Professor Valter Di Salvo, Director of Football Performance & Science at Aspire Academy yesterday launched the Qatar Football Analytics Dashboard – a set of tools that will help analyse and support the sporting performance of players in Qatar.
The Qatar Football Analytics Dashboard was unveiled at the start of a two-day workshop held in Aspire Zone on Sunday 12th February 2017. Attending the launch event were coaches from all 14 QSL clubs. They were joined by coaches for the national teams including Jorge Fossati, coach of the senior national team.
The Dashboard will enable all players in Qatar to be analysed and the results will be made available to clubs, coaches and the players themselves. Available data will include distances covered on the field, players’ ranking in terms of aspects of their game (e.g. passing) both in comparison to teammates as well as players from other clubs, along with video analysis.
The Qatar Football Analytics Dashboard represents the culmination of more than 18 months of work conducted by Professor Valter Di Salvo and his team from the Aspire Academy Performance & Science department, working in close conjunction with Qatar Football Association and Qatar Stars League.
The two-day workshop held in Aspire Zone focuses on Player Performance and scientific analyses. The first day of the workshop involved presentations to around 120 participants, comprising mainly football coaches working in Qatar. The presentation on the second day, Monday 13th February, will be given to around 400 QSL Players.
Describing the importance of the Qatar Football Analytics Dashboard, Professor Valter Di Salvo said: “The Qatar Football Analytics Dashboard is primarily designed to support individual players by providing them with detailed personal data and information analysing their performance. Equipped with this information, they are able to push themselves continually to improve their game. We want Qatari players to first compete with themselves and to push their performance to the limit, before they turn their attention to focus on their opposition. Once a player has a clear understanding of his stats and performance in training and matches, he is then able to work with coaches and other stakeholders to focus on improving his game and in doing so become better and more competitive. Ultimately this all helps the development of football in Qatar.”
Jorge Fossati, coach of the senior national team congratulated Aspire Academy, QFA and QSL by saying, “This is a most welcome initiative and a very useful tool to support the development of football in Qatar. No doubt science has a useful part to play in improving and developing players’ performance. However, for the most part, football is not scientific – and it is largely a matter of the players choosing how they will apply themselves, and how effectively coaches are able to deliver their messages and strategies with the players. The players will have an opportunity to hear for themselves a presentation on this initiative tomorrow and I expect there will be strong interest in embracing a tool such as this which offers real potential to improve their performance.”
