Leveraging Technology in Player Selection

Situation: Every year, organizations and programs hold tryouts to identify, assess, and select players for their respective teams. There are several important considerations to running an efficient, effective tryout and selection event. In this post we examine each of these factors and discuss our most recent implementation, the UPSL Combine and All-Star Game, held recently in South Florida.

Keys to Success: Organization will make or break an effective tryout. The keys to running a successful event are to establish an ironclad plan ahead of time, and to select the correct tools to implement that plan. If these steps are done properly, the actual execution of the event will be straightforward. Properly designed technology makes a huge difference in every aspect of a tryout, from registration & organization, to player evaluations and selections. Below, we detail each of these items and how modern day software systems like StatLink can assist.

• Athlete Registration:  Research and implement a software system that integrates player registration, payment, and roster management.  You want to capture all of a players relevant information including First Name, Last Name, Position, Age or Date of Birth, Email Address, and Phone Number. Creating and maintaining a registry and database, or player pool, is essential for the management of data and creating a convenient digital environment for reference. StatLink’s QR System provides a seamless way to register, onboard, and store your database of athletes in a central location. Attempting to perform this step by hand (pen & paper) is time consuming and difficult to implement, particularly in inclement weather.

• Numbering System: Have a clear and systematic way to organize and identify your athletes.  Each athlete should have a unique number.  Plan this system well in advance of your tryouts.  Pre-assign athletes a number rather than assigning a number on player check-in. Numbers should be visible at all times. Ideally, the number should be printed on the front AND back of the jersey or training bib.  A dual color, reversible training bib is preferred.  It allows the athlete to change colors based on your training session and allows flexibility in team assignments. Planning to reuse training bibs or jerseys will decrease your cost over time.

• Training Plan: Have a plan. Ask yourself, what scenarios or drills will best showcase the skills you are looking to evaluate.  Does your session involve all aspects of a player’s abilities? How will you organize your athletes on the field for easy player identification?  How long will your session be? How many days and opportunities will you provide to your athletes? Does your plan create an environment and situations that reveal the player attributes or characteristics that you’re looking to evaluate for your organization? Design your training plan based on these questions. If your plan and training drills do not satisfy these considerations, you may need to re-design the session.

• Measuring / Evaluating: What are the metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) that you will assess and do they fit into your club’s development philosophy. Identify core competencies, technical skillsets, physical abilities, and psycho-social assets that are important in your selection criteria. These metrics and KPIs will determine which athletes are selected. Allocate some resources to establish these standards for your organization.

• Evaluators: Who will be evaluating? Brief your goals and expectations to your evaluators. Position your evaluators at strategic locations to get “eyes on” all of the athletes given the timeframe of your event. This may require one, or several, evaluators based on the number of athletes you have and the footprint of your location. The more evaluators you deploy, the more data will be collected and the more confident you can be in your analysis and the conclusions you draw about your players.    

• Evaluation Tools & Technology: Select the most efficient tools for evaluation and selection. Your tool should be easy to use, provide an intuitive data entry interface, organize your player notes and evaluation data, communicate performance to both coaches and athletes, and provide instant results. Our analytics software platform, StatLink, provides the solution. StatLink’s Data Entry System is customizable, easy to use, and accessible through any smart device. StatLink’s analysis suite contains a powerful and accurate ranking engine, an insightful visualization interface, and provides instant results.

Selection: Team and player selection should be well defined based on your organizations needs and standards. Ideally, selection should also be data-driven, un-biased, and timely. Currently, many player selection events contain a high level of evaluator bias, “confirmation bias” and “selection bias” being perhaps the two biggest offenders. Such bias is not intentional, of course, but without any supporting notetaking or data is almost unavoidable. With the advancement of technology, software, and data science, customers now demand data-driven decisions that can significantly mitigate these biases. Additionally, the process of player selection often takes directors and coaching staff several weeks of meetings, discussions, and subjective note comparison. This requires dozens of wasted and inefficient man-hours. Pen, paper, and clipboards are often lost, unorganized, and incomplete. StatLink serves as a solution to all of these presented problems providing end users with insightful data, a high level of organization, cloud storage, and significant time savings.

Case study: StatLink Florida Combine and All-Star Game

Situation: On July 1st, 2023, DSA Labs hosted a soccer combine to identify the top 60 players in Florida from the UPSL, the 4th tier of the US Soccer pyramid. The 60 players were sourced from coaches’ nominations throughout the league. From this combine, the top 30 players were invited to the StatLink Florida All-Star Game on July 29th, 2023. See Event. These 30 players were selected from StatLink’s player ranking feature, based on the collected data from the combine.

Organization:

• Athlete Registration:  Player nominations were collected via convenience sampling. DSA Labs compiled a list of players sourced from coaches throughout the UPSL Florida Premier Division and Division I. DSA Labs identified Google Forms as the best way to compile this player pool of nominations. DSA Labs targeted the nominated athletes and completed combine registration and confirmation via StatLink’s QR Code Registration Feature. The players scanned the unique QR Code and provided their information, thus instantly creating our database and player pool for the event. DSA Labs collected First Name, Last Name, Phone Number, Email Address, and Apparel Sizes.

• Numbering System: DSA Labs elected to provide each athlete with two soccer jerseys. Athletes were numbered 1 through 113. Each athlete received two color variations, white and blue. Goalkeepers were provided separate color variations, aqua, lime, and yellow. Numbers were printed on both the front and the back of the jersey for easy identification. DSA Labs systematically related jersey number to jersey size. Jersey number and size were determined from previously collected information during registration.

• Training Plan: DSA Labs established a schedule that properly accounted for the number of athletes, the size of the venue, and any time constraints. The Florida combine was executed with 60 athletes on 1 full sized soccer field and was held in a single day. The first half of the combine was systematically designed to capture the communication, decision making, execution, and physical competencies of the athletes. 4 “stations” were established with 30 minute player rotations. 60 athletes were split into 4 groups of 15. Each “station” was designed to create unique environments to reveal the previously explained characteristics of a players’ abilities. Station 1: 8v8. Station 2: Physical Testing. Station 3: 1v1s and 2v2s. Station 4: Rest and Education. The second half of the combine included full field, 11 v 11, games to capture a realistic, game-like environment. This plan successfully revealed all aspects of our stated evaluation criteria.

• Measuring / Evaluating: The core characteristics of the player model StatLink utilizes are Communication, Decision Making, Execution, Physical, and Psycho-social. Over the course of the combine, we gathered 4,067 data points.

  Our metrics and KPI’s included: (See our comprehensive Team Report Here)

  • Communication

    • Communication.

    • Win/Loss/Tie.

  • Decision Making

    • Decision Making.

    • Positioning.

    • Decision Making in the Attack.

  • Execution

    • Shot-Stopping.

    • Quality of Save

    • Defending Crosses.

    • Distribution - Arms.

    • Distribution - Feet.

    • Handling.

    • Quality of Defending Actions

    • Quality of Shots

    • Figure Eight Dribbling Test

    • Chances Created

    • Quality of Dribble

    • Duel: Win/Loss/Tie

  • Physical

    • 40 Yard Sprint

    • 5-10-5 Shuttle

• Evaluators: DSA Labs had 18 unique evaluators at the combine. These evaluators included collegiate coaches, professional coaches, club coaches, scouts, and DSA Labs staff, all with a high level of playing, coaching, scouting, and analysis experience. Each evaluator was strategically assigned and positioned throughout the “stations” and locations of the field. Over the course of the combine, our evaluators captured 4,067 data points.

• Evaluation Tools & Technology: DSA Labs and combine staff utilized the web-based software application, StatLink, for registration, data entry, data cleaning, data processing, data visualization, data storage and player rankings. StatLink provided an all-in-one platform for the administration, directors, manager (coach), and player to manage all data, evaluation, player selection, and player feedback for the event. With minimal training, the evaluation staff immediately deployed StatLink on iOS and Android smart phones, iOS and Andriod tablets, laptops, and desktops.

Selection: Player evaluations, analytics, and rankings were immediately available in StatLink’s Manager Dashboard. The top 30 players from the combine were immediately computed and selected to the StatLink Florida All-Star Game. Players were notified and confirmed by DSA Labs within 48 hours of the event.