SARG-Defender-Analytics

Introduction

In soccer, as in most sports, effectively and accurately quantifying the true impact of a defensive player-fullbacks, center backs, and defensive midfielders-on a team remains a challenge and tends to be subjective or anecdotal. Offensive players such as atticking midfielders, wingers, and strikers, often get most of the recognition and accolades, resulting in defensive players taking on the role of unsung heroes. This disparity is evident in the history of soccer's most prestigious individual award, the Ballon D'Or. Excluding this year, the last time a defensive player won the award was in 2006, when center back Fabio Cannavaro received the honor. To date, only five defensive players have EVER won the award: Franz Beckenbauer (1972, 1976), Lothar Matthäus (1990), Matthias Sammer (1996), Fabio Cannavaro (2006), and Rodri (2024).

Our goal is to address this imbalance by creating accurate soccer defender ratings and rankings for scouting purposes. Through data-driven insights, we aim to properly quantify the individual impact of defensive players on their team's success.

Data

The success of our project is reliant upon access to high-quality, comprehensive soccer data. Specifically, we'll need:

Required Data

1. Defensive Actions:

   • Tackles, interceptions, blocks, clearances, and aerial duals (as well as their respective success rate).
   • Positioning and marking metrics.

2. Ball Recovery and Distribution:

   • Recoveries in various zones of the pitch.
   • Passing accuracy, long balls, and progression metrics.

3. Physical and Tactical Metrics:

   • Distance covered, sprinting intensity, and heatmaps.
   • Tactical contributions such as pressing efficiency and involvement in defensive setups (such as offside traps).

4. Team Context Data:

   • Opponent strength, team defensive structures, and game coontext (e.g., winning, losing, drawing).

Data Sources

• Rotowire
• Opta Sports
• StatsBomb
• WyScout