U.S. scientists have developed a computer program to rank soccer teams and players based on an objective assessment of players’ performances instead of just opinion.
Soccer doesn’t generate statistics like basketball and baseball, so soccer fan Dr. Luis Amaral and colleagues at Northwestern University in Illinois wrote software based on social networks that can trace the ball as it’s passed from player to player, assessing each player’s contribution to the team’s success.
The researchers analyzed data collected from the 2008 UEFA European Football Championship website.
Their results closely matched opinions of sports reporters and experts who chose players for the “best of” tournament teams, the researchers report in the journal PLoS ONE.
The software could be used in other settings, such as by companies to measure the individual performance of employees working in a team.
Soccer doesn’t generate statistics like basketball and baseball, so soccer fan Dr. Luis Amaral and colleagues at Northwestern University in Illinois wrote software based on social networks that can trace the ball as it’s passed from player to player, assessing each player’s contribution to the team’s success.
The researchers analyzed data collected from the 2008 UEFA European Football Championship website.
Their results closely matched opinions of sports reporters and experts who chose players for the “best of” tournament teams, the researchers report in the journal PLoS ONE.
The software could be used in other settings, such as by companies to measure the individual performance of employees working in a team.
