Secrets of Germany's Championship: How to manage players with big data

The German team beat Argentina 1:0 in the early hours of the day, the 4th time in history to hold the World Cup trophy. June 21, Wetech has done a report to decrypt the German team how to use large data management team. Today, let's revisit this story and explore the secrets of Germany's championship.

21st Century Economic Report reporter Huang Shanghai Report

In this World Cup, the German team in the first round of the 4:0 victory in the possession of Ronaldo's Portuguese team, who would have thought that this is actually the power of large data?

In June this year, the SAP Brazilian branch and the German Football Association held a joint conference in Germany's World Cup training camp Campo Bahia, reiterating both sides ' determination to improve the level of football through the introduction of the SAP Match Insights Soccer solution. It is reported that this soccer solution is based on the SAP HANA (memory computing) platform, which can help coaches to find the rules from a large number of training data, so as to optimize the team's training methods and tactics.

Specifically, through the system to capture and analyze players ' movement and passing data, coaches can assess the main situation of each game and the characteristics of each player, and use "numbers and facts" to optimize the program and improve the team's performance.

From the German team's performance seems not difficult to find, big data is quietly affecting the strength of the game on the pitch. Perhaps the time has come to rely solely on the talent and coaching experience of players, and personalized solutions for each player are turning a new page in the traditional football game.

How do you win the German team?

Prior to the start of the World Cup, the German team used SAP Match insights to conduct training data analysis. Sensors are placed inside the player's shoe and Shin, and the huge training ground is filled with sensors. Through these devices, SAP's system captures the players ' various details and position changes. Their running and passing routes are sent back to SAP HANA platform in real time.

After the rapid processing in the background, the coach can only hold a flat plate, will be in the Matchinsights interface to get all the players data and video.

"Through the collection and analysis of these data, coaches can easily understand the characteristics and strengths of each player," said Benedict, senior vice president of SAP Global and Director of China Research Institute "," the data will tell us how the team is optimized, how long each player can stay on the pitch, and when to substitute for the game. " ”

According to him, the amount of data produced in football is far beyond our imagination. For example, 10 players trained with 3 balls and 10 minutes to produce 7 million data points to analyze.

"It should be said that the SAP Match insights has two major characteristics, one is that its data is massive, and the second is that it must be very fast processing speed." Cai Yanbin, Vice president of SAP Globalization Services, added.

In these data, any player's trajectory, scoring rate, attack range and other data will be presented in real-time on the panel for the coach to make decisions. After that, the coach will put forward suggestions for the performance of the players and improve the program, players can be more intuitive to understand their strengths and weaknesses, and then find a way to supplement the Que.

With the help of this system, Germany has developed a more targeted training program for the World Cup and improved its strategy and tactics. During the World Cup, the German team also used it for the post-match analysis.

For SAP, Germany is the world's first team to use "big data" in the game. Its performance and performance in the game also provides a reference sample for SAP's penetration in the field of football.

In fact, SAP has previously offered similar services to a team in the NBA. Through the analysis of players ' data and playback of game video, SAP draws useful conclusions, such as which player has the right to pitch the ball, the number of shots in different positions, and which player is more powerful, and where he often appears.

In addition, SAP has provided data references for racers on the racetrack. Benedict said, "in a team, the performance of each car, the characteristics of each driver is not the same, we through a large number of data comparisons, we can match the most suitable models for each driver." "At the same time," we can also analyze when the most economical to change the fetus, which is also a crucial part of the racing field. ”

The charm and boredom of data

2013, SAP and the German Football Association announced a partnership to upgrade and streamline business processes for the Football Association. After that, in order to improve the performance of the German national team, the cooperation between the two sides extended to the joint innovation and software-based solutions. SAP Match Insights is the first SAP project in the field.

Earlier, Stefan Wagner, general manager of SAP Brazil, had said that "the world's sport has been changing, technological innovation is permeating all areas", and said the German Football Association is very willing to lead the industry change. ”

It is reported that more than two years ago, SAP put forward the idea of "entering the sports industry", from the idea to the landing of products, about two or three years. For now, in addition to "player performance monitoring", SAP has also introduced products such as team management, ticketing and venue operations. With the World Cup in full swing, fan interaction and experience of the solution is also in the intensive development.

To be aware, SAP's large data mining and application is not only reflected in sporting events. Prior to this, SAP has tried to find possibilities for the correlation between data of all kinds. Benedict, for example, has provided data services to an insurer in the United States. In the past, the insurance company needed a medical check-up for every client, which was expensive and was paid entirely by the insurance company. After research, SAP found that the customer's credit card bill is in fact closely related to his health status, just analyze the customer credit card consumption data, you can quickly determine its physical condition, and the analysis of the error is not small. In this way, the insurance company saved a lot of money by eliminating the physical examination link.

Even so, the sap lying in the data "gold mine" is not without worry. It is reported that the operating interface of SAP system is more complex, although the function is full, users can "start" more difficult. This also adds to the hurdle for users to use large data services. Because of this, SAP is currently working to simplify the user interface to make it more suitable for user action.

Moreover, it is still too early to say how much data can change consumer behavior and corporate decision-making. For example, football has long been a sport that relies on coaching experience and the instinctive reaction of players. After joining the science and technology elements, how much should coaches rely on data analysis and how much of their experience? Would it be more interesting or boring if a sport finally becomes a live game on a PC?

(Responsible editor: Mengyishan)