Top of the big era

The conservatism of European football is actually an eternal topic in sociology.

The pursuit of power is possession, and the pursuit of capital is growth.

This is also the fundamental contradiction between conservatives and reformers.

One side wants to control the power, firmly hold a piece of cake in their own hands, and prevent others from grabbing it; one side wants to decentralize power, and everyone will make the market bigger and make 100 pieces of cake, and everyone will share it, even if they can only share To 20%, it is also 20 pieces of cake, which is far more than the income before the reform.

Although the former only has 1 piece of cake, the advantage lies in stability, low risk, and guaranteed income in drought and flood; although the latter expects a lot of income and may get 20 pieces of cake, the risk is very high, and he may be out of the game.

European football is the former.

These people in football have formulated various rules to firmly hold the power of football in their hands, especially the Bundesliga, and even have a "50+1" policy. It is also because of this policy that a large number of football politicians who have a pivotal position in football have appeared in Germany.

This situation has both advantages and disadvantages.

The advantage is that football is more pure, more united, and more unified, and the execution from top to bottom is very high. The disadvantage is also obvious, that is, the income of all walks of life in the football industry is really too little, and it is in vain to be the world's largest sport. Not to mention the comparison with American football and baseball, even basketball. The basic salary of the NBA is still 500,000 US dollars, and the minimum salary of Manchester United's first team is only 4,500 pounds a week.

With the development of the times and the progress of the industry, especially the penetration of foreign capital into European football, there is a powerful force driving the reform of football.

G14 failed, EuroLeague failed, but the general trend cannot be changed.

It is easy to go from frugal to extravagant, but difficult to go from extravagant to frugal.

As long as football is making money, big money, it is unlikely that they will be reverted to their previous state and become "pure" football.

There is also a strong capital push from the United States behind this.

Isn't football pure?

Don't you just want to compete and don't want to make money?

Alright, let's get to the bottom of it, and see if you guys who play football want to make money! Take down your leaders first!

The FBI went directly, first because of corruption issues, UEFA President Michel Platini, and then because of corruption issues, FIFA President Sepp Blatter.

The two most powerful people in football have fallen one after another.

This directly collapsed the faith of the entire football world. The wave of commercialization in European football has also swept in, and the 50% portrait right has become the basic operation of wealthy teams.

But that's all for the future, Zhou Buqi doesn't care too much.

The confrontation between the European Union and the United States has extended to the field of football, where dogs eat dogs. This has nothing to do with Zhou Buqi. Whether this kind of reform is good or bad for football is not important at all. For him, the most important thing is to conform to the general trend of future football development, make money if you can make money, and earn influence if you can earn influence.

Zhou Buqi can’t express such thoughts. Andrew of OPTA company is also half a football practitioner. As he said, “Most of the data analysis in football are sports graduates, and I am too. "

"Kinematics?"

This sentence surprised the American computer doctor Alexander Brown.

A kinematics person who can do data analysis?

Depend on!

After all, we are not the same people at all!

Andrew was a little embarrassed, "There are many top students in statistics, mathematics and computer science in my team. But in European football clubs, including those who lead the trend of data football, they are sports scientists, not statistics. scientist."

Alexander frowned slightly, "In American rugby or baseball, you can often see graduates from the Harvard School of Mathematics, or masters in computer science from MIT doing data analysis. This is a highly professional technical engineering, kinematics experts or It is more suitable for sports guidance.”

Andrew sighed, "No way, it's due to the general environment."

"Europe is no better than the United States." Zhou Buqi helped explain, "The United States has an endless supply of technical talents, which can be allocated to various industries. Europe is a bit worse. High-quality resources must be used in high-quality technical industries, such as Software, chips, aerospace. Otherwise, it will be difficult for Europe to compete with the United States.”

"Oh, that's it." Alexander Brown responded casually. He never cared about these things. "What about the data? Is there enough data for research?"

Andrew sighed, feeling a little helpless.

Zhou Buqi was surprised, "Isn't OPTA the most professional data company in European football? You should have the most and richest data in your hands."

Andrew said: "Indeed, but this is far from enough. Hmm...I heard that the sports data in the United States is very open?"

Alexander nodded, "Yes, there is a special database, all data is open, and you can buy it for a fee."

Andrew sighed, "Football is too conservative."

Alexander raised his eyebrows, "The data is not open?"

"Yes, the clubs treat the data as information and keep it secret. Our partners all have confidentiality agreements." Andrew glanced at Zhou Buqi, "Especially Manchester United, they are very strict."

Then he explained further.

On OPTA's website, anyone can purchase an annual membership and get access to all publicly available professional data. These data are summarized from past games, such as running data, shooting data, number of passes, number of fouls and so on.

However, to evaluate a player, game data alone is not enough.

It also depends on his performance in normal training.

Especially through data analysis to judge a player's potential injury, the data in the game is worthless. Because players only play when they are healthy. Evaluating the data to analyze the hidden dangers of injuries when the players are healthy, the error is very large.

Therefore, in addition to purchasing OPTA's annual membership to obtain public data, many wealthy clubs will also purchase customized services, and work with OPTA's professional data team to count players' data during training. Do more accurate data analysis for players from these data.

Training data is the truest portrayal of a player.

How many meters will a player fall into an anaerobic state, under what circumstances will a player foul, how many distances a player will lose the ability to return to defense, the probability of a player scoring a goal when running at high speed... …

These data are the core secrets of a team.

Once the competitor knows, the opponent can deploy tactics in a targeted manner. For example, knowing that a player will fall into an anaerobic state after sprinting 50 meters, you can focus on hitting the person's back.

Therefore, when OPTA provides customized services for the club, these internal data cannot be disclosed, and a very strict confidentiality agreement must be signed.

However, if the data is not publicly available, it cannot drive the industry forward.

Alexander then talked about the situation in the American sports world, which is much more open, and all the data is publicly available. This provides convenience to research institutions.

Zhou Buqi knows this, because Ziwei Star has a big data analysis and processing technology team. To do this, you must have enough data.

No data is pure bullshit.

The American sports world has made the data public, and American universities, scientific research institutions, and data research centers can set up projects one after another, and then take these data over to conduct some kinematic data analysis and research.

Through the process of "market-academic-market", complete the advancement of sports data analysis industry.

Andrew is also very helpless about the conservativeness of the football world. "The football data is not made public. Many university research institutes cannot do research and promote progress. Even clubs are not willing to hire some professional mathematics or computer science talents. To do data research, only some kinesiologists and even retired players are used to do it. What results can such a team research? They spend all their money on transfers, player salaries and agent commissions.”

After a pause, he said again: "By the way, I know an expert. He is Professor Sotoy of Statistics at Oxford University. He has done a lot of data research in the field of football. Do you want to meet?"

Zhou Buqi smiled, "Okay!"

Andrew contacted immediately, and the other party said that he was leading a team at school and could go there anytime today.

Everyone rushed to Oxford without stopping.

On the way, Andrew talked about the history of data analysis applied to football.

The earliest originator was Valery Lobanovsky, the meritorious coach of Dynamo Kiev in the former Soviet Union. When the computer was still as big as a house, he keenly discovered the mystery and pointed out that the computer can play a huge role in football games.

Then, he used data analysis in his coaching career, and through data analysis, he left a classic saying: "If a team's turnover rate is less than 15%-18%, then it cannot be defeated. .”

Andrew also suggested: "Many of his data from that year are kept in the Dynamo Kiev club. If necessary, I can make a special trip to accompany you."

"Where? Ukraine?"

"right."

"Forget it, it's not peaceful over there."

Zhou Buqi shook his head. Although he is very interested in the direction of football data, it is also very related to the development of Ziwei Star in the football industry data business.

But the situation in Eastern Europe is a bit turbulent.

During the Olympic Games in the capital, Lao Maozi sent troops to invade Georgia and fought for several days. The troops withdrew only after multi-party coordination and deterrence.

Ukraine and Georgia are next to each other, not much better. Regardless of whether it is Eastern Europe or the Far East, the situation is the same, the difference is that Eastern Europe can be said openly.

Went to Oxford, met Professor Marcus Sotoy, explained his identity, and everyone else was fine. When he knew that Zhou Buqi was the owner of Manchester United, the old professor smiled and said, "Sorry, I am a loyal Arsenal fan."

Zhou Buqi said: "Me too, I have been since I was a child. Because it is too difficult to buy Arsenal, that's why I bought Manchester United."

"hehe!"

Everyone is laughing.

I think this person is hypocritical.

Zhou Buqi was wronged.

Depend on!

I'm telling the truth!

My father took me to watch Arsenal games since I was a child. Both of us are gun fans!

Speaking of the application of data to football games, Professor Sotoy agreed very much, "Football is very similar to playing chess, which is far beyond people's perception. A team's season performance is by no means a probability event, but It is a coherent, pattern-based event. Data can digitize performance, find patterns, and further predict the future.”

"You can think of the stadium as a local area network, with 11 players as the nodes in the network. A successful team, Barcelona is the perfect example, their specialty is to keep each node open. But other teams have the ability. Elevate their football to the level of numbers theory. If the managers can open their minds and accept more lay people's opinions, the team will be better."

"For example, the free-kick wall. Why the wall? Maybe it's the most effective way to defend, but they should test more hypothetical defensive methods."

Zhou Buqi couldn't help interrupting him, "A free kick? What should I do?"

Professor Marcus Sotoy explained: "It's a probabilistic event. Some free kicks are played over the top of the player in the near corner, which requires a big player to line the wall. Some free kicks are played in the far corner, which requires the goalkeeper to save. But there is another kind, which is to hit the foot of the wall. It seems that there is a lack of defense against this kind of free kick in football. But in fact, if it is a free kick within 20 meters from the goal, 28% of the free kicks scored are It came in from under the wall. Maybe a player lying on the turf would have prevented that."