For the 2024 MLS season, Chicago Fire F.C. and Footovision have forged a strong partnership. At the heart of this collaboration is the implementation of Coachvision, a cutting-edge analysis platform, designed to harness the power of combined tracking and event data, alongside video, offering deeper, more actionable insights.
This blog explores how Chicago Fire's Performance and Medical department, under Director of Performance Nacho Torreño, is leveraging Footovision's advanced technology to elevate team and player performance. We’ll delve into how this data-driven approach is being used to assess and prevent injuries, enhance training sessions, and provide actionable insights across multiple departments.
To provide a clearer picture of this innovative integration, we spoke with Hodong Cho, Chicago Fire’s lead sports scientist, who shared valuable insights into how this powerful combination of data and video is transforming the way the team prepares, performs, and progresses.
Injury Management
One area of physical performance analysis which plays a vital role in elite football is injury management. To understand this in more detail, we spoke to Cho about the process the performance team developed at Chicago Fire. “The application of physical data is absolutely essential for injury management of our players. At Chicago Fire, we implement a number of fundamental processes using physical data to gain insights on player injuries to help us to better understand how to prevent and treat them. A good example of where we’ve been able to further develop this area of our analysis this season is by assessing the data alongside the video, in the context of the game situation. This allows our performances coaches and athletic trainers to better understand how injuries may have occurred, with a view to rehabilitation and crucially, reducing the risk of reoccurrences.
"For instance, this season we had a player who, unfortunately, suffered a significant injury, in-game. After the match, we were able to quickly identify the moment the injury occurred using Coachvision, and assess the players’ physical performance data and outputs in the build-up to the injury. We used Footovision’s phases of play data to assess the moments leading up to the injury and were able to identify that the player accelerated quickly, before turning sharply. This was after a period of build-up play, which led to a quick transition by the opposition, which likely contributed to the injury. By analysing the contexualised physical data alongside the video, our return to play coordinator Ruben Castro is now able to implement specific strength and conditioning drills for the player as part of his rehabilitation process, replicating game specific scenarios and intensities, as we try to prevent any reoccurrence of the injury in future."
Translating Game Data to Training and Development
A fundamental aspect of physical performance data in elite football is applying game data to training and the development of players, ensuring that each player is constantly developing and aligned with the physical demands of the game, as well as the expectations of the coaching staff. Game philosophy is closely linked to the physicality of teams and players, meaning that a particular style of play implemented by a coach will have a significant impact on the physical demands on players within training and in-game. Having a detailed understanding of the physical attributes of individual players through the mechanism of advanced data, allows coaches and analysts to shape their training plans and future development.
We asked Cho to share some examples of how this process is implemented at Chicago Fire and the crucial role that data and video plays.
"We spend a lot of time analysing the game specific performance outputs of our players and using it to guide our Development Plans for each player. Each and every player is fundamentally different from a physical performance perspective, regardless of their role or position on the pitch, making it vitally important that we’re providing them with the appropriate Development Plans to help improve their performance and fit within our style of play.
"For instance, we have two centre backs who have very different physical attributes and therefore, two individual Development Plans. Our use of combined tracking and event data with video from the games allows us to design specific training sessions for each player. For instance, one of our centre backs, we work closely with on our attacking corners and transitions from attack to defence. Through Coachvision, we are able to quickly and easily filter down game specific scenarios such as attacking corners, leading to an opposition counter-attack, and evaluate the physical performance outputs of the player. We can assess his top speed and acceleration profiles whilst making recovery runs and in doing so, John [Assistant Director of Performance, John Grace] can design specific training regimes to mimic these game situations and ensure that the player is being tested with the same intensity in training, as he is in the match."
Future Development of Physical Performance Data in Football
As data analysis in football constantly evolves and develops, offering more detailed and advanced insights, we asked Cho where he felt the next area of analytics would see the most crucial advancements within physical performance.
"We’re already doing so much with tracking and event data to understand player performance in games, but an area that I believe there is huge scope for further development is within training. Traditionally, we utilise GPS data in training to assess and evaluate the physical performance of players, but there’s much more that can be done with combined tracking and event data in training, linking everything back to game philosophy and playing style. Tracking and event data gives us so much more contextualised information compared to GPS data which of course, still has an important role to play in physical performance analysis."
