AUTHOR=Martens Florian , Dick Uwe , Brefeld Ulf 

TITLE=Space and Control in Soccer

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Sports and Active Living

VOLUME=Volume 3 - 2021

YEAR=2021

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/sports-and-active-living/articles/10.3389/fspor.2021.676179

DOI=10.3389/fspor.2021.676179

ISSN=2624-9367

ABSTRACT=In many team sports, the ability to control and generate space in dangerous areas on the pitch is crucial for a team's success. This  holds in particular for soccer.  In this paper, we revisit ideas from Fernandez & Bornn (2018) who introduce  interesting space-related quantities including pitch control and pitch value.  We identify player influence on the pitch with player movements and turn their concepts into data-driven quantities that give rise to a variety of different applications. Furthermore, we devise a novel space generation measure to visualize team and player strategies. We provide empirical evidence for the usefulness of our contribution and showcase our approach in the context of game analyses.