FIFA Player App Proves Big Success at World Cup Soccer Tournament
December 13, 2022
The elite professional soccer players representing their countries at the ongoing Qatar World Cup 2022 tournament were each given a personalized QR code enabling them to track individual and team data with accompanying video clips in real time after each match. More than 400 players signed up for the program.
The app has proved popular among players, including Croatian star Luka Modric, whose squad is slated to play Argentina in a Dec. 13 semifinal match.
“It helps you realize what mistakes you might have made during the game,” Modric said in a statement. “Sometimes similar things or scenarios will happen to you on the pitch in two separate games, so by using this app I can see what I did in that particular moment which was not good and try to correct it for the next game. That is why from the early start of my career, I always like to review the game highlights and see what we could have done better.”
The data collected includes enhanced soccer metrics, such as whether a player went after the ball, made contact, passed, in addition to physical performance metrics, including distance traveled, collected through an in-stadium tracking system.
Fans attending the World Cup could also access instant replays and game highlights in real time on the FIFA+ app.
“This data is then combined and synched with video to enable us to send all the key moments of their game play to the player directly after the game,” said Bahaeddine El Fakir, FIFA Football data scientist. “This also sets a new standard for soccer data distribution in the future.”
The World Cup ends with the championship match on Dec. 18.