World Cup 2002 - OPTA
R. Sanborn Brown
"Send
Shunsuke's Opta!" shouted the fax from London. With the European
transfer season in full swing, many clubs have expressed an interest in
Yokohama Marinos's midfielder Shunsuke Nakamura. How to evaluate
him? How much should a club bid for a somewhat unknown quantity playing
on the other side of the world in a relatively new league?
Unlike baseball, which has always been a statistician's dream, soccer never stops and was not thought to lend itself to numerical valuations and interpretation. Experienced coaches and training staff watched games in real time, and then judged players on the basis of their own subjective perceptions. A player scored goals, missed shots, got carded, flubbed a pass, made tackles, etc.—and that was the end of it.
Not anymore.
The Opta index was developed in 1996 and at the time recorded 92 distinct player actions, reports an article on the Science page of the Asahi Shinbun. For each action, a player earns or loses points. A goal, for example, is worth 600 points; a foul, on the other hand, costs him fifty points. Trained personnel watch videos of matches and log those actions into a computer for each player. Since then the number of actions has grown to over three hundred. Opta claims to give a statistically meaningful analysis as a way of numerically rating a player's performance and comparing him to his peers. Reports on individual players—the Index Scores—are issued in six-game increments.
At matches in Japan's J-League, teams of three attend matches. Using handheld computers, data is input as the game is in progress. One person follows and logs the location of the ball; a second inputs which players are moving the ball; and the third records kicks, passes, heading, etc. When the game is finished, this data is sent to a computer in Tokyo; from which registered users may view this data with a password. The data is ultimately broken down into some 260 categories.
Opta currently ranks players and teams in leagues in England, Scotland, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Holland, and the J-League. Opta player stats, for example, for six recent matches have David Beckham scoring 1,434. Interestingly, his Manchester United teammates Juan Veron (1,468) and Roy Keane (1,680) both were rated higher. In Italy, Parma's Hidetoshi Nakata scored only 846 while his replacement of late, Frenchman Johan Micoud, rated 931. Real Madrid's Raul (926) was outpaced by teammate and fellow Spaniard Fernando Morientes (1,045). In Holland, Feyenoord's Shinji Ono (1,054), who is perhaps the most creative player on the Japan side, ranked only slightly lower than Dutch international Paul Bosvelt (1,114), who plays alongside Ono in midfield for Feyenoord.
Opta also ranks players and teams in individual categories. Frenchman Patrick Viera has been, for example, the second best tackler in recent matches in the Premier League, with a 76% success rate. He is also the most reprimanded player in terms of total fouls and cards. Thanks in part to his contribution, his team Arsenal is the most whistled in the Premier League: they have committed 448 fouls, and been awarded 59 yellow cards and 6 red cards. As a team, Sunderland (76% success rate) is the best tackling team in the League; surprisingly, Manchester United ranks at the bottom of the table, with a 70% success rate. In terms of goals, though, Sunderland fares badly: they have scored on only 7% of their shots. Compare that with Manchester United's 17% and you have some indication as to their respective places in the table. The Red Devil's two forwards—Ruud Van Nistelrooy and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer—are tied for second place (31%) in goals-to-shots ratio, while Liverpool's Michael Owen tops the table (33%).
At this summer's World Cup, Opta will be offering several different report packages. Team officials and media representatives will be able to subscribe to multilingual information that provides data on individual players and teams, with reports on, for example "team stats," available within 60 seconds of the final whistle.
In Japan, teams rely heavily on Opta for both analyzing their overall weaknesses and when seeking to sign foreign talent. Tokyo Verdy 1969, for example, was in the middle of the league in terms of shots taken last season. However, when broken down a bit further, the team was dead last in crosses in front of goal. Furthermore, the team was rated second from the bottom in shots saved. As a result, according to Team Director Kiyomi Morikawa, in addition to other moves made in the off-season to offset the above weaknesses, the team picked up a goalkeeper who has played for the Japanese national team. Morikawa noted, "(These reinforcements) perfectly matched our weaknesses. Reading over this minute data is both rewarding and fun. "
The reply to the London fax would report that, as tabulated by J-Stats Opta, Nakamura accumulated a total of 27,934 points in the 2001 season. Dividing this by the number of minutes he played and then multiplying that by 90 results in an average score per game of 1,075. After the end of the first stage of the current season, he is currently in second place in the rankings of individual players in the J-League.