Using network science to analyze football passing networks: dynamics, space, time and the multilayer nature of the game

Abstract

From the diversity of applications of Network Science, in this Opinion Paper we are concerned about its potential to analyze one of the most extended group sports: Football (soccer in U.S. terminology). As we will see, Network Science allows addressing different aspects of the team organization and performance not captured by classical analyses based on the performance of individual players. The reason behind relies on the complex nature of the game, which, paraphrasing the foundational paradigm of complexity sciences "can not be analyzed by looking at its components (i.e., players) individually but, on the contrary, considering the system as a whole" or, in the classical words of after-match interviews "it's not just me, it's the team".

arXiv comment7 pages, 1 figure

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Cited by in corpus (9)

• Social physics
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• A Graph-Based Method for Soccer Action Spotting Using Unsupervised Player Classification
• Testing SensoGraph, a geometric approach for fast sensory evaluation
• Dodge and survive: modeling the predatory nature of dodgeball
• Asymmetries in football: The pass-goal paradox
• Football tracking networks: Beyond event-based connectivity
• Maximizing the algebraic connectivity in multilayer networks with arbitrary interconnections