Benfica speaks at 2020 Sounders FC Soccer Analytics Conference

Sport Lisboa e Benfica participated in the second session of the prestigious 2020 Sounders FC Soccer Analytics Conference, sharing valuable insight into how data analytics is utilized at one of the best academies on the planet.

The club’s Head of Sports Data Science Sudarshan Gopaladesikan, gave a presentation via video conference focusing on how analytics are integrated into the decision-making workflow at Benfica’s Youth Academy.

Gopaladesikan said: "Benfica has a holistic approach regarding the development of youth players, where we focus on making decisions that are beneficial for the individual rather than the results of our academy teams. Our sports data science team works diligently alongside the technical director to prepare reports for the youth football teams with the objective of giving them the right information they need to assess players’ performance and making sure the player is developing in the right environment. We measure the individual data of players in various scenarios and produce statistical analyses which we feel adds value to the coaching and technical processes at the academy. With simple data sets we can generate good insights. We need to see what players need and get coaches to ask the right questions in order to offer the right solutions."

This was the second session of a conference which features several high-profile speakers such as Oakland A’s Executive Vice President of Baseball Operations Billy Beane, US National Team coach Gregg Berhalter, plus representatives from Bayer Leverkusen, Arsenal, FC Nordsjaelland, Seattle Sounders and the NBA.

The goal of the conference is to examine how soccer clubs can successfully integrate analytics into a decision-making workflow, including discussing the limitations of analytics today and how to best bridge the gap with the first teams.

Ravi Ramineni, the Seattle Sounders Director of Analytics said, “Benfica’s talk was very informative and got a lot of people thinking. Sudarshan communicated the information really well and showcased the great process that is behind one of the most consistent and successful youth football systems in the world at Benfica. We are very thankful to Sudarshan for his time, enthusiasm and energy as well as grateful to Benfica management for giving him the opportunity to do it."

Benfica’s Gopaladesikan also participated in a round table discussion with representatives from the NBA, MLS other European clubs where the main topic was how analytics is used in youth development.

"Event data and tracking data both have its uses. With event data, we can now think about the longitudinal analysis of a player and create a ‘Player Passport’ that follows the player throughout their entire career”, said Gopaladesikan. “Tracking data allows us to start to address the later stages of a youth player’s development where positional understanding of the game is more important. Technical solutions are important but the most important is to know how to communicate the data and work closely with coaches so they can ask what features they may want to implement to the solution to improve their coaching work", explained Gopaladesikan.

Photos: Sounders FC