The All Whites’ World Cup loss to Costa Rica may still be painful for New Zealand fans but the match has helped data analysts develop new tools for tracking exactly what happens during a game.
The intercontinental play-off, and the game played the day before between Peru and Australia, was used to trial new statistical tools that provide real-time match analysis.
The tools are being developed by FIFA’s Football Performance Analysis & Insights team to be used at the World Cup finals in Qatar in November/December.
Known collectively as Enhanced Football Intelligence (EFI), the data collected includes line breaks, the pressure applied to a ball carrier and when a team loses the ball under pressure.
More than 15,000 data points will be collected during a game.
The data will be available to team analysts, broadcasters, fans and app users.
Football data engineer Sirus Saberi said the two intercontinental play-off games were a “successful proof of concept”, with event-based metrics taking less than 30 seconds to move from pitch to app screens.
“This enables us to show relevant insights at the right time, and thereby create a new, enhanced experience for football fans and other stakeholders,” he told FIFA.com.
Watch FIFA.TV explanation of how EFI works
More football stories
