Disney Research soccer formations analysis suggests home advantage is result of execution

Formation detection could be new tool for visually summarizing a game

2014-02-27

(Press-News.org) An automated analysis by Disney Research Pittsburgh of team formations used during an entire season of professional soccer provides further evidence that visiting teams are less successful than home teams because they play conservatively, not because of a mythical home advantage.

The researchers, employing the first automated method for detecting formations, analyzed a whole season of player and ball tracking data compiled by Prozone for a top-tier professional soccer league. They found that teams usually played the same formations for both home and away games, but that the way they executed those formations was significantly different.

The players consistently played more forward up the field at home than they do on the road, both when attacking and defending. The home team thus is more likely to win the ball when it is in an advanced position, which can lead to more shots on goal.

"It also means that home teams actually run less, so they don't get as tired during the match," said Patrick Lucey, a Disney researcher specializing in automatic measurement of human behavior.

The researchers will present their findings at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, Feb. 28-March 1 in Boston, MA.

The automated formation detection method developed by Disney Research also summarizes game information in a visual form.

According to Lucey, "You can think of it as a weather map that shows which team is dominating and the tactics that each team is using."

An earlier study by Lucey and his colleagues, which used ball action data compiled by Opta for a professional soccer league's season, showed that performance measures such as shooting and passing percentages were similar for home and visiting teams. But home teams more often had the ball in the forward third of the field, where players were in position to get more shots on goal. Lucey said it appeared visiting teams were playing "not to lose," rather than playing "to win," reflecting the common wisdom to "win at home and draw away."

The new study takes that analysis deeper, showing that the home/away differences are the result of how formations are executed, not different formations.

Recognizing player formations is relatively easy for human observers, but until now has been difficult for computerized methods, Lucey said. The Disney researchers, however, have found a way to account for players as they swap roles during the course of play.

While a team scout might be able to summarize the formations used in a game by an upcoming opponent, the computerized method enables detailed analysis of multiple games or an entire season of play – far more data than any human could make sense of. This formation analysis also can occur during a game, providing a tool that might help both coaches and broadcast commentators visualize team performance in real time.

INFORMATION: The majority of this analysis was conducted by Alina Bialkowsi who was an intern working under Lucey. Other members of the Disney Research team were Peter Carr, Yisong Yue and Iain Matthews. Further information about the study is available on the project web site, http://www.disneyresearch.com/project/strategy-analysis-in-soccer/. About Disney Research

Disney Research is a network of research laboratories supporting The Walt Disney Company. Its purpose is to pursue scientific and technological innovation to advance the company's broad media and entertainment efforts. Disney Research is managed by an internal Disney Research Council co-chaired by Disney-Pixar's Ed Catmull and Walt Disney Imagineering's Bruce Vaughn, and including the Directors of the individual labs. It has facilities in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Boston and Zürich. Research topics include computer graphics, video processing, computer vision, robotics, radio and antennas, wireless communications, human-computer interaction, displays, data mining, machine learning and behavioral sciences.

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Altruistic suicide in organisms helps relatives

2014-02-27

The question of why an individual would actively kill itself has been an evolutionary mystery. Death could hardly provide a fitness advantage to the dying individual. However, a new study has found that in single-celled algae, suicide benefits the organism's relatives. "Death can be altruistic – we showed that before – but now we know that programmed cell death benefits the organism's relatives and not just anybody," says Dr Pierre Durand from the Department of Molecular Medicine and Haematology and the Sydney Brenner Institute for Molecular Bioscience (SBIMB) at Wits ...

After death, twin brains show similar patterns of neuropathologic changes

2014-02-27

Despite widespread use of a single term, Alzheimer's disease is actually a diverse collection of diseases, symptoms and pathological changes. What's happening in the brain often varies widely from patient to patient, and a trigger for one person may be harmless is another. In a unique study, an international team of researchers led by USC psychologist Margaret Gatz compared the brains of twins where one or both died of Alzheimer's disease. They found that many of the twin pairs not only had similar progressions of Alzheimer's disease and dementia prior to death, but they ...

Closest, brightest supernova in decades is also a little weird

2014-02-27

A bright supernova discovered only six weeks ago in a nearby galaxy is provoking new questions about the exploding stars that scientists use as their main yardstick for measuring the universe. Called SN 2014J, the glowing supernova was discovered by a professor and his students in the United Kingdom on Jan. 21, about a week after the stellar explosion first became visible as a pinprick of light in its galaxy, M82, 11.4 million light years away. Still visible today through small telescopes in the Big Dipper, it is the brightest supernova seen from Earth since SN1987A, ...

Cushing's syndrome: A genetic basis for cortisol excess

2014-02-27

An international team of researchers led by an endocrinologist at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (LMU) in Munich has identified genetic mutations that result in uncontrolled synthesis and secretion of the stress hormone cortisol. Cortisol is a hormone that is produced by the adrenal gland in response to stressful events, and modulates a whole spectrum of physiological processes. An international research collaboration has now identified genetic mutations that lead to the production and secretion of cortisol in the absence of an underlying stressor. The discovery emerged ...

Why dark chocolate is good for your heart

2014-02-27

It might seem too good to be true, but dark chocolate is good for you and scientists now know why. Dark chocolate helps restore flexibility to arteries while also preventing white blood cells from sticking to the walls of blood vessels. Both arterial stiffness and white blood cell adhesion are known factors that play a significant role in atherosclerosis. What's more, the scientists also found that increasing the flavanol content of dark chocolate did not change this effect. This discovery was published in the March 2014 issue of The FASEB Journal. "We provide a more ...

System-wide analyses have underestimated the importance of transcription in animals

2014-02-27

Over the last ten years, a number of studies have suggested that, in animal cells, translation and protein turnover play a larger role in determining the different levels at which proteins are expressed than transcription. The major evidence supporting these claims is a weak correlation between system-wide protein and mRNA abundance measurements. A highly cited Nature article by Schwanhausser et al. in 2011 provides the most comprehensive example of such analyses. A new study just published in PeerJ by Li et al., however, questions the conclusions of these papers. This ...

Cancer vaccine could use immune system to fight tumors

2014-02-27

CINCINNATI—Cincinnati Cancer Center (CCC) and UC Cancer Institute researchers have found that a vaccine, targeting tumors that produce a certain protein and receptor responsible for communication between cells and the body's immune system, could initiate the immune response to fight cancer. These findings, published in the Feb. 27 online edition of the journal Gene Therapy, build on previously reported research and could lead to new treatments for cancer. Principal Investigator John Morris, MD, clinical co-leader of the Molecular Therapeutics and Diagnosis Program for ...

Arizona State University's Dust Devil Microgravity Research Team Has Astrophysics Experiment Proposal Accepted to NASA's Microgravity University

2014-02-27

The Dust Devils Microgravity Research Team of Arizona State University has been accepted to this year's Microgravity University run by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The proposal consisted of an astrophysics experiment testing the first seconds of galaxy formation. ASU's Microgravity Research Team will be heading to Texas's Ellington Field, part of Johnson Space Center, in April to test their experiment on the modified Boeing 727-200, a plane that creates near-weightlessness during the flight. The astrophysics experiment being tested tries ...

Be Part of the New Publishing Revolution with "The Last Word"

2014-02-27

The past decade has been a time of great upheaval for the publishing industry, with the major publishers' stranglehold over the book world being wrested away by independent authors seeking more creative control over their work. But it is no easy thing for an author to challenge these corporate Goliaths; funding their projects alone can seem an insurmountable task. For one independent author, the $7,500.00 needed to bring his novel to life would be impossible alone. However, thanks to the relatively new phenomenon of crowdfunding, Paul Combs, author of the novel "The ...

Blair, Bohle & Whitsitt, PLLC Announces Merger with Austin and Falls, CPAs

2014-02-27

Blair, Bohle & Whitsitt, PLLC (BBW) announces a major expansion of its current operations through an agreement to merge with Austin and Falls, CPAs effective January 1, 2014. The combined firm will offer an enhanced mix of tax compliance, assurance, and advisory services to individuals and the business community in Charlotte and the counties surrounding it. The merger will expand BBW's pre-merger annual revenue by approximately 25%, but will continue to focus on individuals and businesses seeking client-centered services from an experienced team of trusted advisors. ...

Disney Research soccer formations analysis suggests home advantage is result of execution

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES: