Who can receive the pass? A computational model for quantifying availability in soccer
Research output: Journal contributions › Journal articles › Research › peer-review
Authors
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.
Original language | English |
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Journal | Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery |
Volume | 36 |
Issue number | 3 |
Pages (from-to) | 987-1014 |
Number of pages | 28 |
ISSN | 1384-5810 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 01.05.2022 |
Bibliographical note
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).
- Ball dynamics, Elite sports, Football, Graph networks, MDNs, Movement models, Passing behavior, Sports analytics, Tracking data
- Informatics
- Business informatics