Winners, champions and heroes. 2018/19 was magical!
The season is over. Summer is coming and while the clubs strive to put together the best squad, fans are desperately following all transfer rumors. Many of our clients are in close contact with our Datascouts to discuss which players are the ultimate replacements, but I want to take a brief moment to look back at the first half of 2019 before we’ll dive into the ever-exciting transfer window.
Champions
Working together with world-class people in the football industry is always exciting. Every client has the ultimate urge to win, to outperform their goals and to strive for the highest possible level. For me, it was bizarre to see our clients outperform their goals in the first part of 2019. Ajax won the title, the cup and unfortunately stranded in the dying seconds of the Champions League semi-finals. Two other clients played in the semi-finals of the Europa League and one managed to make it to Baku. KRC Genk had an astonishing season and ended with the well-deserved league title. Paderborn and Union Berlin promoted to the Bundesliga, Stade Reims had their best position in over ten years and many other clients outperformed the expectations.
Growth
We had a crazy season within SciSports as well. We released the Shadow Team, Player Roles and Contribution Values in our SciSports platform. BallJames showcased real-time player and ball tracking with clients and stakeholders during live matches at the Heracles Almelo Stadium. We published a paper on mental pressure at MIT Sloan, we were present at dozens of worldwide events with partners and clients and we hired another group of outstanding bright employees that are eager to enrich the football industry.
Transfer window
The most important and nerve-racking time of the year is almost there. Clubs have the opportunity to find new players and players have the opportunity to find a new club. Agents are the ones that are in the middle of this entire process and request our Datascouts if there is a good player-club fit for their clients.
Our Datascouts are working night and day during this period to serve our clients with the best possible assistance. The ultimate goal for clubs is to find the best players for the available budget. The new player roles functionality in SciSports’ platform speeds up the process of finding these hidden gems. Clubs create a pre-selection of interesting players in SciSports’ platform, they look for video footage on Wyscout, they visit live matches, talk to the player and ultimately negotiate with the agent to determine if a deal is possible. We are honored and proud that we are in the decision making process of over fifty clients in the football industry.
The market is moving fast, with major acquisitions and partnerships. The only way forward is to move even faster. We will focus on creating synergies with innovative partners and bright companies. Our dedicated team is always focused on customer-centric developments in the fields of data-driven player recruitment and autonomous player and ball tracking. Our deep learning and AI algorithms find new patterns to uncover hidden gems or playing styles. The team is eager to outperform our goals and expectations with love for the game and passion to discover!
