TY - JOUR

T1 - Who can receive the pass? A computational model for quantifying availability in soccer

AU - Dick, Uwe

AU - Link, Daniel

AU - Brefeld, Ulf

N1 - We would like to thank Hendrik Weber and Sportec Solutions / Deutsche Fussball Liga (DFL) for providing the tracking data. Publisher Copyright: © 2022, The Author(s).

PY - 2022/5/1

Y1 - 2022/5/1

N2 - The paper presents a computational approach to Availability of soccer players. Availability is defined as the probability that a pass reaches the target player without being intercepted by opponents. Clearly, a computational model for this probability grounds on models for ball dynamics, player movements, and technical skills of the pass giver. Our approach aggregates these quantities for all possible passes to the target player to compute a single Availability value. Empirically, our approach outperforms state-of-the-art competitors using data from 58 professional soccer matches. Moreover, our experiments indicate that the model can even outperform soccer coaches in assessing the availability of soccer players from static images.

AB - The paper presents a computational approach to Availability of soccer players. Availability is defined as the probability that a pass reaches the target player without being intercepted by opponents. Clearly, a computational model for this probability grounds on models for ball dynamics, player movements, and technical skills of the pass giver. Our approach aggregates these quantities for all possible passes to the target player to compute a single Availability value. Empirically, our approach outperforms state-of-the-art competitors using data from 58 professional soccer matches. Moreover, our experiments indicate that the model can even outperform soccer coaches in assessing the availability of soccer players from static images.

KW - Ball dynamics

KW - Elite sports

KW - Football

KW - Graph networks

KW - MDNs

KW - Movement models

KW - Passing behavior

KW - Sports analytics

KW - Tracking data

KW - Informatics

KW - Business informatics

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85126893370&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/417b866e-bef8-3cc5-9626-1373d9a13d87/

U2 - 10.1007/s10618-022-00827-2

DO - 10.1007/s10618-022-00827-2

M3 - Journal articles

AN - SCOPUS:85126893370

VL - 36

SP - 987

EP - 1014

JO - Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery

JF - Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery

SN - 1384-5810

IS - 3

ER -