PLAYR, a football tracker used to measure live player stats, is utilising heightened data to provide greater insight into player performances.
Coinciding with its first anniversary, the group unveiled statistics such as distance covered and sprint speeds, while also measuring players’ heat maps on the field.
The system also utilised its ‘Match to a Pro’ feature, in which users’ heatmaps are compared and matched with professional Premier League players. In this aspect, Manchester United’s Fred received the most matches, with second place going to Jorginho of Chelsea, and former Arsenal midfielder Aaron Ramsey picking up third.
Tony Strudwick, ex Head of Performance at Manchester United, discussed his preferred methods of training: “I always like to look at the intensity over time, whether or not it’s in five-minute blocks, but looking at these really intense bursts and how you can sustain that.”
As is preferred by Strudwick, PLAYR allows for users to track their progress, with those who engaged consecutively for three months registering improvements in performance – averaging an improvement of 3.54% in top speed, 11.7% in distance covered, and 26.1% increase in sprint distance.
Regarding speed, on average the fastest users came from World Cup runners up Croatia, with an average speed of 7.16m/s. With this being said, there are two surprise table toppers when speed was broken down into genders as Hong Kong (Male – 7.41m/s) and Saudi Arabia (Female – 6.22m/s) registered as the quickest nations.
Lastly, the data presented showed the age does in fact matter, with sprint distance peaking between the ages of 18 and 24 at 540m.
