Attacking styles for Tromsø IL- A study of goals and how Tromsø IL score goals. -An investigation for classifying goal scoring patterns and scoring efficiency. A case study of Tromsø Idrettslag.

Abstract Attacking styles within Tromsø IL- A study of scored goals and how Tromsø IL score goals. The purpose of this study is finding what attacking styles and formation were most effective regarding scoring goals for Tromsø IL (TIL) in the competitive seasons 2018, 2019 and 2020. In total TIL have scored 140 goals over the three seasons which averages 46,6 goals per season. Analyses of which style of attack and playing formation shown to be most effective for TIL in scoring goals over the three seasons will be investigated. The study will look at different variables that could affect the efficiency in attack prior to goals scored. The aim of the research is to provide coaches with knowledge regarding goal scoring patterns in TIL and encourage the club to implement the findings in training and match strategy. Material and methods This study will use a quantitative method. Including (n=48) players and (n=140) goals. The variables that will be emphasized are attacking styles, passes prior to goal, formation, and goal box runs. Video analysis of match from different video resources and match statistics have been made available by Wyscout. I will use cross tables and figures to present the findings. To test the selection a Chi-Square test is used to check the observed frequency in relation to the expected frequency between variables based on the selection. The significance level was set to p<0.05. Findings: Results show that the most effective attacking pattern was possession attack. 47,8 % of goals were scored after a possession attack. The study also show that the goals defined as a goal box run was lowest in the relegation season 2019 with only (3) goals scored from a box runs, compared to 2018 (25) goals and 2020 (28) goals. The number of passes prior to goal is most effective when executing 0-3 passes. The most effective formation was the 3-5-2 formation which gave a goal every 35th minute. When investigating time syntax, the most effective periods were between 31-45 and 46-60 minutes. When TIL score first they won 72,7% of the matches. Key Words: Scoring patterns, Tromsø IL, efficiency, game model, style, passes, match analysis, performance, goals, and offensive indicator

Large Scale Analysis of Offensive Performance in Football - Using Synchronized Positional and Event Data to Quantify Offensive Actions, Tactics, and Strategies

Offensive performances in football have always been of great focus for fans and clubs alike as evidenced by the fact that nearly all Ballon d’Or winners have been forwards or midfielders. With the increase in availability of granular data, evaluating these performances on a deeper level than just goals scored or gut instinct has become possible. The domain of sports analytics has recently emerged, exploring how applying data science techniques or other statistical methods to sports data can improve decision making within sporting organizations. This thesis follows the footsteps of other sports like baseball or basketball where, at first, offensive performances were analyzed. It consists of four studies exploring various levels of offensive performance, ranging from basic actions to team-level strategy. For that, it uses a dataset part of larger research program that also explores the automatic detection of tactical patterns. This dataset mainly consists of positional and event data from eight seasons of the German Bundesliga and German Bundesliga 2 between the seasons 2013/2014 and 2020/2021. In total this amounts to 4, 896 matches, with highly accurate player and ball positions for every moment of the match and detailed logs of every action that occurred, thus making it one of the largest football datasets to be analyzed at this level of granularity. In a first step, this thesis shows how the two different data sources can be synchronized. With this synchronized data it is possible to better quantify individual basic actions like shots or passes. For both actions new metrics (Expected Goals and Expected Passes) were developed, that use the contextual information to quantify the chance quality and passing difficulty. Using this improved quantification of individual actions, the subsequent studies evaluate offensive performance on a tactical pattern level (how goals are scored) and on a strategy level (what team formations are particular effective offensively). Besides their usage on the performance side, these metrics have also been adapted from broadcasters to enhance their data story telling: Expected goals and expected passes are shown during every Bundesliga match to a worldwide audience, thus bringing the field of sports analytics to millions of fans

Automated Detection of Complex Tactical Patterns in Football—Using Machine Learning Techniques to Identify Tactical Behavior

Football tactics is a topic of public interest, where decisions are predominantly made based on gut instincts from domain-experts. Sport science literature often highlights the need for evidence-based research on football tactics, however the limited capabilities in modeling the dynamics of football has prevented researchers from gaining usable insights. Recent technological advances have made high quality football data more available and affordable. Particularly, positional data providing player and ball coordinates at every instance of a match can be combined with event data containing spatio-temporal information on any event taking place on the pitch (e.g. passes, shots, fouls). On the other hand, the application of machine learning methods to domain-specific problems yields a paradigm shift in many industries including sports. The need for more informed decisions as well as automating time consuming processes—accelerated by the availability of data—has motivated many scientific investigations in football analytics. This thesis is part of a research program combining methodologies from sports and data science to address the following problems: the synchronization of positional and event data, objectively quantifying offensive actions, as well as the detection of tactical patterns. Although various basic insights from the overall research program are integrated, this thesis focuses primarily on the latter one. Specifically, positional and event data are used to apply machine learning techniques to identify eight established tactical patterns in football: namely high-/mid-/low-block defending, build-up/attacking play in the offense, counterpressing and counterattacks during transitions, and patterns when defending corner-kicks, e.g. player-/zonal- or post-marking. For each pattern, we consolidate definitions with football experts and label large amounts of data manually using video recordings. The inter-labeler reliability is used to ensure that each pattern is well-defined. Unsupervised techniques are used for the purpose of exploration, and supervised machine learning methods based on expert-labeled data for the final detection. As an outlook, semi-supervised methods were used to reduce the labeling effort. This thesis proves that the detection of tactical patterns can optimize everyday processes in professional clubs, and leverage the domain of tactical analysis in sport science by gaining unseen insights. Additionally, we add value to the machine learning domain by evaluating recent methods in supervised and semi supervised machine learning on challenging, real-world problems

Functional space-time properties of team synergies in high-performance football

This thesis aimed to investigate the performance of high-level teams in football, through the analysis of the interactions of their players in the context of the game, as these interactions result in functional effects that could not otherwise be achieved (synergies). From a spatial point of view, we argue that the understanding of collective “payoffs” emerging from players’ interactions and their behavioural patterns, can be accomplished through ”Delaunay triangulations” and consequent ”Voronoi diagrams”. Analysing the positional data (22 players and the ball) in 20 games of the French premier league, in this thesis we essentially sought to focus on territorial dominance as a variable that potentially captures the spatial affordances perceived by players. Whether from a collective global point of view or from a perspective of the local interactions that arise in the game landscape. Supported by the ecological dynamics and the synergism hypothesis, in this thesis we begin by demonstrating the existing connection between the territorial dominance of a team and the offensive effectiveness, as well as the absence of temporal overlap between the ball possession status and territorial dominance. Similarly, we also demonstrated that the space dominance of each player, which contributes to the territorial dominance of the team as a whole, is constrained by the team’s formation and the role assumed by each player in this collective framework. In order to understand the dynamics of interactions between players and the functional effects that come from it, we then focus on two tasks that are related to collective performance: the pass and the shot. Reflecting on the need to find methods that capture how the distribution of players on the pitch influences the functional degrees of freedom of a team as a whole and the passing opportunities that emerge from it. And, at the level of finishing situations, how the dominance of space can be included in the quantification of the value that each player assigns to occupy a certain place in the game landscape, and which is at the basis of their decision-making (shoot or pass the ball to another teammate possibly better ”positioned”). In sum, through the initial conceptual framework and the applied studies, we argue that the analysis of team performance should focus on the functional synergies that result from interactions between players. In this way, we demonstrate, through some examples, how the methods and conclusions taken from this thesis can be applied in practice by football coaches.Esta tese teve como objetivo investigar a performance de equipas de alto nível no futebol, através da análise das interações dos seus jogadores no contexto do jogo pois daí resultam efeitos funcionais que apenas são atingidos através dessas mesmas interações (sinergias). De um ponto de vista espacial, defendemos que o estudo glocal das interações entre os jogadores para a compreensão do rendimento coletivo, pode ser realizado através de “triangulações de Delaunay” e consequentes “diagramas de Voronoi”. Analisando os dados posicionais dos 22 jogadores e da bola, em 20 jogos da primeira liga francesa, nesta tese procurámos essencialmente nos focar sobre o domínio territorial enquanto variável que capta potencialmente as affordances espaciais percebidas pelos jogadores. Seja de um ponto de vista global coletivo, seja numa perspetiva das interações locais que surgem na paisagem de jogo. Suportados pela dinâmica ecológica e pela hipótese do sinergismo, nesta tese começamos por demonstrar a ligação existente entre o domínio territorial das equipas e a sua efetividade ofensiva, bem como a inexistência de uma sobreposição temporal entre a posse de bola e esse domínio. De igual forma, também demonstrámos que o domínio do espaço de cada jogador, que contribui para o domínio territorial da equipa no seu todo, é constrangido pelo sistema de jogo das equipas e pelo papel assumido por cada jogador neste referencial coletivo. No sentido de compreender a dinâmica das interações entre os jogadores e os efeitos funcionais que daí advêm, focamo-nos seguidamente em duas tarefas que estão relacionadas com a performance coletiva: o passe e o remate. Refletindo sobre a necessidade de encontrar métodos que captem de que forma a distribuição dos jogadores em campo influencia os graus de liberdade funcionais de uma equipa no seu todo e as oportunidades de passe que daí emergem. E, ao nível das situações de finalização, de que forma o domínio do espaço poderá ser incluído na quantificação do valor que cada jogador atribui a ocupar um determinador espaço na paisagem de jogo e que está na base da sua tomada de decisão (rematar ou passar a bola para outro colega eventualmente melhor “posicionado”). Em suma, através do enquadramento conceptual inicial e dos estudos aplicados, defendemos que o estudo da performance das equipas deverá se centrar nas sinergias funcionais que resultam das interações entre os jogadores. Desta forma, demonstramos, através de alguns exemplos, como é que os métodos e ilações retirados desta tese poderão ser aplicados na prática pelos treinadores de futebol