Highlights: U.S. Soccer Renew with Prozone Football and the Middle East Q&A with Manchester City Head of Performance Analysis, Simon Wilson Prozone Player Recruitment
Newsletter – Winter 09/10
DELIVERING PERFORMANCE INSIGHTS
PAGE TWO
CONTENTS P3 P4-5 P6-7 P8-9
FOREWORD SPOTLIGHT – NORTH AMERICA U.S. Soccer Renew with Prozone MLS Analysis Collegiate Development SPOTLIGHT – MIDDLE EAST Football and the Middle East Football Development Al Jazira choose Prozone TECHNICAL – MANCHESTER CITY FC Q&A with Head of Performance Analysis, Simon Wilson
P10-12 PRODUCT RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT Player Recruitment Focus Product Updates: PORTAL & PROFILE
Cover image: ISIPhotos
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FOREWORD It’s been a fantastic year for Prozone. We’ve provided analysis to over 100 teams, leagues and federations worldwide including reigning FA Premier League champions Manchester United, MLS Cup winners Real Salt Lake and the England national team.
2009
It’s great to end the year on a high with the extension of our partnership with U.S. Soccer and preparations are well underway for the analysis of every game at the upcoming World Cup in South Africa; in addition to the African Nations and UEFA Champions League tournaments.
AUG - Prozone: LMA/PFCA Official Technical Partner
In 2010 we’ll continue to deliver the reliable and objective performance insights that our clients worldwide expect of us and will be developing the next generation of sports performance analysis products. Supported by an increase in game analysis we will soon launch a new online player recruitment solution giving our clubs access to unrivalled data and video from across the world. As our international footprint continues to expand it looks like 2010’s going to be another exciting year for the Prozone team. Good luck throughout your season,
Barry McNeill Managing Director
JAN - Real Madrid select Prozone FEB - Real Salt Lake sign up MAR – Prozone DASHBOARD released APR - Everton FC extend partnership MAY - Blackburn Rovers FC re-sign JUN - Arsenal FC extend service to 10 years JULY - Manchester United choose Prozone
SEPT – Prozone re-brand OCT – Prozone: 2009 Leaders in Performance conference NOV – Al Jazira become 3rd UAE club DEC – U.S. Soccer extend Prozone partnership
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SPOTLIGHT – NORTH AMERICA U.S. SOCCER RENEW PARTNERSHIP WITH PROZONE Prozone’s U.S. Business Manager, Stewart Mairs added; “We look forward to building on recent success in the U.S. by expanding our Chicago office to offer more opportunities for MLS clubs, collegiate and academy teams. Our partnership with U.S. Soccer and the creation of Prozone Sports Inc; a specific U.S. business will provide the foundation for our services moving forward.” 8
60
No. Goals Scored
U.S. Soccer Federation has renewed its long term agreement with Prozone. The extended deal will see Prozone MATCHVIEWER analysis of over 750 games every season including all men’s national team fixtures, every MLS match and all Development Academy Showcase games.
5
4 1
2
3
5
6
7
40
4
30
3
20
2
10
1
0
C ol um Lo bu s s A C ng re el w es H G ou al st ax on y D yn am C ho Se o c at C ag tle lu o b So Fi D re ep un or de t r N iv s ew e FC C hi En v gl as an U d SA Re vo lu tio Re n al Sa C l t ol La or ke ad o R ap id D s .C .U ni te To d ro nt o FC Ka F C ns D as al C la Sa i s ty n W Jo iz se ar Ea ds rt N hq ew ua Yo ke rk s Re d B ul ls
0
The agreement will also see the U.S. national team receive full support before, during and after the upcoming World Cup in South Africa. Over the next two seasons Head Coach Bob Bradley will have access to Prozone performance analysis for every match in the MLS to aid with monitoring and team selection.
Analysing every game in the MLS
KEY:
According to Prozone’s Head of Business Development Blake Wooster “The extension of our partnership shows the commitment that U.S. Soccer has to the development of soccer at every level in the United States. It is also testament to the level of service we’ve delivered to both U.S. Soccer and MLS clubs over the last 2 years and we look forward to enhancing this further over the coming seasons.”
Playoff qualification position Goals scored
Finalists
Avge number shots on target
2009 MLS Cup Champions
The effectiveness and worth of Prozone performance analysis can be seen in Real Salt Lake’s success in the recent MLS season. Real joined a number of other teams in the MLS using Prozone this year and according to Garth Lagerwey, Real’s General Manager,
“Prozone’s technology and analytics allow us to examine our team in completely new ways and get into the guts of what goes into a good performance.”
Average No. Shots on Target
50
6
PAGE FIVE
Image Credit: ISIPhotos
This unrivalled use of performance analysis at every level of the game offers huge potential for the growth and quality of professional soccer in the U.S. As Blake Wooster explains, “Applying analysis at the national, professional and developmental levels will establish an unparalleled continuity of analysis in the United States. U.S. Soccer will have the opportunity to develop consistent and objective measurements of all home-grown players allowing them to identify and nurture emerging talent, while providing the elite MLS clubs and the national team with the most comprehensive set of performance data available.”
MLS season in numbers
Collegiate development
52% - Shooting accuracy.
Prozone services aren’t reserved for elite clubs with large budgets. A growing number of college teams in the U.S. and elsewhere have begun using services such as MATCHINSIGHT and MATCHVIEWER to monitor development and improve performance. Prozone currently work with some of the top universities in the U.S, including Penn State University, West Virginia University and the University of Rochester. Prozone analysis allows a greater investment in the future stars of U.S. soccer and according to West Virginia’s Head Coach, Marlon LeBlanc, whose team use MATCHVIEWER,
2009 comparative analysis from academy to national team
78.6% - Average successful passes 107 – Number of home wins [47.5%] 49 – Number of away wins [21.8%]
400.0
90.0
350.0
80.0 70.0
300.0
60.0
250.0
50.0 200.0 40.0 150.0
30.0
100.0
20.0
50.0
10.0
0.0
0.0 Academy
KEY: Passes % Successful % Forward
2009 MLS and academy games now available for player recruitment. Call +44 (0) 113 2449296 or email enquiries@prozonesports.com for details.
Collegiate
MLS
U.S. National Team
%
Total
“It’s huge for team and player development, and it’s specific to the needs and requirements of a modern soccer coach.”
571 – Total goals scored
PAGE SIX
SPOTLIGHT – MIDDLE EAST
Elconocimientoeslarespuest AL JAZIRA BECOMES THE LATEST MIDDLE EASTERN CLUB TO INTEGRATE PROZONE ANALYSIS. “The desire to partner with Prozone is clear intent from Al Jazira, and many other of the biggest clubs in the Middle East to develop professionally, and we look forward to supporting the growth of the game throughout the region.” Jordan Garbutt, Prozone’s International Business Manager
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FOOTBALL AND THE MIDDLE EAST With Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan’s Manchester City pushing for a Champions League place, Ali al-Faraj taking over at Portsmouth and Mohamed Al Fayed’s Fulham playing in the Europa League, the Middle East’s profile in UK football has never been higher. But the Middle East is more than a source of investment for European clubs. Over the last decade, sport, and football in particular, has been used to stimulate significant economic growth in the area. In fact, with the UAE now home to a professional football league, Bahrain and Abu Dhabi hosting F1 events and Qatar bidding to host either the 2018 or 2022 World Cup, sport is seen as cornerstone of future economic and cultural development in the region.
Football development Speaking at the recent Leaders in Football conference, the Qatar 2022 bid CEO Hassan Al Thawadi, stated that Middle Eastern clubs had much to learn from Arab involvement in European leagues, in particular how to commercialise and professionalise the game successfully and profitably. The business reasons for this are obvious. More than 30 million people walked through the turnstiles at FA Premier League and Football League grounds last season and the top 92 clubs in the country generated a staggering £2.5 billion. English football’s global reach and influence is another reason for Middle Eastern investment: the FA Premier League is broadcast in 211 territories and was watched by a cumulative global audience of 4.8 billion in 2008/9. Hassan Al Thawadi argued that current Arab business involvement in FA Premier League clubs could lead to a greater professionalism and more success for Middle Eastern clubs. “It gives people from this region direct experience of running an FA Premier League club. They can take this hugely valuable knowledge and experience and put it to use back at home.” By investing in performance analysis services Arab clubs are sending out a clear signal that they hope to bring a greater level of professionalism to Middle Eastern football. The graph shows an attacking analysis comparison; a key area of performance and the disparity between the FA Premier League and the UAE League. By improving the ‘on the field product’ on offer, gate receipts and turnover will increase allowing Arab clubs to attract bigger name players and improve their profitability and profile worldwide.
Comparative technical analysis 70
16
60
14 12
50
10 40 8 30 6 20
4
10
2
0
0 FA Premier League
UAE League
KEY: Final 3rg entries
Pen area crosses
Crosses
Al Jazira choose Prozone As part of this move towards greater profitability and professionalism in Arab football, many leagues and teams in the area have begun to use Prozone performance analysis services. Having already provided analysis services to both the Qatari and Omani national teams, and the Qatari club Al Sadd, we are pleased to announce that Al Jazira have recently joined Al Wahda and Al Ain as the latest Middle Eastern clubs to integrate Prozone. The Abu Dhabi club, currently leading the UAE League whose Chairman is Manchester City owner Sheikh Mansour, have just signed a new contract to receive the PROZONE3 post-match analysis service.
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TECHNICAL – MANCHESTER CITY FC “DETAIL IN OUR WORK, ENERGY IN OUR DELIVERY”
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A DECADE OF PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS DEVELOPMENT Q&A… Simon Wilson, Head of Performance Analysis at Manchester City FC Sports performance analysis has come a long way since Simon Wilson began his career as an analyst in 2002 when then only a small number of English teams were using any type of analysis software. Nearly 8 years on and 15 FA Premier League clubs including Manchester United and Arsenal as well as leading clubs such as Real Madrid, Olympiacos and MLS Cup Champions Real Salt Lake use Prozone services to improve team performance and inform their training methods. Simon has been involved from the very start and now heads up a team of 7 performance analysts employed by Manchester City. They work across all levels of the club from the 1st team down to the academy. So who better to ask about how things have developed over the last decade?
How has performance analysis changed over the last 10 years?
How does your analysis affect coaching?
Massively – a full time job as a performance analyst didn’t exist in football 10 years ago. In the last few years there has been a real maturing of the industry as coaches, managers and club executives have begun to recognise the value of accurate performance analysis.
We support our coaches by giving them accurate information that they can base their work around, and we’re lucky enough to work with people across the club with the intelligence and imagination to build sessions that use the information to meet the needs of the team.
What’s your role at Man City?
Where do you see the future of performance analysis?
I head up our Performance Analysis Department – we have 6 full time analysts working across all our teams. It’s always been my goal to provide breadth and depth of support to the club at all levels.
What are the key areas you focus on? We split our analysis into four key areas – post-match, pre-match, recruitment and player development. We have one analyst that owns each area and focuses on that. As a group we know that 50% of work is analysis, and 50% is the delivery of the insights we provide. We must have detail in our analysis and energy in our delivery.
How do you get your players involved? We encourage our players to take ownership of their own performance. Our insights help them to understand their game better and how they’re performing against their desired standards. I’m now noticing that younger players who’ve had exposure to match analysis software are regular users.
I think we’ll see a movement towards a more ‘player centred’ approach that profiles the exact needs of the player and the interventions needed for their development. When you consider that most clubs spend upwards of 75% of their turnover on their players, I think there will be an increased need for effective due diligence through analysis during the recruitment process.
“We have to ensure we communicate the insights we gain effectively.”
“Good analysis must improve decision making – if it is not, then it’s a waste of time.”
PAGE TEN
PRODUCT, RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT
The big-5 leagues in Europe accounted for over 52% of all players transferred into the FA Premier League over the last 3 seasons – and the number is rising…
PAGE ELEVEN
PLAYER RECRUITMENT FOCUS
NEW FOR 2010 100% coverage of the top tier leagues:
Europe
Prozone’s performance analysis centre takes a look at some recent trends in the european transfer market The latest Deloitte Annual Review of Football Finance confirmed that the 2007/08 season lived up to expectations in terms of record wages and transfer spending in the FA Premier League. Gross transfer spending across the 92 top professional clubs in the UK grew to £779 million in 2007/08 (up 35% from 2006/07) and indications suggest that the rate of growth will continue as players, agents and fans continue to pressurise clubs to spend more of their revenue on their squad. Unsurprisingly, the vast majority is spent by FA Premier League clubs and in November 2009 the FA Premier League has revealed the amount paid to agents by their member clubs for the first time ever. The final figure was a staggering £70.6 million from October 2008 to September 2009. Player trading has become big business in football and, alongside player spend, clubs are also continuing to invest in their scouting processes in an attempt to more accurately and objectively measure the potential of new players. This is being manifested in many ways, including the use of objective data, analysis and video to supplement the intuition and expertise of scouts and managers. In the last 12 months, Prozone alone have provided over 50 player scouting requests to our clients.
European focus Further analysis reveals that, although only 34% of players bought over the last 3 seasons were British, a high proportion of intra-league transfers still occur with £160 million (24% of all transfer revenues) being paid to other FA Premier League clubs. The Championship was the second highest supplier of players to FA Premier League clubs with 97 players between 2006 and 2009. However, the majority of FA Premier League clubs’ transfer spending is with overseas clubs with £351 million spent in 2007/08 (2006/07: £275m). Within Europe, the French, Spanish, Italian and German leagues provided the FA Premier League with the most new players. 7.2
100% 90%
2.9
14.5
28.7
80%
8.6
2
49.8
49
22.7
70% Percentage %
1.3
19.3
60% 50%
30.1
57.8 9.9
40%
25.3
30% 20%
39.2 10.5
17.8
9
9.8
5.8
8.5
Germany
Italy
Spain
10% 9.9
0%
England
England
France
Eastern Europe
Western Europe
31.5
28.9
Latin America
Others
With European clubs making around 10 signings each during the season, January will see another busy month for player trading and we look forward to supporting all our clients with objective player performance data to supplement their scouting framework.
Latin american trend FA Premier League clubs are increasingly looking towards Latin America for new talent. This follows a trend evident in Spain and Italy where nearly 50% of all ‘expatriate’ players recently recruited were from South America. There has been an 8.9% increase in the number of players recruited from South American divisions into the FA Premier League over the last 4 years.
Latin America
Spain
Brazil
Italy
Argentina
France
Mexico
Germany
Columbia
Chile
NEW ONLINE PRODUCT
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PRODUCT UPDATES PROZONE PROFILE – PLAYER ANALYSIS Like our DASHBOARD product, launched earlier this year, PROFILE delivers performance data to customers online via a secure web service. Where DASHBOARD allows managerial teams to view high-level performance indicators, as well as benchmark comparison data with both the opposition and league-wide averages, PROFILE includes individual player performance data and positional benchmarks to enable player specific monitoring. Prozone’s Product Manager, Dan Mason explains, “Prozone PROFILE takes our online products to the next level by providing overall performance data for your players, and allowing these to be compared against benchmark data for their playing position.” Key features: • Online access via secure login portal • At a glance view of player performance • Fast, easy access to post-match information • Monitor critical benchmark metrics • User-friendly interface • Print-ready reports
PORTAL - ONLINE GAME DOWNLOAD Following 12 months of development, PORTAL was launched in August 2009 to give our clubs the ability to download and upload games online. Allowing greater flexibility and a wider scope for team scouting, PORTAL allows clubs to quickly search, preview and download games in MATCHVIEWER format from our extensive library of leagues and competitions from across the world. We now have 74% of clients using the online PORTAL for their game downloads with the average download time being 90 minutes versus 24 hours by post for domestic clubs and 48 hours by post for international users. PORTAL now includes the option to download and purchase entire league or competition data including the Champions League, MLS, U.S. Academy, FA Premier League and Championship, as well as the upcoming African Nations and FIFA World Cup. Gavin Johnson, Prozone’s Operations Manager added; “The Prozone PORTAL is making a huge improvement to the workflow within clubs, and uptake has been excellent so far. We’re anticipating more downloads in the new year as we look to increase the number of games available.”
Prozone Sports: Delivering Performance Insights
Head Office:
Regional Offices:
Prozone Sports Ltd 3 Craven Court Millshaw Leeds LS11 8BN UK
Chicago, USA Barcelona, SPAIN Moscow, RUSSIA Dubai, UAE Tokyo, JAPAN Chennai, INDIA Johannesburg, SOUTH AFRICA São Paulo, BRAZIL
T: +44 (0) 113 244 9296 E: enquiries@prozonesports.com W: www.prozonesports.com