Telling a story with stats
In a recent podcast, Sam Larner chatting all things statistics with Jess. Here's an excerpt which discusses how to use stats as a grassroot coach
One way of collecting stats as a grassroots coach is within the training environment. This can make it easier than a match, as you have a bit more time at a training session
The first thing to do is trust your gut. The joy of analysis is that it sits in the gap between what you think you know and what's actually true.
For example, if you think your team drops too many passes, you can set up a passing skill game or game situation where there’s alot of passing involved.
You could then mark down how many passes were completed and how many were dropped. At the end of the 5-10 minute game you could have 70-150 passes, depending on the intensity of the game.
After doing the same stat collection every week for 3 weeks, you can help chart progression. We would expect the progression in a match would lag behind training as it’s a tougher environment.
Think about what stats you want to collect. At the start, and I’ve made this mistake, you’re keen and want to collect 95 different bits of data.
Then it gets into the winter months and it starts to become frustrating, which is understandable.
Set a realistic expectation for what you think you can achieve. Then pick the most impactful stats that you can collect and analyse in the time you have available.
I’m a big cycling fam. Cycling is stacked full of stats. One of the key ones is percieved exertion, which is how hard you think you’re going.
That could be something you can bring into your training sessions and games
You could ask: how well do you think you played on a scale of 1-10. You could also write your own scores down for each player. This enables you to see how the player views themselves.
For example: if you’re saying they played 9/10 and the player says 5, there’s a conversation there you can have about why they see their involvement in the match so negatively?
If you’re unable to sign up for regular paid subscription, you can still buy me a coffee.