Unlocking Creativity with POI: Positional Intelligence in Football Analysis ???

At Brandsen Sports, we’re introducing an innovative metric: POI (Positional Intelligence). This groundbreaking KPI measures a player’s ability to understand and utilize optimal positioning on the field, enhancing team dynamics and effectiveness.

By combining POI with other metrics such as chance creation rates, successful dribbles in key areas, unexpected passes, and creative passing range, we provide a comprehensive analysis of a player’s creative impact.

Why does POI matter? It helps clubs identify players with exceptional spatial awareness and decision-making—hidden talents who may not stand out in traditional stats but are vital for unlocking defenses and driving team success.

Creating a composite metric like Positional Intelligence (POI) involves combining various performance indicators to assess a player's on-field intelligence and creativity. Here's a conceptual approach to formulating the POI metric:

Define Individual Metrics

• Chance Creation Rate (CCR): Number of key passes leading to a shot per 90 minutes.
• Successful Dribbles in Key Areas (SDKA): Number of successful dribbles in attacking third per 90 minutes.
• Unexpected Passes (UP): Passes that break defensive lines or are deemed unpredictable, per 90 minutes.
• Creative Passing Range (CPR): A measure of the variety and distance of successful passes contributing to offensive play, per 90 minutes.

Normalize Metrics

• Convert each metric to a standardized scale (e.g., 0 to 1) to ensure comparability. This can be achieved using min-max normalization:
• Normalized?Metric=Maximum?Value?Minimum?Value / Actual?Value?Minimum?Value

Assign Weights

Determine the importance of each metric relative to POI. For instance:

• CCR: 30%
• SDKA: 25%
• UP: 25%
• CPR: 20%

Calculate POI

Combine the weighted metrics to compute the POI score:

POI=(w1×CCR)+(w2×SDKA)+(w3×UP)+(w4×CPR)\text{POI} = (w_1 \times \text{CCR}) + (w_2 \times \text{SDKA}) + (w_3 \times \text{UP}) + (w_4 \times \text{CPR})POI=(w1×CCR)+(w2×SDKA)+(w3×UP)+(w4×CPR)

Where:

• w1,w2,w3,w4w_1, w_2, w_3, w_4w1,w2,w3,w4 are the weights assigned to each metric.

Example Calculation:

Assume a player has the following normalized metrics:

• CCR: 0.8
• SDKA: 0.6
• UP: 0.7
• CPR: 0.9

With the assigned weights:

• CCR (30%): 0.3×0.8=0.240.3 \times 0.8 = 0.240.3×0.8=0.24
• SDKA (25%): 0.25×0.6=0.150.25 \times 0.6 = 0.150.25×0.6=0.15
• UP (25%): 0.25×0.7=0.1750.25 \times 0.7 = 0.1750.25×0.7=0.175
• CPR (20%): 0.2×0.9=0.180.2 \times 0.9 = 0.180.2×0.9=0.18

Summing these:

POI=0.24+0.15+0.175+0.18=0.745\text{POI} = 0.24 + 0.15 + 0.175 + 0.18 = 0.745POI=0.24+0.15+0.175+0.18=0.745

Thus, the player's POI score is 0.745 on a scale from 0 to 1.

We tested our metric on some famous players now retired over several decades during major domestic or international competitions and compare them with the current ballon d'or Rodri. See outcomes below :

Considerations:

• Data Availability: Ensure access to reliable data sources for each metric.
• Weight Adjustment: Customize weights based on the specific needs and priorities of your analysis.
• Validation: Regularly validate and adjust the formula to maintain its relevance and accuracy.

This formula offers a structured method to quantify a player's positional intelligence by integrating multiple facets of creative play.

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