Good sites for stats/tactics etc

flahavaj

Spotted this post on another forum and thought a few of ye might find it useful. Pretty amazing collection of websites. Those of you that work at a computer won't ever do a tap again. Anyone know of any more?

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Stat Resources

http://www.whoscored.com/ - Database of Opta stats from all major leagues. No in depth match stats/detail but more info then you will usually find collected into one place.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/chalkboards Guardian Chalkboards - Limited Opta match data from all Premier League matches. Note that when you load a match and choose the event you want to look at (shots, passes etc), by clicking on the different options it filters them into more refined groups. E.g. if you choose Tackles from the drop down menu then click on Won it splits them up into Aerial, Ground and Take On (which means Dribbles fwiw). You can also move the slider on the bottom to examine only certain time ranges. This is particularly useful when collecting data on a player's passes. Instead of having to count the number of short/long or forward/backward passes all at once you can take them in 5-10 minute blocks to make it easier. Apparently you now have to sign in to access the Chalkboards.

http://www.uefa.com/uefa/mediaservices/presskits/index.html UEFA CL/EL Press Kits - includes in depth info on CL and EL matches in downloadable .pdf format. The average player position/formation and the player passing distribution ones are particularly interesting.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/rankings/4949054/Premier-League-Statistics.html Telegraph PL Stats - Limited stats on PL teams, players and referees. You can also click on a team's name to go to the team specific page then click Team X Statistics on the right hand side for more specific data on that team's players.

http://www.bundesliga.de/de/index.php Bundesliga Official Site - In depth Opta data on every Bundesliga match and player. For some reason the Bundesliga has an agreement with Opta that allows them to release all this wonderful Opta data free for everyone. The site is in German and English but if you go through the English language site you can't access the spielmatrices where all the best stuff is. To access click Bundesliga at the top -> Spieltag & Spielplan, then click on the match day and the match. Under Analyse you can find a lot of match data as well as a graph charting the players' average locations as the match went on, but Matrix is what you really want. When you open up a spielmatrix you choose a player or players from the left hand side and then filter the stats on the right. It's in German but not hard to figure out using Google Translate. For example just by clicking the Leverkusen/HSV match and choosing Arturo Vidal I can see he had 51 successful passes, 6 headers, 5 unsuccessful crosses, 1 shot off target, 7 successful tackles etc etc.

http://www.lfp.fr/ French League Site - has some limited data in the pop-up box at the bottom of the screen. You can use Google Translate to figure out what all the stuff means. The dropdown menus at the top let you filter the data by matchday, team and player, home and away, by season and by specific clubs.

http://www.marca.com/estadisticas/futbol/primera/ Marca.com Match Stats - has some limited match data. Click through the matches to get to the data.

http://sports.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/epl/player_leaders.asp Sports Illustrated data - has limited data on many leagues, I linked the Premier League stuff but navigating to the other leagues isn't hard. At the top of the page go to Soccer -> Leagues -> choose league, then at that page above it click Player Leaders then click Other Stats where appropriate. I use this mostly for goalkeeper data since they have info on saves, penalties saved/faced, goals allowed average, save% and shots on target faced that I can't find elsewhere.

http://www.mlssoccer.com/stats MLS Opta Data - apparently the MLS has come to similar agreement with Opta as the Bundesliga has and will have in depth Opta data on their site available to the public. I have never used it so I don't know where to find it/if it exists but if it's there it can't be that hard to find.

http://www.football-data.co.uk/data.php Football-Data.co.uk - Downloadable historical match data from all top leagues. Very useful if you are trying to create models on how shots or corners or fouls etc influence goals or other factors. Looking at bigger picture stuff I mean. Also has historical betting data.

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/?cc=5739 ESPN Soccernet GameCasts - they have GameCasts for all PL/CL matches, showing stuff like average position, heatmaps etc.

http://www.rsssf.com/ RSSSF - huge source of historical data. Results, no specific match data.

http://twitter.com/#!/optajoe OptaJoe Twitter - from there you can also access all the other Opta Twitter accounts. They post random stats on a daily basis. More trivia then actually useful stuff.

http://www.football-lineups.com/ Football-Lineups.com - extremely useful wiki-based lineup database.

http://www.soccerway.com/ Soccerway.com - comprehensive results database

Stat Blogs

http://blog.statdna.com/ StatDNA Blog - Opta-like company who use their database to analyse football. Includes some Brazilian Serie A stuff.

http://www.soccermetricsblog.com/ Soccermetrics - very good soccermetrics blog. Can be quite technical at times.

http://www.soccerbythenumbers.com/ Soccer By The Numbers - more accessible soccermetrics blog written by a Cornell professor. Updated frequently, always worth reading.

http://socceranalysts.com/ Soccer Analysts - your one stop shop for soccermetric analysis. Acts as a collective soccer analysis blog where several different blogs (included the three mentioned above) are updated. Basically just bookmark this blog and you will get the updates from all the relevant blogs.

http://analyticalfootball.blogspot.com/ Analytical Football - No longer updated but includes a lot of valuable stuff in the archives like the goal differential/league points articles.

http://numbersgameblog.blogspot.com/ A Beautiful Numbers Game - football analysis from a stats and economics perspective, occasionally Arsenal-specific

http://www.bepress.com/jqas/ Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports - Academic journal, has lots of good stuff hidden in the archives. They say you need a subscription to access the articles but I just put in a fake email address and was able to download everything I wanted.

Tactics

http://www.zonalmarking.net/ Zonal Marking - the original

http://timhi.wordpress.com/ Talking About Football - tactics talk, includes stuff on famous old teams/matches, currently on hiatus

http://santapelota.blogspot.com/ santapelota - infrequently updated, very good blog from some Brazilian guy

http://11tegen11.wordpress.com/ 11 tegen 11 - tactical match reports from Dutch football

http://defensivemidfielder.wordpress.com/ Defensive Midfielder - tactical match reports from Germany

http://www.holdingmidfield.com/?author=11 Tactical Articles from Petr Chulkov - only a few but all very detailed

http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/jonathanwilson Jonathan Wilson's Guardian Articles

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/writers/jonathan_wilson/archive/ Jonathan Wilson's Sports Illustrated Articles