The pre-match opposition analysis process can be one of the most time consuming roles as an analyst depending on your strategy. This process allows you to analyze trends in the team's recent performances and can provide you with further tactical insight into the opposition's style of play. To create a high performance workflow there are three key components to build your opposition analysis strategy. Content, Process, and finally, Delivery.

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Content

To enable the formation of your Opposition Analysis Strategy, video content should be the starting point due to its importance in supporting the delivery and feedback process to coaches and players.  

The common question asked by analysts is how many and which games should I analyze of the opposition to get a stable profile?

Hudl League Exchange makes it simple to give and get video from every team in your conference, district or league. Once the league is set up, you’ll see the dedicated page under Exchanges. This is where you would come to upload your video for other teams to access and add other teams’ videos to your library.

The use of data and video can enhance the opposition analysis process, allowing teams to efficiently uncover oppositions style of play and tactical trends. 

Wyscout offers teams the possibility to download video and event data via API or from the Platform in XML or Excel format. This gives you the ability to transform the content into your opposition analysis through the use of Hudl Sportscode.

Opposition Analysis Strategy Model.

2. Process (For Analysts, Coaches and Players)

The ‘Analyst Persona’

Traditionally analysts took the sole responsibility for the compilation of the pre-match opposition analysis process. More recently analysts have been seen as deliverers but also a facilitator of the information that is gathered in a modern multidisciplinary approach through coaches, players and support staff. 

Through the ever-increasing education of coaches to use analysis software such as Hudl Sportscode and the ever-increasing options to use XML’s from data production companies such as Wyscout, it has given the time back to the analysts to provide a deeper level of analysis of the opposition using Event and Tracking data in parallel with video to provide an extra level of insight and evidence for the coaches and players to achieve success through the teams' performance.

Example workflow for the Analyst Persona

The ‘Coach Persona’

In Global Football historically the coaches have been reliant on the analysts to provide all the context about an opposition with their role to summarize and feedback to the players. More recently there has been a huge increase of coaches becoming part of the process rather than the end receiver of the information due to the improvement of education from analysts but also in coach education and software becoming easier to use and more coach-friendly. 

For this reason, coaches now have the ability to use analysis software such as Hudl Sportscode to create their own video profiles of an opposition to support a collaborative process. Whether the coach has a specific area to focus on or a full remit they can provide their expertise and experiences to enhance the level of detail and leave no stone unturned in creating a successful game plan for success.

Example workflow for the Coach Persona

The ‘Player Persona’

Players traditionally are at the end of the process, however many teams have started incorporating players within the process to better understand but also to take ownership due to players controlling the outcome of the performance on the pitch. Inspiration for this change has come from those who were open minded to look at other sports and industries.

The saying, “Tell me and I likely forget, teach me and I might remember, involve me and I will learn”, is key to understanding players in this context. Many successful coaches speak about embedding the players in the process to build that high performance culture around trust, ownership, responsibility and relationships to deliver on the pitch. 

Example workflow for the Player Persona

3. Delivery

Team Delivery

Delivering opposition analysis is the key process to enable coaches and players in all sports to understand the strength, weaknesses and opportunities to exploit to be successful in performance. 

Hudl Sportscode offers analysts, coaches and players the ability to bring to life the evidence gathered from the opposition analysis process. Creating playlists with video, custom slides, animations, telestrations and notes offers the tool to use in any opposition briefing or meeting.

Team meetings remain a common method to share but there is also a rise of unit and individual meetings pre-match that includes ownership of leading the session to flip towards the players with the coaches taking the role of facilitator.

Distribution

In a high performance opposition analysis workflow having the ability to distribute content to players and coaches in an efficient and effective process is fundamental. 

Once the content has been created through Hudl Sportscode, analysts have the ability to upload directly to Hudl.com to share with their wider performance team. Once the content is shared on Hudl.com players and coaches can collaborate on thoughts but also access the video in their own time dependent on their schedules. 

Learn more about Studio: Your new home for telestration

With Studio, Hudl Sportscode users can now quickly add professional, dynamic drawings and graphics to multiple angles in your video packages, all within one ecosystem of products.

Interested in learning more about global trends and high performance workflows in analysis and scouting in modern football? Register to our High Performance Workflows webinar series!

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