AUTHOR=Dick Uwe , Tavakol Maryam , Brefeld Ulf 

TITLE=Rating Player Actions 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.2021.682986

DOI=10.3389/fspor.2021.682986

ISSN=2624-9367

ABSTRACT=We present a data-driven model that rates player actions in soccer with respect to their contribution to  ball possession phases. Our  approach consists of two interconnected parts: (i) a trajectory prediction model that is learned from real tracking data and predicts movements of players and  (ii) a prediction model for the outcome of a ball possession phase. Interactions between players and ball are captured by a graph recurrent neural network and we show  empirically that the network  reliably predicts both, player trajectories as well as outcomes of ball possession phases. We derive a set of aggregated performance indicators to compare players wrt. to their contribution to their team's success.