FIFA World Cup: Enhanced football intelligence to be introduced in Qatar

During the FIFA World Cup 2022 in Qatar from November 20 to December 18, FIFA said it will share the most modern insights, metrics and performance data in tournament history with the worldwide TV and online audience, together with the participating teams and their players.

Developed by the FIFA High Performance team and led by FIFA Chief of Global Football Development Arsène Wenger, the enhanced football intelligence service will offer new and exciting metrics to enrich the coverage and analysis of every game at the FIFA World Cup 2022.

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Every match will have its own unique set of in-match and post-match enhanced football intelligence visuals presented as augmented reality and traditional graphics. These new statistics break down each area of the game into fine detail and provide operational definitions and multiple video examples to clearly define each action.

This will enable an analysis not only of what happens on the ball, but also the movements and interactions around and off the ball for teams and players when they are both in and out of possession.

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Using this data, FIFA will be able to conduct longitudinal post-match analysis to understand how the game is evolving over time as well as developmental analysis to better comprehend what it takes to progress from junior to senior level in both the men’s and women’s games.

“We would like to share our vision of using football data analytics combined with technical expert interpretation to create a new football intelligence, allowing everyone to better understand the game,” said Wenger.

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“Enhanced football intelligence will be our blueprint for how we analyse football in the future. When we discover new insights, we want to share them with the world of football. With our online FIFA Training Centre, we have a fantastic vehicle to do so. My team will continue to provide new and insightful football analysis content to help share new understanding of the game combined with performance data, video examples and technical explanations,” he added.

The FIFA High Performance team comprises football analysts, data scientists and data engineers, and has developed innovative technology to provide ground-breaking metrics and insights.

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At the FIFA World Cup 2022, 11 new metrics will be introduced:

• Possession control

• Ball recovery time

• Line breaks

• Defensive line height and team length

• Final third entries

• Forced turnovers

• Pressure on the ball

• Expected goals

• Team shape

• Receptions behind midfield and defensive lines

• Phases of play