Use of stats to identify great role players!!!

[Karl]

How easy/hard is stat collection at a grassroots level? I think there is a huge machine behind the stats that we may not be able to easily implement. Not sure though.

It shall take great effort!
...but if we take a look at our history and the successes of those who have left our shores to compete in hostile environments outside of the island, great effort is not something we dodge...fact is, we embrace it!



Start in the small football groups...schools and clubs of various sorts and feed the info into Parish Associations...which their stats on to the Confederation...to the National Body! ...hey we are in an age where uses of the computer and internet is a 'pure reflex action'!

[Stonigut]

That is the problem, no developmental goals, no plans, no action, just short term focus. Issa can start the process, there is no place to look and see how many games Dawkins of JC played how many goals how many assists or any summary detail, can't compare him to Kerr of Steths and let the performance speak for itself, I have looked and its is almost impossible to find.
So if you have no goals, no measurement, no gap analysis, no plans to close the gap, what do you have, pretty much nothing!!!

[Don1]

That is not true Sass, maybe there is a culture of football is an art in Jamaica, this is lack of development on the part of our administrators, but look elsewhere stats are at the heart of cricket and track and field, i think some of these trackers are just volunteers not sure how it works in cricket and t+f, at least the collection process is the begining which is the very base of real analysis. That's how we tell who should be the fourth man or woman in 4*1 or 4*4 and we quickly go to the performance stats and look at fastest time, where it was run, consistency of times after that, current form etc etc and we all do that. The data is there as it is a part of the whole of the sport and it has been institutionalized over one hundred years.

In football we just measure goals, yellow and red cards in Jamaica, we now vtape all games or most games at mcup Dcup and rspl so Issa and Jff should commit to start adding new things to track a few things per year and commit to it. I would start with assists and shots and shots on goals. Then the following year could be something like possession statistics, player passing information, interceptions, tackles made, tackles won etc etc, a nice gradual progression to tracking key stats that we know are integral to player development in Jamaica.

All this incessant yappin about statistics is a HUGE red herring. Let's say JA starts to compile these reams of stats...what then?? Ans: NOTHING

This because the KEY problem is NOT STATISTICS....It's the lack of any structured development plan from U-10 to Seniors. Allied to that is the juvenile & myopic focus of Jamaicans on "making the next World Cup" ...Hence the reliance on Instant Snowball.. which incidentally has been a complete failure for ~20 years

After a while I'm really disgusted by the strenuous yappin on downstream issues like stats collection (on undeveloped players)....when the key problems & solutions are so obvious. i.e. Our teachers & players of the game are BACKWARD and the JFF has not yet even formulated an outline development plan to address this...

But that backward JFF entity along with its brainless supporters like yourself... continue the long term folly of supporting SnowBall as a crutch to produce a decent "national team"... and thereby unnu can completely avoid having to deal with player development.

Just putting this silly stats yappin in its true & bankrupt perspective

[Stonigut]

Yeah but we can make it a part of Jakan ball game as well.we knew Walsh and Patterson were phenomenal world class potential from school days because of the stays and the speed measurements so accuracy and production, we can do same in football at every position so we distinguish the pretenders and their supporters early in the day rather than later in the day.

Oh and we know why windies cannot move now it us politricks, poor selection policy and visionless leadership hmmm sound like ball!!!?

[Assasin]

That is what I am kind of implying. The basic stats in cricket is a part of the game.

Do we use that stat as we should? You think if we did West Indies would be where we are today?

After the game, what do we do with that stats? Do we have anyone compiling that states and using it for development at any level?

[Stonigut]

You kidding, in cricket because you keep stats on every ball virtually you can look at all kinds of details, run rate per over, both battting and bowling from a team and individual standpoint, you can tell maiden overs by bowlers, number of maiden overs versus number of overs bowled, wicket rate versus overs bowled, wicket rate relative to runs scored, everything us measured so you have the base stats to chop, cut, dissect detail, we don't do none of that in Jakan ball, just goals, red and yellow, who played and how many minutes, you can even get number of shots taken by team, number of shots on goal etc etc, that is the detail that tell you what is actually happening.

Cricket and tracks are stats driven sports that is why we do so well in them, there is no bullwitting on performance either you do or you don't, you can't say I batted well and contributed and you score five runs of 250, in football a man can play all day and make just one cool looking touch and that's all we talk about.

When we get good performance data what it will tell us is some or many of our forward for example take twenty shots to get one goal or one of ten shots is actually on target, so for example look at Jamie Vardy this season, he had seventy shots, 33 on goal and 15 goals, that breaks down to roughly for every two shots he takes one is on target that is 50% then he us scoring at a rate of one goal for every 4.5 shots, that is how you identify best performers and that is equivalent to 9.85 seconds in 100 meter time (just a joke,but you get the point) a guy that is taking seventy shots with two goals and ten on target needs to sit. that performance data, feedback loop is non existent so we keep producing mediocre talent.

[Assasin]

Stoni, the only difference is in Cricket you have to keep score that tell you how many fours and six and how many wickets etc. other than that, what stats do we keep? Track and field you keep the time so you can time improvement but what other stats do we keep?

Where are the stats from the retired players, they maybe in the dumps. The stats that is kept are part of the game, not used for archives, reference or development. We have a few more people in track doing it but on a whole it is not done.

[Stonigut]

Can measure improvement but most importantly it can measure exactly where you are on the mountain skooe especially on productivity. Tired of seeing players at cm who look great on the ball but productivity wise are not creating opportunities for their counterparts.

[Stonigut]

That is not true Sass, maybe there is a culture of football is an art in Jamaica, this is lack of development on the part of our administrators, but look elsewhere stats are at the heart of cricket and track and field, i think some of these trackers are just volunteers not sure how it works in cricket and t+f, at least the collection process is the begining which is the very base of real analysis. That's how we tell who should be the fourth man or woman in 4*1 or 4*4 and we quickly go to the performance stats and look at fastest time, where it was run, consistency of times after that, current form etc etc and we all do that. The data is there as it is a part of the whole of the sport and it has been institutionalized over one hundred years.

In football we just measure goals, yellow and red cards in Jamaica, we now vtape all games or most games at mcup Dcup and rspl so Issa and Jff should commit to start adding new things to track a few things per year and commit to it. I would start with assists and shots and shots on goals. Then the following year could be something like possession statistics, player passing information, interceptions, tackles made, tackles won etc etc, a nice gradual progression to tracking key stats that we know are integral to player development in Jamaica.

[Assasin]

don't know bout stats alone identifying talent but what I do know is stats can measure improvement.

[Mosiah]

We are just lazy and not a nation of stats, and archives.

Look Paul Campbell during his days was able to identify every good goalie and work with them on a long term basis even when they were not the national keepers at the time.

That is the real reason we have this good crop of goal keeper.

Did he use stats to assist him in identifying these goalies?

There is a general consensus that Jamaicans, for whatever reason, don't do well at team sports. One could argue that goalkeeping is the least "team" in football. Hence our relative success.

[Stonigut]

It is not what you think it is, it is not the stats specifically it is the guy and the prigram who looks at the numbers, they set their nets, what type of net, length, strength, hole configuration and then you catch the fish you want., If he has a discerning mind then that is where the value comes in. It is just a vehicle to get you there but you must have the brains to dissect the data. That is the problem we have, no one focusing on dissecting the info or obtaining the information.

[Assasin]

We are just lazy and not a nation of stats, and archives.

Look Paul Campbell during his days was able to identify every good goalie and work with them on a long term basis even when they were not the national keepers at the time.

That is the real reason we have this good crop of goal keeper.

[Assasin]

Stoni a few questions.

If Stats is key to identifying talent, how is it that Albrighton was able to leave Villa? How is it that Vardy could have been in non league?

It takes more than stats mi brethren and it depends on what the talent scouts are looking for.

[Paul Marin]

Moneyball is just Hollywood hype, people have been using stats to identify and verify cream versus froth in every sport known to man. The shame is Jamaican ball is treated like an art and not a science and while it is nice to see artistic movements in ball I would much prefer to see grace and elegant movement in ballet or modern dance, now that is pure art, probably a little science as you can't have dancers that have no vertical leap.

Every aspect of ball is measurable and the sooner we figure this out the quicker we will improve and we will start developing superior performers, and ultimately seeing some Jamaican players dominating and making a strong impact in the top leagues, we must have the very best athletes with the strongest wills pushed forward, too many 'artistic' ballers clogging up the lane.

Jff/Issa etc needs to set the groundwork and start developing a wider set of performance detail than goals scored.

How easy/hard is stat collection at a grassroots level? I think there is a huge machine behind the stats that we may not be able to easily implement. Not sure though.