I thought those interested in the behind the scenes stuff of football might find this Toronto Star article of interest. In time I would think that most MLS clubs will use a version of this program and that should help with all the clubs efforts to raise the quality of our game. See link - http://www.thestar.com/Sports/article/446492 I have also included a story from an English Premier league player who is currently training with TFC in order to complete the requirements of the UEFA coaching certificate. "Veteran midfielder Gary Speed trained with Toronto FC on Thursday and is spending the next few days with the team as he works towards obtaining coaching qualifications. Speed is the leading appearance maker in the English Premiership and has played for Newcastle United, Everton and Bolton Wanderers. He was captain of the Wales National Team before retiring from international soccer in 2004. Speed currently plays for Sheffield United in the English Championship, and is in Toronto until early next week. "I'm working to obtain my UEFA Pro License which you need if you want to be involved as a manager at the top level in Europe," said Speed. "As part of getting the license you have to go to a foreign club and do a study of how they do things and see how it differs from how we do it in England." Speed worked with Toronto coach John Carver during his time at Newcastle. "Obviously I know John and Paul Winsper from my time at Newcastle and I still keep in touch with them. It's the off season in England at the moment so it's the perfect time to come over here and do some studying," Speed explained. The 38 year old has been impressed with what he has seen at Toronto FC so far. "It's great here. I trained this morning with the lads which was good because I need to step up my training. The facilities here are fantastic and it's opened my eyes a bit. It's very impressive." Speed admits the reputation of Major League Soccer has improved greatly in Europe over the last few years. "Ten years ago people would have said the standard here isn't very good. Obviously over the last few years it has become much more prominent with the influx of bigger name players and especially in the last year or so after the arrival of Becks. Since then it's got even bigger. I'm looking forward to seeing the game here on Saturday."
Prozone is massive over here, its probably the reason my team Reading got relegated last season, because each team knew our playing style via Prozone
Not to be nitpicking, but isn't Speed violating the spirit of the rule when he evaluates a team coached by an Englishman?
MLS should spend the extra coin needed to make these data points public to the fans. It would mean so much more than the crap stats they track on mlsnet IMO.
I don't think it would cost them that much because they already have the data. It's just a matter of posting it to their Web site. Or sharing it with media.
I remember about 20 years ago, when sabermetrics was first being popularized, the guys at Elias who compiled the stats for MLB refused to release their info to the general public. As I recall, their concern was, well, control. They didn't want anyone else having the information and playing around with it. That may be the case here, that the company that does this doesn't want it in the public domain. Alternatively, they may have plans to sell the information to the general public, and as various internet subscription schemes have shown, it's very difficult to get people to pay for something they're used to getting for free.
In this weeks edition of TFC TV JC talks and demonstrates how this program works. I suspect many will not be interested in other parts of this video so fast forward ahead to 1:55 on the clock. http://toronto.fc.mlsnet.com/media/player/mp_tpl.jsp?w=mms%3A//a1503.v115042.c11504.g.vm.akamaistream.net/7/1503/11504/v0001/mlbmls.download.akamai.com/11504/2008/shows/t280/062008_tfctv_episode13.wmv&w_id=21838&catCode=shows&type=v_free&_mp=1
you sure you dont mean to be nitpicking? sounds that way to me. anyway, good video and wicked technology...... turns every player into a subbuteo player! top class technology!
--According to this news item on ProZone's website, the USSF has signed an agreement for them to perform analysis on all National team, MLS, and Development Academy Showcase games plus they'll be opening an office in Chicago to service the USSF and work on growing their product in the US. http://www.pzfootball.co.uk/main_News.htm
The funny thing is, is that the movement of each player isn't tracked by special markers or tags by computers, its literally a bunch of students on minimum wage drawing a cross on the position of a certain player for each frame of the whole match.