Post-match
All of the information that’s collected during matches enables a sophisticated post-match process.
“One of the things we’ve brought in this year is a detailed technical debrief on a Monday after a game on a Sunday,” says O’Brien.
“All the clips we’ve created in-game, via Hudl Sportscode, we put them into an organiser and add notes, annotations and labels.
“This is based on how we’d like to play: so how we play out from the back from goal kicks, how we progress the ball, how we press goal kicks, how we press high and some of our tactical concepts as well.”
Combining physical data with video provides important context, as O’Brien, who was previously First Team Performance Analyst at AFC Wimbledon, explains.
“We go through all those clips and that’s where we see some of Matthew’s information coming in, some of the data that he’s seeing from WIMU.
“That gives us vital context. If we play against a team that drops into a low block, we might see that our pressures are much lower, we don’t get as much of an opportunity to press.
“We might see that there’s less space for our wide forwards to run in behind. So we might see the drop off in the physical data and apply the context of the game and say, ‘Well, actually it’s not due to a lack of work rate.’
“We’re able to use that as a forum to apply context to the data we’re seeing.”
This season Fulham Women have also started using the Hudl Studio telestration tool, which enables them to add dynamic drawings and graphics to their video footage.
“We can highlight, add trackers, player paths – a whole load of things,” O’Brien says.
The club are also in the process of creating a post-match report window within Sportscode that will link physical data to video.
A code window is a customisable interface used by coaches, analysts and performance staff to tag, label and analyse video footage.
Clicking buttons like shot, tackle or turnover while watching the video creates timestamped data points (instances) on a timeline which can then generate clips, stats, reports or highlights automatically.
“The code window we’re using is based off a template that came from the Academy, that each of the different age groups and the women’s department can adapt to their season plan, their game model, or how they’d like to play,” O’Brien explains.
“We’re looking at a core sort of event data that we want to capture and then making it a little bit more bespoke for each team, because not every team is going to set up in the same way. And that’s what we’re doing at the start of the season.”