Running head: SPORT PERFORMANCE ANALYTICS 1

Sport performance analytics

Name

University affiliation

Instructor

Date
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Introduction

Many factors are taken account when doing the performance analysis of people from

games, especially soccer. One cannot judge the achievements of players based on the

individual number of goals by each player. Instead, people have realized that the final shot by

the striker that becomes a goal may have the smallest contribution from him after all the

players prepared the goal for him. For this reason, people are encouraged to practice high-

level selflessness in such football matches and keep in mind the fact that they are looking for

one glory. Unfortunately, in the world soccer, the best player of the year is got by assessment

of some of these factors, and the number of goals is usually the first one (Cintiaet al., 2015).

In this unit and assignments, the tactics and techniques behind the performance of a

selected elite football player have been used to show how such a performance analysis is

conducted. While I'm in the middle of the watching of the English Premier League 2017

games, the head scout of Manchester United, one of the main world football clubs/teams asks

me to analyze the performance of Zlatan Ibrahimovi, a great player of that team.

In one of the games of Manchester United vs. Bournemouth, Manchester United

draws with Bournemouth 1-1 after a long struggle. It was during the hustle for the English

premier league cup (Asif et al., 2016). It seems easy to score in a normal football match, but

still, it's not so easy. People have to struggle for it through tactics and proper strategy. In this

particular game which happened in 2017 March, the performance of Zlatan Ibrahimovi, one

of the team strongholds, will be assessed using a recorded video of the match.

At the start of the game, Ibrahimovic and his teammates seem to have an easy time

when facing their opponents and they have walk-over tasks. They have many attempts to

making a well-organized goal. At the 9th minute and 48 seconds, Ibrahim gets a chance to

move with the ball and makes a swift move towards the goalkeeper after dribbling his way
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past a few defenders. He later passes to Pogba, his teammate and fellow striker, who does not

get a clear chance to score and has to pass the ball back to Ibrahim. In the middle of the

confusion, many defenders from Bournemouth have already arrived at the first quarter, and

their attack leads to the loss of the ball from Manchester United (Cintiaet al., 2015).

Surprisingly, the ball is kicked towards the teams goal and Bernie, one of the strikers of

Bournemouth is ready to make good use of the golden chance. He races past Wayne Rooney

but just before he passes him and makes his shot, there is a small tussle between them, and

Manchester United goalkeeper manages to punch the ball and save them a great deal.

The composure of Ibrahim is seen to have fruits within the minute 22.51- 23.01 when

they manage to get a corner, and together with Valencia, Pogba, and Marcus, they strangle

the opponents by making clean passes and creating a 100% ball possession for almost two

minutes. When Marcus finally gets an opening, he makes a swift kick towards

Bournemouths goalkeeper, and it becomes the first goal of the match. Marcus is seen to take

up most of the skills that Ibrahim uses to get perfect strikes on target. Also after scoring, the

team members celebrate and Ibrahim is seen tapping Marcus happily on his shoulder. The

glory of the goal may have been fully Ibrahims, but he still finds the need for appreciating

his teammates. This is something that increases the cooperation and unity of the team

(Plumleyet al., 2017).

A fight comes up when one of Bournemouths players hits Ibrahim very hard, and

upon following down, he runs over his head mercilessly. Ibrahim does not respond

immediately, but when he gets another encounter with this opponent, he decides to hit him

hard using his elbow. Most of the main players in big football matches are known to react to

their emotions even without reasoning. Take, for instance, Ivory Coast football champion

Didier Drogba. He used to make sure that every offense that the opponent team commits has
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to be punished using physical violence, (Plumleyet al., 2017). As a result, he had most of the

red cards among the players of his level.

The tactic of hidden revenge employed by Ibrahim in that match was very important

because if only he reacted immediately, he might have been given a red-card and stopped

playing. On the other hand, remaining with his feelings and not acting would have led to poor

performance due to the inferiority complex, both for him and for the entire team.

Observation checklist for Zlatan Ibrahimovi

Sports Performance Analytic Observation

Last name ________Zlatan________ First

Name__Ibrahimovi_____Age______24_____Height___6.3_____Weight____71_________

Team _________Manchester United________ Position ______Striker____

Playing Experience/Awards

____Ibrahim has received several awards in his football career, including the best striker

award for various tournaments_________

Date: Match:
Time 0 -9 10 21 31 41 51 61 71 81

on 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90

pitch 10

10 8 10 8 10 5 8 8

Tactical/ Mental/ Physical Key: 10 Excellent, 8 Good, 5 Average, 2 - Poor

Technical Successf Total Unsuccessf Total Tactical Executio Failed

Skill ul ul n
Short Pass 45 54 9 54 Man marking
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Mid range 12 14 1 14 Zonal

pass marking
Long 15 21 6 21 Reading the

lofted/driven game

pass
Dribbling the 39 51 12 51 Communicati

ball away for on

distribution
Readiness 24 31 7 31 Counter attack

Receiving

the ball with

control
1st/2nd touch 32 45 13 45 Involvement

in set plays
Heading 12 25 13 25 Positioning

Interception 2 2 0 2 Mental
Tackling 21 45 24 45 Flair

Aerial 21 54 33 54 Aggression

control
Shots 23 34 11 34 Composure
Switching 12 28 16 28 Anticipation

the play
Crossing 23 51 28 51 Work rate
Throwings 7 15 8 15 Physical
Penalty 0 0 0 0 Stamina

taking
Free kick 1 1 0 1 Pace

taking
Corners 0 1 1 1 Strength
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grid analysis

Grid analysis

Zlatan Ibrahimovi's primary position is number one, and he alternates with Pogba

and Rooney for number two and three. The strikers of Manchester United are usually trained

to give a stable opposing force to the defense of the opponent team. Most of the unsuccessful

passes of Ibrahim, are seen when he is out of position one, and so it is best for him to stick to

position one. It is hard for a striker to perform his best when he does not concentrate on a

specific defender (Travassoset al., 2104).

Report for Ibrahim

Based on the particular game that Ibrahim was found to feature as the best player,

various observations were made about the player, and they could be good ground for

improvement. First, his speeds are found to be extraordinary. Once Ibrahim caught the ball,

he would move towards the opponents' goal post and make a very swift pass before the

opponent defenders have time to rush and correct the mess. Most of the time, such passes are

seen to result in beautiful goals (Asif et al., 2016). Most times, though, Ibrahim had to make

backward passes, some of which there was certainty of not having a goal from them. If only

Ibrahim can keep the pace of the strikers, he can be in a position to make even better passed.
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The other keen observation about Ibrahim is that he is so dangerous to attack due to

his strong hand-offs. He goes to the gym twice every week, and as a result, he has developed

a very strong and powerful arm. Most times when he is given a hand-off by the opponents he

over reacts by pushing them away to the point that most of them fall. When the opponents

realize that you have potential to break their bones in the field, they will do everything it

takes to make sure you are removed (Travassoset al., 2104). If Ibrahim continues giving his

dangerous hand-offs to opponents, he should be sure to be given red cards during the first

halves of most games.

Most of the tactical skills of Ibrahim are the key contributors to his success in the

game. Take for instance his ability to read the game and communicate effectively to his

colleagues. He was so good at that. Nevertheless, he should check on some of these technical

skills such as right positioning and involving himself in set plays. For the technical skills, he

also had great potential but still, needs to make major improvements in his readiness to

receive the ball with control.

Ibrahimovics strengths and where he needs to improve

The incredible aspect that I appreciate about Ibrahimovic is his intelligence and also

doesnt have the need to master the art of stealth as a result of his perfect height. However,

following the record he has for his age, Ibrahimovic has been very reluctant about his

performance lately. He has had a good start at Manchester United but his performance has

been gradually depreciating with time. There are key points that Zlatan needs to keep in mind

to improve his performance. One of the key things that he needs to keep in mind is his sense

of position within the box. His latest form has shown a lack of urgency within the box. In

almost all recent matches, the player has been seen inactive and shown signs of laziness,
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which is not good for a striker. All he does is standing and walking while in the pitch just

waiting for the ball to come his way.

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References

Asif, R., Zaheer, M. T., Haque, S. I., &Hasan, M. A. (2016). Football (Soccer) Analytics: A

Case Study on the Availability and Limitations of Data for Football Analytics

Research. International Journal of Computer Science and Information Security,

14(11), 516.

Cintia, P., Giannotti, F., Pappalardo, L., Pedreschi, D., &Malvaldi, M. (2015, October). The

harsh rule of the goals: data-driven performance indicators for football teams. In Data

Science and Advanced Analytics (DSAA), 2015. 36678 2015. IEEE International

Conference on (pp. 1-10). IEEE.

Folgado, H., Duarte, R., Marques, P., &Sampaio, J. (2015). The effects of congested fixtures

period on tactical and physical performance in elite football. Journal of sports

sciences, 33(12), 1238-1247.

Plumley, D. J., Ramchandani, G., & Wilson, R. (2017). Mind the gap: an analysis of

competitive balance in the English football league system. International Journal of

Sport Management and Marketing (IJSMM).

Travassos, B., Vilar, L., Arajo, D., &McGarry, T. (2014). Tactical performance changes with

equal vs unequal numbers of players in small-sided football games. International

Journal of Performance Analysis in Sport, 14(2), 594-605.