In fulfilment of the collaboration between Aspire Academy’s Football Administrations Department and the Football Development Department of the Qatar Stars League (QSL), a course titled “Introduction of Match Analysis” was held from May 19 to 22 at Aspire.
On initiative of QSL’s Executive Director of Competitions & Football Development Ahmed Khellil Abbassi and Aspire Academy’s Football Administration Manager Saeed al-Marri, this four-day-long course was tailor-made for the administrative staff of Aspire Academy’s football program and focused on the importance of match analysis in the football industry. 
“We have been working in this field since 2007 and we accumulated a lot of experience in terms of software and technologies. Now we have been trying to transfer these findings to the football administrative professionals at Aspire Academy with the aim to show that it is beneficial for administrators to have a deeper experience in match analysis in order to gain a better understanding of the needs of coaches and players,” said Miguel Heitor, Head of Football Development at the QSL, who oversaw the course that he ran with by his colleagues Fahad Fakhroo, Football Development Officer at the QSL, and Samir Brikci, Performance Analyst at the QSL.
Besides the introduction of the main topic, they discussed the impact of match analysis in football players in connection with developing their mental skills. Furthermore, several available tools that are currently on the market for match analysis such as state-of-the-art technologies and software. 
They also presented players’ profiles, explained how the use the data effectively and how to be objective in the analysis. On the last day of the workshop, the milestones of the ‘QSL Match Analysis-Project’ that was launched in 2007 with a research phase before being implemented in the QSL clubs in 2010, were shown to the attendees. 
“The things we learnt about match analysis are going to help to improve the working relationship between coaches, players and administrators. This course is a good example how we can benefit from the collaboration with QSL’s Football Development Department and we are definitely going to make the best possible use of it in the future”, said Saeed al-Marri, Football Administration Manager at Aspire Academy.
“It was a pleasure for us to be here at Aspire Academy and we hope it gave the attendees a better understanding of what is important in match analysis. This was the first of probably many courses that we are going to have in the future as part of this cooperation between the QSL Football Development Department and Aspire Academy’s Football Operations and it’s beneficial for both of us to exchange knowledge as well as theoretical and practical experience”, said Miguel Heitor, who also stressed to importance of this collaboration. 
“This is a natural initiative. The football stakeholders in Qatar are like a family and everyone is working for the same goal, the same purpose and we all want the best possible football in Qatar. We just need to align the strategy and make sure that strengths of each entity join forces to get the best possible outcome for the good of the game.”