Gareth Southgate being helped by Google over England squad for Euro 2020
Technology giant Google could be the deciding factor in England’s fate at this summer’s European Championship.
England boss Gareth Southgate is using a tailored player performance software to pick his squad for the tournament, extended to 26 players for Euro 2020, developed by the FA and Google Cloud.
“Thankfully it is easy to use,” Southgate told CNBC. “Every weekend, we’ve got players in the Premier League … the Bundesliga, La Liga.
“We need to be able to access that footage as quickly as possible, and any data that we can get from those matches as well.”
The technology draws data such as passing accuracy, distance covered and shots on target into one platform from analytics provided by companies such as Opta, Scout7 and the BBC.
However, the platform doesn’t just measure on-pitch performance, theoretically it could even keep tabs how much shut-eye Phil Foden is getting each night.
“Clearly, we need permission to gain some of that data.
“Sleep patterns would be a really good example,” Southgate added. “That would always be the choice of a player.
“The only reason for us to track that would be to help them with solutions in order to help them to sleep better, because sleep would be one of the key indicators on recovery, and for us in a tournament situation, recovery is one of the key physical areas we can hit.”
Such performances indicators are a far cry from Southgate’s own playing days, when the former Crystal Palace, Aston Villa and Middlesbrough defender was judged solely on how much gas he had in the tank.
“When I was playing, it was really all geared around how far you ran,” the 50-year-old said.
“The coaches used it to beast you on a Monday morning — they found this weird correlation between if you ran further, you won.
“That wasn’t really good use of data.”
What is a good use of data, Southgate argues, is fitting players into a system that they have little time to prepare for.
England kick off their Euros campaign against Croatia on 13 June, but they play their first warm-up game 11 days earlier, just four days after the Champions League final.
Southgate, therefore, wants most of the work done before he gets the squad together.
“Are we really clear in each position what we’re looking for? What is the role in that position? How does that map to how a player might play at his club?” he added.
“They have players that play in the same positions, but they play in a different style, and how will that map into the way that we want to play?
“We’re always trying to piece this jigsaw together because we don’t have weeks and weeks to be able to coach the team.
“They’ve got to come in and be as close to the finished article as possible before the Euros.
“If our teams get to the European finals, we might only have eight or nine days on the training pitch with our full squad.”
Unfortunately, not even Google can guarantee success.
Southgate is in somewhat unchartered waters with the software and is also acutely aware that other nations will have similar platforms to help their own country’s performance.
“There was no store of what had happened in the past, what breeds success, what lessens failure,” he said.
“The reality of that is we don’t know… We always have to be humble enough to accept that other people are very good at what they do. Other countries are at the cutting edge as well.”
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