For
both these sporting
superstars everything they’ve striven
to achieve throughout whole careers,
from boys to men, comes down to
moments like this. A Formula 1 driver can win
or lose a grand prix in the first couple of hundred yards,
thanks to a sweet – or botched – start. A footballer can
seal the fate of a team’s entire tournament campaign
with a (hefty) swipe from right or left boot. These are
some of the most poised moments in sport: everything
comes down to this. Alone with their thoughts and
their skills, a Button or a Müller must, surely, feel huge
pressure…
as dynamic, flowing and essentially unpredictable as
football, data analysis can provide flashes of insight
that may prove decisive. “There are two different
aspects for the players,” he says. “The first is to
improve your own performance, independently. For
example, looking at how much speed you had when
running, how long you ran for and so on, can help
you to understand your performance. The second
thing is to understand your opponent better – predict
their movements a little bit and then having a better
strategy to win.”
Nowhere is this predictive aspect more clearly drawn
than during the penalty shoot-out – simultaneously
the most exposed, yet most controlled event of any
football match. For a striker they are, as Bierhoff
describes them, “decisive moments where you can
decide the game – where it’s very important for the
team that you are there. This is a mental thing, but is
also a question of preparation. Physically, mentally
and in terms of knowledge – and this where we will use
data.”
But both men have also been primed for the challenge
through some of the most rigorous and advanced
data analysis available, thanks to the partnerships
SAP enjoys with the McLaren Group and the German
national football team. Statistics and sequences
relating to, for example, in which direction an individual
goalkeeper is likely to jump will have been absorbed;
as will crucial insights into the optimum startsequence strategy not only for a particular F1 circuit,
“decisive moments where you can decide the game
but for specific grid positions on that track.
– where it’s very important for the team that you are
there. This is a mental thing, but is also a question
Desired outcomes (a perfectly synchronised launch, a
sweetly-struck top-of-the-net screamer) will have been of preparation. Physically, mentally and in terms of
knowledge – and this where we will use data.”
envisaged and strategies for their delivery rigorously
interrogated.
Oliver Bierhoff, a former striker for Germany, now the
national team’s manager, e