A Day in the Life of a Performance Analyst

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by Carl Carpenter

Carl Carpenter is a Performance Analyst for the University of Virginia men’s soccer team. Carl has graciously agreed to share what an actual day in the life of a soccer Performance Analyst is like.

6:30 AM

During the fall season, my day starts pretty early. Training sessions are in the mornings to allow our players to schedule classes for the afternoon and not be pressed for time. I’m very much a morning person, however, so this isn’t much of an issue for me. I live within a five-minute walk of the training grounds so after getting dressed I head off to meet with the other members of staff prior to our session beginning.

7:00 AM

The coaching staff and I meet in our staff locker room before practice to go back over the plan that we made the previous afternoon. During this time, I’ll put up video clips from yesterday’s session or match, depending on the day, and review them with the coaches. Our weeks always have a theme, for example, offensive organization (us with the ball) or defensive organization (us without the ball). The specifics of each session are varied as well, and focus on all thirds of the pitch. We film every session at UVA, and having this huge database of film gives us a huge advantage over those who don’t. After looking at the film and refreshing what we want to highlight in that day’s session, we relax until we meet with the players in the locker room. 

8:00 AM

We try to have video sessions with the players every day that we can. The college season is short and busy, so any tool we can use to get a bit of extra player development is important. The day before a match, we have a scouting report (prepared by myself) which highlights the opponent’s key players, team shape, overall strengths/weaknesses, set pieces, etc. When preparing these reports, I will use both a data-based approach as well as the conventional video scouting means (i.e. watching their previous games). InStat is our primary data provider, and while they do give us data packets to utilize, I prefer to look at the raw numbers myself and use what I think is useful for the given opponent. For example: if we are playing a team which I’ve seen will likely sit in a deeper block, I take a look at their underlying numbers (through the use of many well-known metrics and other more obscure ones) and see where we can gain an advantage. Combined with video, this gives a very well-rounded view of the opposition.

8:30 AM

Our training sessions normally last about an hour and a half, (warm-up and cool-down time included). My role during these sessions is to live-code them through Sportscode. At our training pitch and at our stadium we are lucky enough to have remote cameras installed through a company called Spiideo. In this camera feed, which gives me a “tactical feed” of games/practices, there are auto-follow features that track the position of the ball at all times and eliminate the need for me to film and code at the same time. At our training pitch, I connect my computer to the Spiideo feed through an SDI cable and feed it into Sportscode. Each and every repetition of a particular drill is cut out and assigned a “+” or “-“grade depending on the outcome – success in these drills is determined by the end goal of the session, or if there were positive moments from the team/player within them. 

What the Spiideo auto-follow feed looks like - It gives me a tactical view of the match/training

What the Spiideo auto-follow feed looks like - It gives me a tactical view of the match/training

10:00 AM

After training ends the staff and I all go for workouts in the athletic-center’s gym. I am obsessed with the Peloton bike and interval rides (yes I know) so that’s where I get my sweat in. After that, we grab a bite to eat, and go into the office for the remainder of the day.

12:30 PM

Once we reconvene in the office we will watch that day’s session, and decide which clips we eventually want to show to the team in our next film meeting. Every bit of the practice is scrutinized and small tweaks are made for future sessions to and reach peak performance. Once that is done, I add the videos to HUDL and our team DropBox site so the players can watch them whenever they want. Having this giant video database, alongside all the moments in the Sportscode timeline, means we have tons and tons of related clips to look back on in the future. 

1:00 PM

During the season, much of the afternoon is spent doing a mixture of administrative work and work on upcoming matches. Outside of doing my performance analysis work, I also help the coaching staff with operations. These tasks range from assisting with travel logistics, meals, discussing match day plans with incoming teams, and many more.

Outside of the season, particularly in the spring, I am given tons of leeway to work on experiments related to video/data analysis. Without the day to day strain of regular season matches, I can use all the tools at my disposal to take a deep dive into things that A) I find interesting, and B) will be useful for the coaching staff moving forward. For example, last spring I worked on a project relating to Zone 14 and how teams created goal-scoring chances through this important area of the pitch: be it through slips in behind a deep block, cutbacks, or wider crosses. Looking at how this study related to our opponents in the NCAA, it provided a good barometer about how we compared.

For matchdays at the stadium, I do not code through Spiideo, but with the assistance of a cameraman. While he films the match (in a slightly more zoomed view which the coaching staff prefers) I connect my computer via a mini recorder. The things I code for and the nomenclature associated with my coding window is tailored to our team specifically: our team’s own game model and the things the opposition are doing that we focus on. All of the things I live code are linked up to hotkeys on my keyboard, so I can get incredibly in-depth with clips I can cut out. During halftime of our matches, I go to the locker room to show clips to the staff and help provide insights from what I’ve seen. After the match, I generally “stack” both the tactical feed and normal camera view in Sportscode so I can view both at the same time.

Example of a typical Sportscode timeline

Example of a typical Sportscode timeline

3:00 PM

 Continuing my work in the office throughout the afternoon (sometimes a coffee trip is needed for a caffeine boost!) I spend a lot of time doing more video analysis work. While tools like Coach Paint remain one of the industry standards for telestration software, there are tons of alternatives I like to play with to give further context to my analysis. Through this telestration work, I can send players and staff videos marked up with imagery to essentially “narrate” the important points I’m trying to get across. For example, If a player was late to rotate in midfield I can show him the correct way in the context of a real-life scenario. Over time I have developed a great understanding with the coaching staff about the types of things they find important and want to highlight, but it’s during these times in the afternoon I confer with them about stuff they might want to show a player in an individual meeting. 

4:30 PM

As my day winds down, the remaining time in the office is spent planning for that next morning’s session. Like I mentioned previously, each week has a theme, and so we try to create sessions that build off what we worked on in the past. In a week revolving around how we press the opposition, we might have one session where we work on our pressure from goal kicks and another from general open play. This varies (once again thanks to college soccer’s schedule) from day to day in the intensity of each session as well. Helping us plan each player’s load on a day to day basis is our sports performance coach. Alongside assisting us with the team weight sessions, he helps set metrics on the coaching staff about how to properly manage fatigue throughout the season. Catapult/tracking data is one of the biggest ways we do this, and he can monitor this live throughout practices and games. Working with him, I can also use the tracking data to build visualizations (heatmaps, various charts, etc.) and link these to match video to gain further insights. 

5:00 PM

The day is done! I take the short walk back home and do what I like to do to relax and unwind – which usually consists of watching more soccer. Go figure.