Event Overview
StatsBomb’s annual Conference took place at Wembley Stadium in September 2022.
We welcomed industry leaders sharing insights from the most forward-thinking and data-driven sports organisations around the world. The research track showcased latest innovations using StatsBomb data .
Who was speaking?
If a speakers talk is available to watch back online, you can click the individuals profile image to be taken to Youtube.
Ted Knutson: StatsBomb CEO & Co-Founder
Ted worked as Head of Player Analytics for Brentford and Midtjylland, and has consulted for multiple Champions League football clubs. His areas of expertise include recruitment, data visualization, and set piece design. A founder of StatsBomb.com, he has also appeared on Sky, been published by The Guardian and Daily Mirror, and is often consulted as an expert in the application of stats and analytics to football.
John Burn-Murdoch: Chief Data Reporter, The Financial Times
John Burn-Murdoch is a columnist and the chief data reporter for the Financial Times, where he works as part of an interdisciplinary team in the newsroom using data analysis and visualisation to find and tell stories, often to very tight deadlines. For much of the last two years he led the FT’s data-driven coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic, and as of April 2022 he also writes the FT’s weekly Data Points column, which covers everything from economics, to politics, healthcare, social attitudes, climate change, economics and sport.
William Spearman: Liverpool FC Lead Data Scientist
William Spearman joined Liverpool FC in 2018 as Lead Data Scientist where he utilises spatiotemporal tracking data to support the men’s first team. Before joining Liverpool, he pioneered the concept of pitch control, and he has used physics-based modelling to construct visualisable models of open space, pass difficulty, and off-ball scoring opportunity.
Sarah Rudd: Former StatDNA
Sarah Rudd holds a BA in Computer Science and Environmental Science from Columbia University and an MBA from the University of Washington. After 6 years working at Microsoft, she decided to follow her passion for soccer and joined StatDNA as VP of Software and Analytics development. StatDNA was acquired by Arsenal FC in 2012 and became their in-house analytics department. After nearly 10 years at Arsenal, Sarah decided to leave to become VP of Analytics Technology at Blue Crow Sports Group.
Dinesh Vatvani: StatsBomb, Head of Data Science
Dinesh has led the development of StatsBomb's OBV model and the new suite of StatsBomb's xG models. He has been working in the football analytics industry for 8 years and has experience consulting for Premier League and MLS clubs along with The Times and the Premier League.
Tom Worville: RB Leipzig, Scouting Data Scientist
Tom is a scouting data scientist at RB Leipzig, having joined the club in November 2021. He has a wealth of experience within the football analytics industry, from co-founding Analytics FC, working for sports data company Opta and bringing data and numbers to the forefront of the mainstream football media as a writer for The Athletic
Sam Gregory: Inter Miami, Director of Analytics
Sam has been working in the football analytics industry for more than five years with both data companies and professional clubs. He is currently the Director of Analytics at Inter Miami and a graduate student at Victoria University studying the intersection of sports science and analytics.
Dr Will Morgan: StatsBomb, Senior Data Scientist
Will is a Senior Data Scientist at StatsBomb and retired atmospheric scientist with experience researching and modelling data across a range of different fields.
Stuart Reid: Set Piece Analyst, Platek Group of Clubs
Stuart joined the Platek Group of clubs (Spezia, SonderjyskE and Casa Pia) as Head of Set-Pieces in 2021. He joined after extensive experience working with clubs across the world to improve their output from set-pieces.
Dr Mohammad Dabbah: Head of AI, StatsBomb
Dr Dabbah is an expert in computer vision, machine learning & AI. He is currently the Head of AI at Statsbomb working on automation of data generation and collection.
Ben Torvaney: Data Scout, AC Milan
Ben has worked for AC Milan since 2020, developing data and analytics-driven products for internal use.
Jens Fjellström: Pundit and Former Swedish International
Jens is a former professional football player who became a data driven tv pundit. He's been coaching and worked with analytics at both club and national team level. Now he's building analytic tools for Discovery Networks, which they share with clubs, and use football data to support stories and outcome in games.
Rory Smith: Chief Soccer Correspondent, New York Times
Rory Smith is a journalist, broadcaster and author. He is the chief soccer correspondent of The New York Times, having taken up the role in 2016.
Javier Fernandez, Senior Data Scientist, Zelus Analytics
Javier is the former Head of Sports Analytics at FC Barcelona. He now works as a Senior Data Scientist for Zelus Analytics, leading the development of cutting-edge applications in football and basketball. Javier holds a Ph.D. in Artificial Intelligence and is a globally recognized leader in sports analytics.
Highlights
Research competition
We had dozens of submissions, and the proposals were to a very high standard once again. But, we could only select a handful to conduct their research and present their findings at the event: the presentations you’ll watch were from the submissions we found to be the most compelling, practical, and applicable. All research has been performed on a dataset of StatsBomb event and 360 data from a select subset of leagues of the researcher’s choosing.
To watch each of the presentations back, click on the profile picture of each speaker.
To read the accompanying research papers, click here.
Contextual Expected Threat using Spatial Event Data
Gregory Everett: AI PhD student, University of Southampton and sponsored by SentientSports
Deep Reinforcement Learning for Football Player Decision Making Analysis
Michael Pulis: AI Research Student, University of Malta conducted with Josef Bajada
un-xPass: Measuring Soccer Player’s Creativity
Pieter Robberechts: PhD student. Conducted with colleagues at the DTAI Research Lab at KU Leuven
Generalized Action-based Ball Recovery Model Using 360° Data
Ricardo Furbino: Student of Computer Science at Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG) & Researcher at SALab (DCC-UFMG) & Hugo Rios-Neto: Football Data Scientist at Atlético Mineiro
A New Performance Metric for Players Evaluation Based on Causality.
Alessandro Cecchin: Independent researcher, Co-Founder of Renewable Dispatching s.r.l.
"Estimated Player Impact" (EPI): Quantifying the Effects of Individual Players on Football Actions using Hierarchical Statistical Models
Tahmeed Tureen: Independent Researcher & Dr. Sigrid Olthof
Using Risk Tolerance to Identify Optimal Cross Passes
Caitlan Krasinski, winner of the 2022 Women In Sports Data Hackathon
Sponsors & exhibitors
We couldn’t have set up this event without the generous help of our sponsors.
To read more about each sponsor, click the logos opposite
Zone 7
Headline Sponsor
Zone 7 are a data-driven artificial intelligence system that enables high levels of athlete performance and availability.
Their services are used by clubs across football’s top leagues, including Liverpool FC, Leeds United, Valencia CF, and LAFC, which helps them with coaching and supports medical teams to reduce the risk of injuries.
Catapult
Catapult are one of the leading providers of performance analysis software and wearable technology in the football industry.
Their Matchtracker software brings together all the user’s performance data into one place, including event data, camera-based tracking, GPS, biometric, and coach or analyst tagging. The data can then be combined with multiple video angles so that game moments can be viewed in context and performance can be compared with the opposition, the user’s previous games, and between players in the team.
Rezzil
Rezzil is the world’s leading platform for developing elite athletes.
Used across the world from academy level to European League and World Cup winners. Rezzil builds resilience in athletes when it is needed most: during the last minutes of a high-pressure game.
Touchline Analytics
Raw Stadia
Raw Stadia empowers elite sports teams to gain full knowledge and take control over the ‘players’ work floor’ by consistent data collection. Our easy-to-use testing tools and visually oriented SaaS platform will help grounds managers, sport performance managers and medical staff to create a safe working environment for the players.
Snowflake
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