How can we measure the performance of football players?

It’s been a recurring question since the beginning of football days. It’s becoming more and more complex measure the performance of the football players. How can we really know the performance of a football player? How we can monitor it? It can look quite simple if you look the numbers of goals that a striker scores or the number of goals received by a goalkeeper but the most of cases is not as easy as it can seem.

Let’s have a look on the 99% of players around the world (don’t look only on Messi or Ronaldo). Do we really know how well the players performing? Do we expect to get the same performance of a player in a different team? How importance is the team or the league where they play to their individual performance?

As a football lover and also passionate on people I decided to start to think into detail on all these questions to try to figure out a close answer.

I would consider following variables in the equation of measuring the performance of a football player:

• Individual performance: How the player is playing? Is he doing well in his position? Is he being useful for the team?
• Manager performance: How is the manager performing? Is he trusting on the team or on specific individuals? Is he creating the right environment getting to leverage the level of the team?
• Team performance: How is playing the team? Is the team meeting the expectations?
• Environment: How is doing the team environment? Is it the right environment to get the results proposed? Is it the right environment for the player?

So then we have 4 variables which can be important to explain the performance of football players, but coming back to the initial answer “How can we measure the performance of football players?” I would say just 3 words “sustainability on time”. The problem in the football as in the life is that we don’t have memory. We tend to remember some events above others and then we use to have an image of player that it could be distorted or just incomplete.

I would affirm that the key to understand the real performing of a football player is measure him match by match during the full season.

If we are able to measure the performance every match we can create a performance tracker which will allow us to analyze the performance of each player in real time and study why he is performing better or worse than expected.

Why ValoraFutbol?

Ok, let’s say we are more or less agree with the previous analysis, but then we have a big problem: How do we get to measure the performance of a football player if we are so subjective? All of us see the football in a different way, you just need to watch the football discussion and realize how different we are. I’m sure what I think about some players is not the same that you think about them. There are different ways to play, different styles, different players…

Here is where “ValoraFutbol” comes in action. That’s why we decided to start to work on create a digital tool to help to measure football players. We founded ValoraDigital and we created ValoraFutbol.

We think that we can get the objectivity if we sum all the subjective opinions by creating a Ranking with the ratings of the Players.

What’s ValoraFutbol?

ValoraFutbol is a players, managers and referees rating website that holds all football fans votes creating a unique Ranking Ratings based on counting all user’s opinions along the whole season.

What Can I Do at ValoraFutbol website?

ValoraFutbol allows you to rate the performance of players, managers, and referees during and after each game.

On the platform you can search information (present and past) about the real performance of players/managers/teams/referees on a competition and also compare them.

You can also share your ratings through the social networks and check other ValoraFutbol user’s ratings that they share. Last but not least, you will have the option of saving your favorite ratings to check them at any time.

ValoraFutbol has the intention to get quality information in order that the Rankings show the real performance of players/managers/teams and referees. When registering, we make sure that ValoraFutbol users rate just once and also provide important data for our statistics. We are trying to achieve reliable ratings rather than just anonymous votes (which can alter the results).

How are the VF Rankings calculated?

The scores shown in the Rankings are the result of the ratings provided by the ValoraFutbol registered users.

To be able to achieve objective and reliable results, we work with the following checkpoints:

• In order to vote you must be a registered ValoraFutbol user.
• You may only rate once each- Player, Manager, and Referee- per match. In case you don’t want to rate all the players of one team you just no rate them and focus on your favorite performers.
• The ones not rated will not be taken into account when calculating the assessments displayed in the Rankings.
• The score of ‘The Team’ as a whole consists of the average ranking obtained by their players and manager.
• In order for an actor (Player, Manager or Referee) to appear as rated in the results of the game week, it must have been assessed by at least 5% of the VF users that rated that particular match.
• For an actor (Players, Managers and Referees) to appear on the Monthly results, it must have been rated in at least 50% of the games played during that month.
• For an actor (Player, Manager or Referee) to appear on the Cumulative Results of the competition, it must have been rated at least on 33% of the games played during that competition.

Borja Burguillos