Wednesday, July 2, 2014

How is a football player's running distance measured?


It was the 16th round of FIFA 2014, ARG vs SUI on pitch for pre-quarter-finals. You know it was absolutely 0-0 to both sides even after 70+ mins, and the team white n blue was struggling to be alive in tournament. So it was quite interesting, and entire ~8k audience eyes were on 2 strikers Shaqiri <> Messi. Unfortunately Messi was not at all heading to net; might be as he was boxed by swiss mid wingers


but DiMario was progressive around penalty area and corners, where as Messi was just on free-kicks.

I beleive it was Johan Djourou(of Swiss) substituted by other player at around 74th min, and while he was walking out, a feed appeared on screen "Johan total distance 2.3 km" I just wondered, how did they calculate Mr. Johan Djorou had run exactly 23000 meter in the that course??

The Union of European Football Associations(UEFA) document outlines - there is a tracking technology used to measure a football player's running distance during a game. It is a complex system of 16 cameras; field is divided among 16 cameras, with each one filming its own area. Computers setup on other side keep analyze the feeds inflow from all the 16 cameras and then calculate trajectories of player movements. In this way the system can also determine elements such as shot speeds and distances between a goal and ball position during free kicks.

It also says that, the UEFA has tested the system against proprietary tracking systems used by individual clubs, and also by sending people on predetermined, fixed-length trajectories, and found it to be generally accurate within 3%.

Eventually, that too after course of 118 minutes, DiMario(#7 of ARG) headed the net bypassing 3+goalie in a row, from distance of around 45 yards. Here, I must say it was a brilliant admit (pic above)  from Mr. Lionel Messi.



white and blue beat red to clinch a place in quarter finales of 2014 carniball
Rio De JaneiroBrazil




Cheers to Lionel Messi and Angel DiMario