The president of a football analysis company has spoken to TEAMtalk about the technology which could soon revolutionise the English game.
The rise of performance analysis in football has been well-documented but, according to Mark Brunkhart, President of North American-based Match Analysis, British clubs are still lagging well behind their rivals across the Atlantic when it comes to making sense of the reams of data now available.
Mark spoke to TEAMtalk's Mark Holmes about the success of Match Analysis in the USA, their advantages over other analysis companies, and their bid to break the UK market.
Mark Holmes: Hi Mark, can you start by telling me broadly what it is that the Match Analysis technology can do?
Mark Brunkhart: Match Analysis has been producing video and statistical analysis in North America for the last 12 years. We have a whole collection of products that range from video analysis to data to statistical presentations.
The most recent product which was launched is the K2 Panoramic Video which is a three-camera system that shows the entire pitch from corner flag to corner flag in one continuous image. It stitches the images together and creates something seamless.
That's integrated with a tracking feature that takes tracking to a different level by allowing the interaction of a person with the video itself. For example you can touch three or four players across the back line and actually draw lines within the video as one might do in a broadcast.
The collection of tools is used throughout America. We installed 40 of the K2 Video systems in all of the major stadiums in Major League Soccer as well as in (Mexican top flight) Liga MX in the last three months.
MH: Having worked with MLS clubs for so long I expect you've developed the technology over time very specifically to fulfil the needs of the managers and coaches you've dealt with?
MB: The system was originally designed by a small company in Scotland and when we saw it for the first time we immediately realised it fulfilled a need which had existed in the sport for some time, which is the ability to go beyond broadcast camera and present the whole pitch.
We purchased the company in Scotland, re-designed the system a little bit and then launched it again, and it's been widely received in North America as one of the coolest new technologies out there for football analysis.
MH: The K2 Panoramic Video was a new addition for this most recent MLS season, wasn't it, so what has the feedback been like?
MB: It was actually being used the prior season by five teams using a portable version of the system but this season is the first in which it's been in place at all of the stadiums, and the feedback has been nothing but good.
It's a fantastic tool and it really has found an ideal niche for doing analysis. It adds something that hasn't been there before and I think that's what the managers are looking for.
What it really does is create a level of communication between player and coach which normally is very difficult to create using broadcast video or a wide-angle feed.
MH: And how exactly does the technology manage that? How is it different from the technology provided by Opta and Prozone in the UK, for example?
MB: One of the things that is quite different is how video analysis is approached in North America compared to how it's approached in Europe. In Europe it's often shunted off to performance analysts who work in a small room in the basement trying to deliver a few video clips and a little bit of statistical information as reports to the manager.
In North America there's a much more ubiquitous use of the tool. I think it's a cultural difference in terms of the level of acceptance of analysis tools in the States which primarily evolved from the use of tools like that within other American sports.
The systems we provide are really designed with ubiquity in mind. In other words, it should not be simply the analysts using the tools but everyone in the club from the manager to the assistant coaches all the way through to the players themselves.
This idea that the players would actually do the analytical work themselves rather than just being spoon fed a tiny bit of information from the manager is something that is fairly novel in Europe. But it's one of the most powerful elements of the system.
MH: And how do you convince a player or a manager to use the tools themselves having always relied on performance analysts to do the work in the past?
MB: I think the key is to make the tools themselves easy enough to use so that not using them is more difficult than using them. If a manager, rather than requesting three clips of x, y and z and waiting 24 hours to get them, can within two seconds get that information himself he'll very quickly switch over from offloading all of the analysis work to someone else, to using that system himself.
It's one of the advantages of the system having evolved in the United States where the resources are not as great in the footballing arena. As a result of working in that area first we've developed tools which are much easier to use because (American clubs) can't hire four interns and six performance analysts to do the work. Everyone within the staff really puts the energy in and we make the systems easy enough to use for all of them.
MH: Assuming managers and players can be convinced to use the technology rather than leaving it to analysis, the benefits are obvious, aren't they?
MB: Absolutely. To use an analogy, back in the day a company would employ a typist or a pool of typists. It seems rather absurd today that you would take a document to a typist and they would type it up and send it off, but that model is exactly the model that is used in performance analysis throughout the UK.
A manager goes to the performance analyst, tells them what to cut and then waits for it. What that does is separate the expertise of the player or the manager from the tool that would allow that expertise to be shared throughout the organisation.
Our goal is not to add more data for data's sake into a club but to exploit the expertise which already exists within the managers and players - and to do that the experts need to be using the tools.
MH: There is a video (above) showing the K2 Panoramic Video in action, and it highlights a mistake by a defender which it claims would be missed by standard broadcast footage. Do you believe that would be the case even over here in the UK where there are so many cameras at every game?
MB: It's not a certainty that any particular movement wouldn't be picked up by broadcast cameras but what is interesting to the manager to show to the player is not necessarily interesting to the broadcaster to show to the fan.
So even if the mistake is picked up by one of the cameras, the question is when would the manager have access to that because that video would be cut down into the broadcast.
The key is to give the manager complete control over what the camera is looking at by giving them access to a tool that allows them to point the camera after any incident at what they choose because we have the video of the entire field from end to end.
MH: The K2 Panoramic Video system can also be used to track the movement of officials - has that been the case in MLS?
MB: It's one of the most interesting uses of the system, the ability to analyse referees. There's no league in the world where people don't feel that the referees could stand a bit of improvement, and the referees are some of the most analytical people you'll find in terms of their willingness to prepare and to take action to improve themselves - despite what you might hear from fans!
In both Liga MX and Major League Soccer the system has been used by referees. It's a great tool for looking at positioning, for being able to say 'are the sightlines good?', 'is the referee in the right position?' or 'are the assistants where they need to be?'
MH: You're over here in the UK at the moment; are you just promoting the product to guys like myself or are you meeting with any clubs or broadcasters And if so, can you name me any of the clubs?
MB: We are meeting with broadcasters and clubs while we're here. Like many companies in this space we've been largely a regional player up until very recently as the markets have started to globalise and converge so we're currently in the UK not only doing a bit of marketing and PR but also conducting a number of meetings with both Premier League and Football League clubs
Unfortunately, those discussions are confidential, but we're talking to just about everyone. Given the level of interest we've received in the past six months, we're really expecting to be in some of the venues in the UK within the next year.
It's culturally a very different environment over here; it's a very traditional environment, and we're not expecting every club to jump really quickly. We're really looking for one or two courageous managers to say 'I want a competitive advantage, I want something better, and to order to have a competitive advantage I need to be doing something different to my opponents'.
We're looking for the opportunity to start serving that need.
via TEAMtalk | Manchester Utd http://www.teamtalk.com/manchester-united/9045154/-a-href-http-www.teamtalk.com-blog-16129-9045154-Analysis-company-looks-to-crack-UK-class-Analysis-company-looks-to-crack-UK-Analysis-company-looks-to-crack-UK-a-
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