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October 11, 2013 | 0 Comments

Team Cologne: Modern Data Analysis and Scouting in the DFB

by Jack Coles

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The uplift in the use of data analysis within football has been one of the many interesting aspects of the sport in the last 10 years that has been largely ignored by the oversaturated, yet completely diluted media apparatus that football is unfortunately entombed in.

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However, with recent high-profile failures of data use within the industry (such as at Liverpool FC with Damien Comolli), and the sport still largely in the hands of people who do not trust data or consult it with any great sincerity, the shining light in the application of data analysis in football is definitely the German national team. It may be a surprise to many to find out that, alongside perhaps the USA, Germany is certainly a contender for world leader in the use of data analysis. This may be because, as Simon Kuper, author of the book Soccernomics, states, Germany have a tradition of sports science going back nearly 100 years to when the first faculty of sports science was founded in Berlin, so theres less skepticism than in other countries about the value of data in sport. Of course, there may be other nations that comprehensively utilise data in private, but they are certainly keeping this information to themselves. Publicly therefore, intelligently-applied data has been a vital ingredient in Germanys success story over the last decade and, despite what the German national population thought of Jrgen Klinsmanns residency in California during his time as the countries manager, this fact alone aided the process tenfold. The significance of Klinsmanns home is key because the state of California, which houses the German expatriate, also contains a city vital to the evolution of data analysis within sports. Oakland, which sits near the top of the Golden State on the west coast of America, is home to the Oakland Athletics baseball team the subject of the book, film, and now the sports data movement known as Moneyball. The As general manager, face of the Moneyball movement and huge European football fan, Billy Beane, through sheer geographical coincidence (and Klinsmanns enthusiasm to see how American sports applied their data), got to know the current USA manager very well indeed, infecting him with the desire to use numbers to aid sporting achievement in much the same way as Oakland do. When Klinsmann was asked by journalists why he had accompanied Billy Beane to a workout and intra-squad baseball game in February 2008 at the As spring training camp in the Phoenixs Municipal Stadium (USA), Klinsmann replied: Im here trying to pick his brain. This relationship almost guaranteed that when Klinsmann was appointed as manager of the German national team in 2004, data analysis would become an integral part of his reign, a legacy that remains to this day. The aforementioned Simon Kuper, an expert in this field, writing for the Financial Times in 2012, revealed how Klinsmann got this process underway with the help of the inglorious Sporthochschule in Cologne. Kuper writes: One night in 2005, Professor Jrgen Buschmann of Colognes Sporthochschule [Higher School for Sports] was woken at 1am by a phone call. It was Klinsmann. I stood straight up in bed, Buschmann recalls. Ever since, the Sporthochschule has performed data analysis for the national team. The purpose of the call was to encourage Buschmann and his students to enable Germany to become more competitive through data analysis, and aid the national team to find additional advantages, no matter how slight, all over the pitch. And Buschmann obliged, helping Klinsmann and fulfilling his request pull off a Moneyball maneuver for football. As Simon Kuper elaborates further, in his speech at the 2012 Sports Analytics Conference (SAC), to move things forward Buschmann assembled, colleagues and students into what is known in German football as Team Cologne. And Team Cologne have become a staple strategist for both Klinsmann and his heir, Joachim Lw, ever since that phone call. Details of Team Cologne techniques are expressed by sports journalist Olivia Fritz in an article for German news organisation Deutsche Welle. Fritz states, It takes up to eight hours to complete a game analysis. The students, who volunteer for the project on top of their studies, are all eager to take part. Here, Fritz refers to Team Cologne as the Cologne Scouting Project, which is probably a more accurate and descriptive moniker. Fritz continues, [t]he German Football Association has been working with the German Sport University since 2005. And since then all international friendly matches, qualifiers, and official matches have been meticulously prepared. In practical terms, Team Cologne have done a number of things to give Germany an advantage over their opposition throughout their association with the national side, and it has been a fruitful and passionate association. The information Team Cologne supply is varied and detailed. As outlined by Kuper in his 2006 SAC talk, Team Cologne laid out the first serious penalty analysis in World Cup history for Germany when they defeated Argentina in the quarter-finals of the tournament. The iconography of Jens Lehmanns inability to remember the various penalty takers proclivities and consult a list kept in his sock between kicks was not missed by the photographers that day, even if they had absolutely no idea where the list had originated. It originated with the students. During the 2010 World Cup, Team Cologne came up with a Messi strategy for the seemingly quadrennial event of the reoccurring Argentina quarter-final. The strategies implementation may have been unnecessary since Lionel Messi was so quiet that day, or perhaps the strategy was the reason he was ineffectual, but the idea of stationing one player directly in front of a possessed Messi, and another player roughly 1-yard behind came from Team Cologne too. German national team chronologists will know that 2010 takes us beyond Klinsmanns jurisdiction and into the Lw years. Joachim Lw has consumed the data from Team Cologne seemingly more avariciously than Klinsmann had the chance to because of his departure, having achieved third place at the 2006 World Cup. However, Lw is wary of the limitations of data, just like his peers in management throughout football. We cannot allow ourselves be led by our opponents. But it is

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Team Cologne: Modern Data Analysis and Scouting in the DFB | Bundesliga Fanatic
very important to know their strengths and weaknesses. Lw states on the subject of consulting data. He continues: I dont care to know if players are 1.94 meters tall or if they weigh 85 kilos we want to know about the characters of the players. Germany were eliminated from the 2010 World Cup after defeat to Spain in a game that ended 1-0. In this game, according to Simon Kuper, Germany, learnt the hard way that theory is not practice. The data analysts at Team Cologne reviewed the game extensively to find out what had gone wrong and why the defeat had occurred and found out that the German defensive lines had been 7-yards behind where they had been supposed to be in the ill-fated match. But, as Kuper helpfully points out: thats the problem with Spain, they dont let you do exactly what you want. Germany had allowed themselves to be led by their opponents. However, Euro 2012 (and beyond) is when the DFB and Team Cologne really got into bed together. Fritz reveals: During the 2006 World Cup in Germany, 16 students were responsible for 31 teams. Now [then - at Euro 2012], 45 students are responsible for 15 teams. She continues, Ahead of each tournament, the German Football Associations coaching team receives a books worth [several hundred pages thick] of reading material. It includes information about all the other Euro teams. Later they receive another 40-page document and a DVD illustrating various tactics. The author also states that, as of 2012, Stephan Nopp, a member of the German Football Association, regularly visits Team Cologne and that the German Football Association often gives the students tickets for matches, football jerseys, or just pays them a visit. Sometimes the students are allowed to watch training sessions which are closed to the public then discuss the training session with the national coach. The games in Euro 2012 are among Germanys most eye-catching performances in what has been a period, since 2010, of perhaps the most aesthetically pleasing team displays in contemporary international football tournament history. Kuper continues, in his SAC talk, the amazing thing is this information isnt just produced [by Team Cologne] its actually used. Lw and his assistants in the hotel in Gdansk in Poland are actually studying these reports, and basing strategy on it. These reports contain data such as the usual running and passing routes for each player and how many seconds it takes each individual opponent take to shift from attack to defence when the ball is lost. There is also game and opponent specific data, such as how to know when Cristiano Ronaldo will do a step over. In fact Jrme Boateng, the German right-back at the tournament, was given his own individual briefing on Cristiano Ronaldo before the Portugal fixture. Team Colognes biggest success in Euro 2012 was against the Dutch however, when the data found by Team Cologne essentially drove Germanys 2-1 victory against Holland. According to Kuper in his Financial Times article, Team Cologne have also helped write a secret codebook for the German team. One of the codebooks clauses ordains that the ideal distance between German defenders is eight metres. Before Germany-Holland at Euro 2012, Team Cologne spotted that Hollands defenders often strayed beyond the 8m. Germanys players located the gaps and won 2-1. For viewers of that match, although not aware of Germanys intent at the time, the gaps are clear to see in hindsight. However, despite Germanys commitment to data, what has it won them? They have been eliminated in every international tournament since Klinsmanns appointment, and Team Cologne have not helped guide them any further in the various World Cups and European Championships than perhaps one could reasonably expect them to finish anyway. This has to be a reflection on the use of data within football itself. Without the data, Germany may well have been eliminated prior to their eventually placing, and there has certainly been no visible downside to consulting data and dedicating the time and energy Lw and Klinsmann clearly dedicated to Team Colognes reports. It has certainly improved Germanys sporting competitiveness. The use of this data may well have provided the additional confidence and reassurance that the Germany players have needed over the last decade-or-so, to play the kind of football they have been over this time period. But as Simon Kuper states, when wrapping up his talk at the SAC, stats sometimes decide football competitions, but generally they dont. It is also extremely positive to see a major international football team collaborate with such a dedicated (and frequently such a caffeinated they often work day and night) group of voluntary students. One huge benefit to Team Cologne participants, according to Fritz, is that the students receive a certificate, signed by Buschmann, national coach Lw, and the national teams manager, Oliver Bierhoff. All this is, at the very least, as one Team Cologne student puts it, good for the resum. Header courtesy of schwaebische.de
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Tags: data analysis, DFB, Germany, klinsmann, lw, National Team

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Team Cologne: Modern Data Analysis and Scouting in the DFB | Bundesliga Fanatic

Jack Coles
Jack is a data lover and statistics enthusiast with a weakness for 1. FSV Mainz 05, Ilkay Gndoan and, more importantly, economics. Jack is one of the few people to believe footballers earn exactly what they should. He can be followed on twitter @jackcoles14, where he expresses his views about football and very little else. View all posts by Jack Coles

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