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FT Football Article misses target

Shock horror.

 

This FT article discusses the rise in use of football analytics used by clubs to get the edge on each other. Simon Kuper is an excellent writer on all things football and this article readies us for substantial changes to the way the UK clubs are run. It's big stuff.

They commissioned some art/ magazine illustration to go alongside it. They are cute but meaningless. They exist only on the visual plane of interest. As art they are good. As analysis they are useless and trivial.

It feels like a missed opportunity to show the richness of the possibilities in real life Useful data-vis. 

So much of the 'tidal wave of data' trope is so abstract that a handsome illustration of the same game (MU vs Barca) using data-views new to the readership would have been better. And more editorially engaging.

Its the FT. I think their readers are quite aware of the pressing need to create more meaning and money from the data in our world and this could have been a tangible and engaging way to educate them in how to do so.

I hope to put my money where my mouth is on a current project. Details later this year.

 

Wikipedia World Cup Information Graphic/ table

 

Late night post - so ill be brief - 

There is tonnes of data generated by sport 

Sports fans love data.

so - there should be more sports graphics - i found this one on wikipedia - its great - reading down you get a great feel for trends in world cup performance - not just showing the winners but those in the running each year- uruguay's demise, germany's victories every four or five cups (eek) and holland's knocking on the door, spain's total absence (maybe this is the year spanish friends?)  i wont mention englands poor showing

what is obvious is that these are chartable because actual data of Placing exists - mapping the next ten places down is harder as many teams came joint 5th or 6th by not making the semis - but i reckon some better wrangling of group stage data could help 

that is where we all need to get better at thinking about the data a well as what it looks like

but this is ace - well done wikipedia - i've obviously gone a bit world cup stupid but maybe i'll set this as my next student project - 

Ferdinand Injury Graphic

 

I drew this the other day because I couldn't find any decent graphics that discussed Rio Ferdinand's recent injury.

(US readers - this is about the upcoming World Cup - this guy was our captain)

It's only a sketch - but it distills some information that although in the written press, needed showing visually.

- the frequency of his injuries (all through this last year) - this is the crucial matter - alot of the coverage was surprised and shocked at his injury. Even subtracting the normal WC hysteria - a blind man could see that another injury was part of a pattern. I'd show this by the clock-face-dial that showed his year and the missed games, starting in june last year, each segment would be a game that he (could have) featured in and his fitness status for that game (would be nice to show games that he played in and then compare the clean sheets too)

- the location and type of injuries also are interesting but really act as a way to draw people into the detailed data - the dial - as the two footballers do here

Maybe ill do more of these over the world cup - and if anyone wants to borrow this one, be my guest. Just make sure you cheer on England in the final.

World Cup Qualifying Graphic

England are going to the Next World Cup.

That's good news for us Englishmen. It is good to have qualified early - good to avoid the stress of playoffs (always used to be against Poland it seemed).

The victory stirred my general WC2010 interest. Who were we going to play? Who would we need to beat? But also who is having the kind of trouble we used to have? Which 'fancied teams' are giving their fans a rough run-in? 

The sports-media had these kind of details in text and the odd table on view - but I felt something was missing. It turns out there are quite a few big teams that are having difficulty but no way of working out the scale of this upset - or if the 'mighty' were indeed falling.

So I thought of an idea for a graphic (the basic idea of which could fit any media). 

The Story Idea is "are big teams having difficulty qualifying for the word cup?"

To do this, the graphic would need to show two main variables in it's search for a correlation - Strength Of Team and Qualifying Status.

Here it is (sketch form only) - Big version here or click image below

The best way to show the strength of team was the Fifa rankings (true to 12.9.09) of the top 32 teams in the world - those that should be in with the best chance of qualifying.

Qualifying status was then marked with colours.

Green for Qualified

Yellow for In qualifying position - by playoffs potentially

Red for not in qualifying position

Then it got tricky. It isn't just a question of securing a qualifying position.

In UEFA countries, unless you are top of your table, you need to be in the higher-points qualifiers to get into playoffs - so even 2nd place in a table isn't a guarantee. So I was left with a quandry - Either keep the yellow for this overall place rating with the inherent complexity of each teams position shielded - of use more colours - to describe the different states.

I felt that too many colours would render all the colours less useful. So I added secondary colour marks in the yellow bars.

Green circle  • - Top of group

Red circle  • - In playoff position for CONCACAF vs SAmerica.

With hindsight, I don't think I need the red dot. I was obsessing about how amazing it is that a team like Argentina wouldn't qualify. Reading about Maradona and considering the pressure that the whole team was under made me park my better judgement - that bar should have been just yellow - they were in the qualifying place (currently a play off against El Salvador - so we'll probably be seeing them in South Africa).

South America qualifying table

Other notes -

- The right of the page would have provided a place for more detailed display of the tables and relevant data callouts - I've only got a few, thinking to just select the relevant tables/ data stories.

But maybe one should show them all - using the colours in the main chart as highlights and guiding points to the key stories in the complexity. By presenting All Tables, the reader would soon be aware of the complexity - and having read such tables before - would go about it in their own time.

- I would illustrate this page with two photos - one player (probably English) celebrating and one player probably Ronaldo) looking annoyed.

Come on England.

Guardian Football Graphics

This graphic (Guardian, Sat 8 August, 2009) is very sound - subtle and non spectacular, but dense and informative - and energetic.

They are well integrated into the page.

Each is a sound example of signposting (the picture of the player), colour leading the way to the key data point and its place in the team structure (the red dot) and the analysis in text.

Maybe there could have been some more efforts to analyse the actual success or effectiveness of each player - but that could have resulted in too many statty sparklines and mini charts - that I suspect only dataphiles find interesting.

Well done The Guardian.

Portugese Sporting Information Graphics

I saw these recently on Chiqui Esteban's excellent infographicsnews.com.

They are from a new newspaper launched in Portugal called "i"

They show why the Latin world is ahead in newspaper information graphics.

I like the way the footballer comparisons sets up its central question - "who is best?" - you can see that due to the isolation and placement of the two cut-out photos that this is the main point. 

The data points are then secondary but they do their tasks efficiently - even more so in the tennis player one where the quantitative comparison of tournaments won is mixed with the timeline with great economy. 

I do think the tactics-illustrations could be a little more detailed - there is a leap from the photographic actuality of a known star to the same star being represented by a generic aesthetic that could represent anyone. 

I'd have liked to have seen caricatures of each footballer there - abstracted versions of them that articulated the particular skills but used more recognition and fun.

But these are crisp and accessible - excellent.