Starting from scratch and building your analysis team into a success can be difficult. One Bundesliga 2 side offers insight into their process.
The adoption of new technology can be daunting, but it’s necessary in gearing up your club for success.
Australian analyst Andrew Meredith is one of the best in the business, having built a performance analysis department from scratch at cult German club FC St. Pauli.
“At FC St Pauli we looked at starting up a new environment here where we started off very small with a limited budget,” said Meredith. “[Showing] that we were able to deliver results in regards to accessing information for the coaching staff as quickly as possible. We expanded that and were looking at scalability the whole time.
“Hudl and Sportscode is a great product for that. We were able to expand from a one man operation to involve the trainer team, who became Sportscode users. Then we looked at developing the next phase—getting the players involved and accessing the information.
“Now we’re at the point where we’re delivering, week-to-week, all the information that the players and coaching staff need to deliver their best performance on a weekend.”
Whilst the journey sounds reasonably straightforward, there was one key factor that underpinned the successful rollout. “When we’re building any sort of analysis concept or workflow, we have to look at getting the buy-in from the coaching staff,” said Meredith. “That’s a key element to what we do.
“The really important part is that they buy in and they have that trust there with regards to the quality of the product, what it’s able to do, how it speeds up the workflow and the processes we put in place.”
Once the phased implementation plan was complete, St. Pauli started looking at new ways to maximise the use of video analysis and benefit all of the stakeholders in the performance department.
“At FC St. Pauli, we look at a flat hierarchy so that everyone has access to all the relevant information that they need as quickly as possible, and Sportscode and Hudl enable us to do that.
“In regards to medical staff, if anyone is injured they’re getting scenes from the game within 30 minutes, so not only are they making an initial diagnosis live, all the medical department who may not have travelled to the game have access to the same information to see how the injury happened.”
