What questions do coaches want answering?

Thinking about the Opta Pro Forum and new questions keep emerging. The main one surrounds data informed coaching.

You had a room full of talented data scientists representing some of the biggest clubs in the world, lots of enthusiastic people with the skills to create something special. However, almost everyone I spoke to was more on the data/management side of things. I'm sure there are data enthused coaches, eager to see what data science can do to help, and indeed we heard from one on the day, but I'd love to see more coach generated questions.

I had a quick chat with Mladen after his presentation with Dan, which had been about giving credit for space creating runs. When I said I had enjoyed the fact it seemed to be providing useful information the coaches could act upon, he said the coaching staff had given feedback about how to develop their model.  I think this is an important point.

I know in my own career how annoying it can be when outside organisations use data to hold you to account when the context is missing. How does it help a struggling school facing a budget crisis, with PE teachers covering maths lessons to be told they aren't getting as many A grades as the selective school down the road?

In short data without context isn't that useful, but the way to fix that is by providing the context to improve the usefulness of the data.

So how do we get coaches enthused about working with data people?

I think this needs to be done through dialog. We need to find out what the questions the coaches need answering are.

But if you asked me what I thought the impact of quantum computing was going to be I wouldn't have a clue. I don't know enough about the subject to ask meaningful questions.

So at a base level we need coaches who know a little bit about what is possible to communicate what would be useful to them.

Are they out there?

Further Opta Pro Forum musings.

When I watched the Barcelona presentation on body alignment I was also thinking that it would maybe be more useful if it was used to measure how often a player was making themselves available for a pass. But would it? It may pick up sometimes on the biases of coaches who might have thought a player was hiding but the data shows he was in good positions but not receiving the ball.

One question I did like asking at the event was "do players actually significantly alter the way they play based on coaches instructions?" The consensus was it can be done but you are usually better recruiting players who do it naturally.

Sam Jackson pointed out that goalkeepers tend to have their own way of dealing with crosses when playing for the same manager behind the same defenders, using Burnley as the example. Later on Mike Fitzgerald pointed out that when they tried to move some outfielders around by only a short distance, based on a data informed strategy, the performances suffered. The players had calibrated their sightlines and movements based on thousands of repetitions. A 20 ft move is enough to drop performance a lot.

Might we have that problem in football too? I have written before about moving players position around to take advantage of their skillsets, such as converting wing backs into central midfielders who can drive forwards. From a data only point of view this looks logical. But would a player be able to adapt after a lifetime of playing one position to another?