The work in this thesis has been carried out under the auspices of Infostrada Sports, and its purpose is to visualize the core of a soccer match using spatio-temporal data. Matches consist of large, dense data sets of events, which are difficult to elucidate and understand. Events occur at a specific time within a period and are enacted by a player who is on either team in a match. Spatial events, such as shots, and their quality can be assessed by means of visualization techniques that alleviate the problem by identifying areas of high density. Event-related match statistics are usually accumulated during a match. Match statistics at the end of the match reflect the overall balance between teams over the entire duration of the match, but do not provide insights into the balance at any moment during the match. Our visualization approximates this balance based on such spatio-temporal events, and reveals which team has momentum at any point or any period of the match. In this thesis, an approach to visualizing the core of a soccer match is studied. The visualization, called Wave, was positively and agreeably received, and proved popular among sports analysts.

“Wave tells the full story of the game at a glance.” — Infostrada Sports

* infostrada