FC LLama Data

FM Llama
Isaac Lockett
Aims
● To introduce using data in football manager

● To introduce how to use data in football manager to help your saves

● To make data less scary

● To help add further immersion to your saves

Before opening the
data hub
The starting point
● Every manager will have a way that they want their team to play
○ Fast build up
○ Structured defence
○ Wing play
○ Long ball

● The question is how do you know your team are playing the way you want
them too

● This is where data can come in

The use of data
● Data can either be used to assess a team’s current style of play or to assess
what they are lacking

● Let's start with using data to assess whether a team a team is playing how a
manager wants them to play by looking at FC LLama
What The Manager Wants
● The manager (FM Llama) wants their team to play with the following
characteristics:
○ Direct counter attacking football
○ Going from front to back quickly (speed in transition)
○ Defensive pressure on the ball

What needs to happen now we know this

● We now need to translate these characteristics into units that could be
tracked

● To do this, think about how you would measure some of the features identified
Translation Ideas
● Direct counter attacking football
○ The number of lateral passes played
○ The average position of your players
○ The creativity of the passess being played

● Going from front to back quickly (speed in transition)

○ The number of lateral passes played
○ The most common passing options used

● Defensive pressure on the ball

○ Where is team winning the ball on the field
So where are we now
● We understand what the manager wants from their team

● We have translated what the manager wants into potentially measurable variables
○ These translated statements can be treated as a hypothesis
■ When the data is being looked at, we can now turn them into sentences like “are my
players playing more lateral passess than vertical passes?”

● Now it is time to turn to the data to see if we can find evidence for or against
the translated statements that we have generated

● This does not have to be complicated and is not an exact science, but neither
is football!
Initial factors to
consider
Questions

● Right now, there are probably a million questions

○ What data am I meant to look at in the data hub?
○ How do I know if I am looking at the right data
○ Do I look at season data or data from my last match

● All of these questions are good questions because it is the start of assessing
what you need
○ This is where the creative side of data comes in as there is no such thing as a right answer,
although there may be some ways of working that might slow you down
What data am I meant to look at?

● There is plenty of data available to managers through the data hub

○ Not all of it is needed
○ Not all of it will help you

● The data that helps you tell your story is the data that matters

● For example, if having possession is not important to your style of play then
do not worry about looking at the possession data as it could just confuse you

● However, in FC Llama we want to play fast vertical football so the pass map
becomes more important
Where to start
● Looking to tackle the data generated in a logical way is much easier than a
scattergun approach

● As long as it makes sense to you, there is no right or wrong way to start your
data review

● Examples could include looking at the data from your goalkeeper to your
defenders all the way through to your strikers or it could be done based on
your priorities
Working example 1 - Patterns of Play analysis
● During this process, FC LLama has generated a number of translated data
related statements
○ These include wanting to have pressure on the ball, wanting to go from back to front quickly
and being able to counter attack

● Starting from the defence, FC LLama wants the team to have defensive
pressure on the ball, so we can start with where the ball is being won and the
average position of the team

● The next stage may be to look at the passing channels after this point
Working example 2 - Priority Focussing
● During this process, FC LLama has generated a number of translated data
related statements
○ These include wanting to have pressure on the ball, wanting to go from back to front quickly
and being able to counter attack

● FC LLama has several focusses, but the board want the team to play counter
attacking football and therefore this is the priority for FC LLama to understand

● Therefore, let's start by looking the passing maps to see how quickly they are
going from back to front
Recency Bias and Anomalies
● From a more technical perspective, recency bias is a cognitive bias that favors recent events over
historic ones

● From a data perspective, this means that looking at data from yesterday’s match may be treated with
more importance than a match from the start of the season

● This could lead panic decisions to be made after a shock 5-0 loss, after a string of positive results

● This is why it is important to look at the data generated over the course of an extended period of
time

● Single match data can be useful to uncover potential trends to investigate within a larger data pool
Tips and tricks
● Don’t worry about data you don’t have, focus on what you do have and what
is in front of you instead of trying to make assumptions

● Making notes can be useful. Whilst FM is a computer game, sometimes it is

easier to make annotations on a notes page

● Remember FM is a video game, you aren’t writing a dissertation. Data is

fantastic and can provide great insights but should not take away from your
enjoyment of the game. It is all about balance.
The Types Of Data
You May Come Across
Heat Maps
● Within the context of eat maps are typically used to track
the position of a team or a player

● In order to display the data, these graphs use the

concept of heat to show where the players have been the
most

● These graphs can be read as a spectrum

○ Black = the coldest areas = no / very low activity in
this area
○ Red = the hottest areas = very high activity within
this area
Scatter Graphs

● These graphs are visual representation of

raw data that has been collected
○ Typically in FM these graphs are used
to show how your team is performing in
a certain area or areas compared to
others

● FM plots two related variables (things you

can measure) against each other to create
these graphs and allows you to understand
quickly how your team is performing
Possession Gained Graphs
● This graph imagines that the football field
has been split up into 6 and tracks which
section of the field your team is winning
possession

● Alongside the numbers, the graph also

presents an understanding through a
colour spectrum
○ Black = lowest area of possession
gained
○ Bright Green = highest area of
possession gained

● This graph can directly be lined up with

how you want your team to play
○ If you want your team to be pressing
higher expect to see higher numbers
further up the pitch
Polygons
● Polygons are used throughout FM from being able
to assess players to being able to assess how
your team is doing

● Personally, I don’t think the numbers particularly

matter here, it is more about the difference in
shape for better or worse

● The same is influenced by the data

○ The higher the number, the larger that point of the
polygon becomes
○ The lower the number, the smaller that point of the
polygon becomes

● These graphs enable a comparison between your

team and the league average along with being
able to assess how your team are playing
Pass Maps

● Pass maps are graphs that display the frequency that your
players play the same pass that follows the same route

● These graph also works on a colour spectrum where you

assume no line (or a black space) means no passes through
to light green which means that the pass is being played at a
high frequency (more than other passing routes)

● To an extent, this graph can also show the typical receiving

areas that certain players are getting the ball
Raw Data

● FM also collects raw data that can be used to directly compare your players

● Some of the data is more useful than others, for example conceded per 90 may
not be used when comparing a cup keeper to a league keeper due to the
different standards of opposition

● However, if you have preferences in what you deem to be important qualities,

these numbers could help you tell two players apart
Quick Summary
● There are probably other graphs that are available to players that I haven’t
covered in this whistle-stop tour of data. However, these example should
hopefully help in understanding any data that is put in front of you

● FM has a preference of using a colour spectrum to display data

● High numbers when comparing data doesn’t always mean a player does
something well - think goals conceded per 90

● Low numbers do not necessarily mean that a player does something badly -
Think a CDM who has taken 10 shots all season and has only scored one
goal. Does this matter to you if your CDM’s role is not to score goals
Using Data to asses
signings
What we have done and where we are going
● So far, we have focussing on techniques to help analyse data to assess
where FC Llama currently is
○ How the team is performing compared to league averages
○ The current play style of FC LLama
○ Areas that need improving

● However, data can also be used to assess potential signings

● This can be done by analysing what the team currently has to assess where
current “gaps” are and then looking at a player to see if they can fill the
identified gaps
Working Example
● Putting this heat map together with the passing
map, it could be interpreted that FC LLama’s left
centre attack midfielder is playing too wide and is
not playing positive passes to the other
midfielders and strikers

● Therefore, FC LLama may look to sign an

attacking midfielder that has better link up play
than the current player

● Now this trend has been identified, it is time to

find a player
Working Example
● The first step to find a replacement
player may be to look at your scouts
recommendations and assess them
through your preferred method
○ This could be gut feel
○ Looking at the stats that you think are
important
○ Looking at the players polygon

● The next step may be to look at the

players passing map from their last
game to see if they actually play the
way that you want
○ For example, this players passing map
looks more like what FC LLama is looking
for
Some Conclusions
The Process
1. Define how you want your team to play and what is important to you
2. Understand how what you want can be measured within FM
3. Search for the data in a logical way and turn it into a story of your team
4. Diagnose the problems based on the story of your team
5. Look to make changes to your team based on your work
a. This could be tweaking tactics or using the current gaps in your team to identify new signings
6. Monitor the situation
Conclusions
● Data can be useful but for it to make sense there needs to be context

● In the context of FM, this context can come from how you want your team to
play on the pitch

● The data hub offers players a lot of different graphs which can be used to
create a story that helps you to understand how your team is currently playing

● However, there are limitations to the data

Factors to remember
● There is often is not a “correct” or single way to analyse a piece of data.
Instead the same piece of data can be analysed in multiple ways

● The conclusion you generate depends on your perspective and your end
goal, so don’t worry if you have read the graphs in the video differently to how
I have read them

● FM is also about fun, if you love the data hub or want to explore it then
fantastic but if not then that is also great. Just have fun with however you
want to play the game.
General Data Limitations
● Recency bias
○ It is easy to try and diagnose problems based on one matches data, but this approach will make it
harder to see the big picture. Let your team and your analysis breathe to ensure that trends have time
to generate

● In sport, some teams are more talented than others. Problems can not be
immediately fixed with data, instead it is a process of everything that makes a
football team work
○ Moral
○ Talent
○ Coaching

● Quantitative data (numbers) have the potential to over-simplify problems that exist in
the real work. Therefore, you can use the data to help to start to diagnose the
problem but there is no certainty that it will work
FM data limitations
● Some of the data in FM is limited as it is ambiguous, at least without further
digging around
○ The possession gained map is a good example of this. Does it could as possession gained
when your player is fouled or when your goalkeeper claims a cross.

● Some of the data is only available on a match per match basis and this
means that it is hard to generate an overall understanding of a body of data

● Less about FM, but more about football. Every game is different and every
opposition will play differently so what you see happening in one game may
not occur in the next game
Closing Remarks
● This is not an exhaustive guide on the data hub and how to use data to fix
every problem that you might face during your saves

● However, we hope that this has helped you understand how data can be used
in your saves to further immerse you in your save

● Be brave in your analysis, not every piece of data matters so stick to your
instincts about what matters!

● You can do this!