In December we started brainstorming with my old friend Ali Yavuz from Galatasaray S.K Match and Performance Analysis Team about how current football clubs use human performance measuring technologies, discussing the hidden potentials inside the available data.

Together with Marco Pisano we deliberated for several days and focused on Galatasaray's next big UEFA Europa League opponent AFC Ajax. Within 2 weeks Marco was able to parse, synchronize multiple large data groups, animate and visualize the last 6 Europa League matches of AFC Ajax as well as track individual players and match events. With the help of Ali, we were able to focus and display the key player movements on the pitch and isolate critical moments such as corner & free kicks.

We followed the 7 key players from Ajax: B. Traore, Kian Fitz-Jim, B. Brobbey, M. Godts, J. Hato, Kenneth Taylor and C. Akpom and were able to create multiple visualizations which allowed us to observe the key positional differences simultaneously within the last 6 matches. Finally we packed a 56 page document and delivered it to Ali 3 days before the kick-off.

Of course the data analysis is just one tiny part of a football game and at the end of the day, each game is defined by a few spontaneous and inexplicable things that transpire on the pitch that cannot be mathematically explained.

Congratulations to players Bertrand Traore and Kian Fitz-Jim for scoring 2 goals and good luck to both teams on their upcoming qualification matches.

Finally I would like to thank Ali for the exciting collaboration and Marco for believing this experiment and for the sleepless hours he was spending on json files. We are always looking forward to collaborating, experimenting, and prototyping on new & interesting projects. Thanks, Onur.