The Tactical Match Report will focus on a single team and uses our regular event- and position tracking data to provide visual analyses of the average positions of all players in a specific game-phase plus some additional tactical metrics as well as season benchmarks.
Note that every tactical match report always concerns a single team, and thus two reports are generated per match. You can download the SciSports Tactical Match Report as a .PDF file in the data center.
1. Click on "Data center" in the top menu
2. Select "Data sets"
3. Select a specific match
4. Go to "reports"
5. Download the tactical match report(s).
The report is structured as follows:
Cover page.
Line-Up page containing the line-ups of both teams in the match.
Analysis Pages.
Glossary Page with short definitions.
Analysis pages
The analysis pages are the core of the Tactical Match Report. Every analysis page contains up to three different types of analyses:
A table with Tactical Metrics (Key Performance Indicators) specific to that game-phase.
A plot with the average positions in that game-phase.
A plot with the heatmap of the ball in that game-phase (not always on the page).
The heatmap consists of colored hexagons which show you the most frequent positions of the ball during that game-phase.
Example of an analysis page in a tactical match report.
Game-phases
A game-phase is simply defined as a subset of the game defined by a set of rules. For the purpose of the tactical match report, game-phases are currently determined based on the ball state (being alive or dead, and being in possession of the home or away team). Which means that at its base, team game states can vary from in possession, transition to defense, transition to offense, out of possession to ball dead. By adding additional logic like the ball location, height of the attacking line etc. we can construct a more complex set of rules.
Note that we currently only analyze elaborate play. In other words, structured open play, that excludes the transition window (first 5 seconds after a possession change), as well as the set-piece window (first 7.5 seconds after a set-piece start).
The report currently covers the following game-phases:
In possession: Team is in possession of the ball, anywhere on the field.
Zone 1 (Build-up) | Team is in possession of the ball in the first 25% of the field. |
Zone 2 (Build-up Progression) | Team is in possession of the ball in the second part of the own half (25-50% of the field). |
Zone 3 (Chance Creation) | Team is in possession of the ball in the lower part of the attacking half (50-75% of the field). |
Own Half | Team is in possession of the ball on the own half. |
Opponent Half | Team is in possession of the ball on the opponent half. |
Out of possession: The opponent is in possession of the ball anywhere on the field.
High Press (Zone 4) | The opponent is in possession near it’s own goal (75-100% of the field from the perspective of the analyzed team), and the line of pressure is within 5 meters of the ball line (i.e. attacking line is <5 mtr from the ball line). |
Mid Zone Press (Zone 3) | The opponent is in possession near the midline (50-75% of the field from the perspective of the analyzed team), and the line of pressure is within 5 meters of the ball line (i.e. attacking line is <5 mtr from the ball line). |
Low Block Defense (Zone 2) | The opponent is in possession in the first part of the own half (25-50% of the field). |
Opponent Half | The opponent is in possession on it’s own half. |
Own Half | The opponent is in possession on the half of the analyzed team. |
Definitions & Key concepts
Concept | Definition | Applies to |
Game-Phase | All frames in a single match that belong to a given game-phase. So all frames in a match that fit the criteria “out of possession: opponent half”. Frames don’t have to be part of a single sequence. | All Sections |
Vert. Compactness (m) | Longitudinal distance (goal-to-goal axis) from the lowest to heighest outfield player (goalkeeper excluded). | Tactical Metrics |
Horiz. Compactness (m) | Lateral distance (side-to-side axis) from the left-most to the right most outfield player. | Tactical Metrics |
Players in front Ball | Number of players in front of the ball line (closer to the opposing goal), measured by distance to the opposing backline. | Tactical Metrics |
Players behind Ball | Number of players behind the ball line (closer to the own goal), measured by distance to the opposing backline. | Tactical Metrics |
Players on Own Half | Number of players on the own half. | Tactical Metrics |
Players in First 3rd | Number of players in first 3rd (the 3rd closest to the own goal). | Tactical Metrics |
Players in Middle 3rd | Number of players in the middle 3rd. | Tactical Metrics |
Players in Final 3rd | Number of players in the final 3rd (the 3rd closest to the opposing goal. | Tactical Metrics |
Players in Box | Number of players in attacking score box. | Tactical Metrics |
Players on Att Half | Number of players on the attacking half. | Tactical Metrics |
GK to D-Line Dist (m) | Longitudinal distance between the GK and the Defensive line (see line detection for more info). | Tactical Metrics |
DEF - MID Dist (m) | Longitudinal distance between the Defensive Line and the Midfield line (see line detection for more info). | Tactical Metrics |
MID - ATT Dist (m) | Longitudinal distance between the Midfield Line and the Attacking line (see line detection for more info). | Tactical Metrics |
Offside Line (m) | Position of the offside (most backward player - 1). | Tactical Metrics |
Game Phase Metrics | All metrics are averages over all frames in a game-phases | Tactical Metrics |
Team Averages | All team averages are metric averages over all games played by the team in the season thus far, and are subject to the same definitions and averaged over the same game-phase. | Tactical Metrics |
Average Positions | Average XY position of a player over all frames in a game-phase. | Average Positions |
Line Detection | The lines (GK, DEF, MID, ATT) are dynamically identified through the following process:
After line detection, we compute the average position of a line (centroid) based on all players in that line, and we use x-component (goal-to-goal axis) to compute distances between lines (intra-team subgroup distances). | Tactical Metrics |