well as his superb passing talent. The most expensive midfielder in the world, Paul Pogba, also has a controlling passing range, but has such a wide range of skills that one could ask him to play any number of midfield roles. N’Golo Kanté, the only central midfielder to be named PFA Player of the Year in the past decade, is a great player for hugely different reasons. Perhaps only Toni Kroos fits the previous mould of passing controllers while sitting among the best midfielders in the world.
Looking ahead, Barcelona have just signed Frenkie de Jong to be the planned centrepiece of their midfield for the next decade. As Ryan O’Hanlon has noted at The Ringer, he is the future. What O’Hanlon means is that the game is becoming “much more frenetic”, and what is now needed is to “‘break the lines’ — i.e. dribble or pass through a band of attackers, a band of midfielders, and a band of defenders”, which De Jong does through “bombing dribbles and seam-splitting passes”. This marks a sharp contrast from the slower controlling passers we saw earlier in the decade. If Frenkie is the future, then Pirlo is the past.
arXiv, Statistics > Applications; Luca Pappalardo, Paolo Cintia, Paolo Ferragina, Emanuele Massucco, Dino Pedreschi, Fosca Giannotti from
The problem of evaluating the performance of soccer players is attracting the interest of many companies and the scientific community, thanks to the availability of massive data capturing all the events generated during a match (e.g., tackles, passes, shots, etc.). Unfortunately, there is no consolidated and widely accepted metric for measuring performance quality in all of its facets. In this paper, we design and implement PlayeRank, a data-driven framework that offers a principled multi-dimensional and role-aware evaluation of the performance of soccer players. We build our framework by deploying a massive dataset of soccer-logs and consisting of millions of match events pertaining to four seasons of 18 prominent soccer competitions. By comparing PlayeRank to known algorithms for performance evaluation in soccer, and by exploiting a dataset of players’ evaluations made by professional soccer scouts, we show that PlayeRank significantly outperforms the competitors. We also explore the ratings produced by {\sf PlayeRank} and discover interesting patterns about the nature of excellent performances and what distinguishes the top players from the others. At the end, we explore some applications of PlayeRank — i.e. searching players and player versatility — showing its flexibility and efficiency, which makes it worth to be used in the design of a scalable platform for soccer analytics.
… Being a sports official is typically a part-time job, although the NFL does have 24 full-time officials. It doesn’t pay great. There are year-round meetings and endless homework. No one cares who you are, what your name is or where you come from unless you do something wrong. There is increasing concern about personal safety in a world where sportsmanship appears to be going the way of the leather helmet. And if you reach the pinnacle of your profession, the payoff is becoming the punch line of late night opening monologues. That was certainly the case for the NFC title game crew and that rancor shows no indication of slowing down anytime soon. While making the media rounds to promote Super Bowl LII in his stadium on Monday of Super Bowl week, Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank was peppered with as many questions about a week-old game as he was about the game coming up.
So we are left with one simple yet complicated question. Honestly, why in the world would anyone want this job?
“That’s an easy question to answer,” says former NFL referee Jeff Triplette. You can almost hear his smile through the phone. “We do it because we love it.”
… Teams are actually shooting a bit less this season, with the average game producing 62.4 shots compared to 63.6 last season, according to Hockey Reference. But, check this out – 12 teams are averaging at least 15 shots on net from the slot, per game, this season. Last season, only Pittsburgh and Tampa Bay averaged that many. The year before, only one team and the year before that, the 2015-16 season, nobody. The front door to the house is wide open and players are creating better chances that we’ve seen in recent years.
