Enhanced Football Intelligence at the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022

FEATURE / CHRIS LOXSTON, FIFA GROUP LEADER FOOTBALL PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS & INSIGHTS

Founded in early 2020 with a clearly aligned vision, FIFA’s Performance Analysis & Insight team intend to “Improve football understanding and experience by creating Enhanced Football Intelligence through the combination of technical expert observations and football data analytics.” The appeal is multifaceted, with the ‘football understanding’ facet largely targeted towards coaches, support staff and players, whilst the ‘experience’ aspect refers predominantly to football fans. Our ambition at FIFA has always been to create new, insightful football metrics which can be used live during matches, to enhance the viewing experience.

At the FIFA World Cup in Qatar later this year, we will publicly implement a brand-new series of metrics. Created over a twoyear period by our team of Football Data Engineers, Football Data Scientists and Football Performance Analysts, these new Enhanced Football Intelligence metrics will be available to all live data stakeholders and will be visible to fans all around the world on TV screens and other FIFA platforms. The cornerstone of all our development has been to maintain football context with every metric created. The new datapoints either describe styles of play or have a close link to elements of the game and performance. Over the coming months prior to the start of the World Cup, FIFA will be releasing educational material around these new metrics to allow football fans to have a chance to gain an understand of what these new metrics are and what they mean prior to the first game. Here in this article, we discuss some of these, what they mean, and why they are important in an exclusive and early glimpse into the new dawn of football metrics.

Possession Control & Phases of Play

Seen on TV screens and match reports for decades, possession control is an enhancement of perhaps the most wellknown football metric to date. Traditionally possession has been presented as two parts; team A and team B. However, there are many moments of the game where the ball is live in play, but neither team have controlled possession of it. We call these moments ‘In Contest’ and at the FIFA World Cup later this year you will no longer see ball possession in two parts, but three.

The ’In Contest’ state is triggered by certain events that occur during the match. For example, when two players compete for the ball in the air during what we commonly refer to as an aerial duel, contact on the ball by a player during the contest will initiate a loose ball state, and therefore ‘In Contest’. Alternatively, when a defender performs a defensive action such as blocking a pass from reaching its intended target, as the defender contacts the ball during the block, the ball again enters a loose ball state initiating ‘In Contest’. These example actions, along with several other events during a match, initiate this new possession state.

Seeking to understand strategies and tactical behaviours adopted by teams during matches, phases of play is a multifaceted subcategorised metric which accumulates the percentage of ball in play time. Breaking down phases of play into in-possession and out-of-possession categories allows us to analyse individual teams’ styles of play, as well as the pattern of a match across 90 minutes. This metric differentiates between nine different out-of-possession phases including low block, counter-press and recovery, alongside nine in-possession phases such as, build-up, progression, final third and counterattack in addition to five

set play phases. The full list of metrics is extensive and includes other dynamic states such as; counterpress, recovery, defensive/ attacking transition, build up opposed/ unopposed, progression, long ball and counter-attack. Meanwhile the metric also considers the dead ball situations of, goal kick, corner, freekick, throw-in and penalties.

Thinking back to the FIFA World Cup 2018, one of the main observations from our technical team was the compactness of defensive structures in a low block. With these new phases of play in our Enhanced Football Intelligence, we will now be able to put a number to those phases live during the games and delver deeper into the tactics and strategies that teams are employing during the tournament.

Ball Recovery & Line Breaks

Though relatively simple, ball recovery time is a metric that provides great insight into playing styles, whilst also being highly correlated with the counterpress phases from our phases of play metrics. Simply put, ball recovery time is the time it takes for a team to regain possession of a ball after losing possession. One of our interesting projects in Qatar will be to benchmark this against previous World Cup’s, as it is clear that in the domestic game at least, winning the ball back has quickly emerged as a focus in previous seasons. Analysts, coaches, pundits and fans alike now have better knowledge of pressing, whilst expecting their teams to regain quickly before transitioning back onto attack.

Probably one of the more technically minded Enhanced Football Intelligence metrics, once understood line breaks provide real insight into how teams are progressing the ball past the opposition team shape. We have created a model that clusters players into either the defensive, midfield or attacking unit. The model constantly monitors the players positions on the pitch and when a player moves location in relation to their teammates, the model regroups them into a different unit. This metric is playing position agnostic, meaning that just because a player is playing ‘Left Midfield’ their unit group is decided in relation to where they are stood on the pitch in relation to their teammates. When an opposition player attempts to break a line by an in-possession event our model calculates our line break output.

The metric counts how many and what units of the opponent team have been bypassed by a pass, cross or whilst a player is in possession of the ball. In addition to counting the attempted and completed line breaks, the metric also includes information regarding how the units have been bypassed: how many units in total were available, the deepest unit broken, the total number of units that were broken and what direction the distribution was performed: a line break can go through, around or over a unit. Furthermore, the metric also contains information if line-breaking passes, crosses or ball progressions have been received inside or outside the opponent’s team shape, providing fascinating insight.

Using the line detection model, receptions behind the midfield and defensive lines focusses on the receiving player. The model identifies the location on the pitch where players are receiving the ball, in relation to opposition team shape. Receiving the ball behind the opponents’ midfield line creates the opportunity to disrupt the opponents’ defensive structure and advance into key attacking areas. For example, midfield players such as Kevin de Bruyne (below) or David Silva will attempt to find and exploit the spaces between the midfield and defensive lines. Where as, attackers such as Kylian Mbappe or Romelu Lukaku will aim to exploit the space and receive the ball behind the opponents’ defensive line. Receiving the ball behind the opponents’ defensive line increases the chances of scoring a goal as this reduces the number of defending players between the position of reception and the goal itself. From initial inception of these metrics, we have seen an evolving correlation between quantity of receptions behind the defensive line, and the creation of scoring opportunities. It will therefore be interesting to see how well this metric captures performances in Qatar later this year.

Team Shape & Line Heights

Gone are the days of 4-4-2! Widley discussed in performance and fan circles alike, team shape allows us to better understand the positional structures that teams adopt, alongside player responsibility in relation to the time their team spends in and out of possession. Typically, teams are labelled on our TV screens as playing in certain structures/formations, when the reality is that this is only the case for a very short period of time across a match and in actual fact team structures are very fluid and flexible. ‘Team shape’ will identify and demonstrate the different shapes teams actually adopt across a 90 minute period. The algorthim assigns each player a functional role based on their location relative to the location of their teammates. The posterior aggregation of these roles into groups results in a team shape. The aggregations are created using the players’ locations over a set period and developed into the metric you’ll see on broadcast footage. From our testing at the FIFA Club World Cup earlier this year, we can expect to see shape line up’s that provide a much more realistic view on actual performance.

Defensive line height is a metric that averages the height of the deepest line closest to the goalkeeper during inpossession and out-of-possession phases over a certain period of time. The metric serves as an indicator of how close a team is to their own goal whilst out-ofpossession, or how high the defensive unit is able to position itself during inpossession phases. The algorithm groups outfield players of a team into three categories, i.e., defenders, midfielders, strikers, and subsequently determines the line height of each group by using the height of the deepest player per group. The resulting line heights, as well as the height of the goalkeeper are aggregated over time with the aggregations being reported for different situations depending on whether the team has been in-possession or outof-possession, and in which third the ball has been, i.e., own, mid, or final third. The resulting team length is the average vertical distance between the deepest and the highest outfield player over time. The reported aggregates differentiate between in-possession and out-of-possession situations and are broken down depending on the area that the ball has been in (own third, mid third, or final third), too.

Attack, Attack, Attack! Final Third Entries & xG

Here is a metric that we have seen on post-match reports for at least a decade, however, very rarely has this information been available live to the TV viewer.

Measuring the number and location of final third entries means we can begin to understand the attacking strategies that teams adopt as they approach the opponents’ goal. Analysing final third entries can provide insights into how teams utilise their own attacking strengths or expose the potential weaknesses of their opponents’ defensive structure. The metric will count the number of final third entires performed by the attacking team against their opponent and the location of those entries, split across five different entry zones: left outside channel, left inside channel, central channel, right inside channel, and right outside channel.

Expected goals (xG) is a metric that has been available in post-match reports with increasing popularity, but bringing this live to the tv viewer poses completely different challenges given the time pressures after a shot has been taken or a goal has been scored. For those that are still perplexed by this metric, xG measures the quality of a chance on goal by calculating the likelihood that it will be scored from that location on the pitch during a particular phase of play. The value produced is linked to several factors from before the shot was taken. For example, location of the attempt on goal, the body part used, position of the players on the pitch and the preceding action prior to the attempt. xG is measured on a scale between zero and one, the lower the score, the less probability of a chance being scored. A score of one represents a chance that a player would be expected to score every single time.

Turning Over & Pressuring the Ball

Forced turnovers are a defensive metric awarded to the defending team in the case of the ball carrier performing an incomplete distribution action when under pressure from the opponent. Forced turnovers captures the moments when a team lose possession of the ball due to pressure being applied from the defensive team. The higher the quality, intensity and number of player pressing, the higher the chance of the team in possession will lose the ball. Teams and players will often be seen pressing or applying pressure in the opponents defensive third in order to force a turnover in possession close to the opponents goal. Increasing the opportunity of creating a goal scoring opportunity.

Pressure on the ball is where a defensive player closes down the space between themselves and the player on the ball. Closing the space limits the time and options the player on the ball has. Information such as the defenders’ distance to the ball, the angles of the defender to the ball carrier (if a defender is in front of the ball carrier, his pressure applied score is greater than if he would be behind the ball carrier) and the proximity of defenders towards the ball carrier are considered. Pressure can be moderate or heavy. If a player is pressed, the pressure received is an accumulation of all pressures applied at that moment, providing core insight into the way in which a team is pressurised in the moment.

Summary

Developing our new array of metrics has enabled us to bring coaches, analysts, players and TV viewers closer than ever to the intricate and dynamic nature of football performance. It is clear the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 will be the most performance data supported World Cup so far. Teams will have access to this Enhanced Football Dataset containing over 20,000 data points per match, with live and post-match tracking data also contained to provide nearly every metric that could possibly be desired. It doesn’t stop there though, now through our work every game of the tournament will have the same level of analysis data produced, meaning that for the fans, there is full immersion with this set of FIFA Enhanced Football Intelligence metrics. I hope you all enjoy the World Cup as much as we are sure to do, and uncover some fascinating analysis insights!