Football As Art: the vital stats as you’ve never seen them before
With so much football being played at the moment, it can be hard to keep track of what exactly has happened over the past few weeks. Thankfully, there’s plenty of statistics to keep us informed, but it can be hard to translate them into something meaningful.
That’s where infographics come in. We’ve enlisted the expert hand of top graphic designer Michael Deal to bring the data from South Africa to life. Using info supplied by data experts Opta, Michael has crafted these beautiful ways to analyse the action from the 48 group games.
By simply looking at when successful passes (green lines) have been made in the game, alongside shots (blue triangles) and goals (red circles), you can build an intriguing picture of how the match progressed. For instance, the detail of Spain’s surprise defeat to Switzerland comes to life in the graphic at the top of the page, while an overview of all the action can be gleaned by looking at data from all the matches so far. Click on the picture below to see all the group matches in all their glory, looking more like a musical store than a football report.
This is just a snapshot at the half-way point of the tournament, and we’ll have the full picture once the champions have been crowned. Michael also analysed the data around England’s qualification for South Africa for us, which you can see here.
On 1 Jul 2010, at 9:53 am Visualización de pases, oportunidades y goles en los partidos del mundial | Jogo Bonito wrote:
[...] Umbro le ha encargado al diseñador Michael Deal que hiciera una representación visual de los datos de Opta sobre los pases (líneas verdes), oportunidades (triángulos azules) y goles de los partidos (círculos rojos) de la primera fase del mundial. [...]
On 3 Jul 2010, at 2:39 pm Umbro | Sports Marketing 2.0 | Pat Coyle wrote:
[...] From Umbro’s blog: “By simply looking at when successful passes (green lines) have been made in the game, alongside shots (blue triangles) and goals (red circles), you can build an intriguing picture of how the match progressed. For instance, the detail of Spain’s surprise defeat to Switzerland comes to life in the graphic at the top of the page, while an overview of all the action can be gleaned by looking at data from all the matches so far. Click on the picture below to see all the group matches in all their glory, looking more like a musical store than a football report.” [...]
On 3 Jul 2010, at 6:23 pm Football As Art | What The Flux wrote:
[...] Overwhelmed with trying to keep up with all the football game stats? Removing the excitement of the World Cup is one thing, but parsing the statistics into something meaningful and creative is quite the feat. Umbro, a subsidiary of Nike, Inc. and the makers of team England’s jerseys, enlisted epic graphic designer Michael Deal and data experts Opta to create this impressive infograph that analyzes the action from the 48 group games. [...]
On 4 Jul 2010, at 11:22 pm Anonymous wrote:
I love the concept though don’t believe the outcome here is successful.
To make stats beautiful with graphical / design the viewer should instantly “get it.”
There are some good ideas in the design, such as the goal, and 45 min. halves. Though the rest seems like Im back to calculus.
The mission is a beautiful one. This graphical representation is not a “goal.”
On 5 Jul 2010, at 1:52 pm James Mattison wrote:
I disagree with anonymous. I think this works both as an aesthetically pleasing piece of World Cup information design as well as a good way of simplifying the key pieces of information about the games into an ‘at-a-glance’ format. The minimum of understanding is required to read, and compare, the results.
Looking forward to seeing the full set. Any chance this will be printed and sold as a poster?
On 5 Jul 2010, at 3:19 pm nick wrote:
I agree with anonymous
Its too complicate.
Personally I stay on it for few second than closed and turned back on main page.
On 5 Jul 2010, at 9:17 pm April Brooks wrote:
I would LOVE to have a print of this!!!! I think it’s a beautiful and informative graphic not to mention a great reference for someone like me who wants to remember all of this the next time the World Cup comes around. With this poster, I would easily be able to remember details about the games.
On 6 Jul 2010, at 5:10 am Graph | Ebb and flow of World Cup Football Games « Layman's layout wrote:
[...] Umbro Blog – Football As Art: the vital stats as you’ve never seen them before. Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)Graph | The World Cup predictedGraph | Word Cup teams from clubsWeb | World Cup 2010 Twitter replayUruguay-Argentina and the thin line that separates success from failure [...]
On 6 Jul 2010, at 10:59 am Infografika: Utakmice svjetskog nogometnog prvenstva u JAR-u | PoslovniPuls wrote:
[...] za sve utakmice iz grupne faze SP-a pogledajte na Umbrovom službenom blogu! « PrethodnoVlada će likvidirati 18 000 poduzeća u [...]
On 6 Jul 2010, at 5:39 pm サッカーW杯インフォグラフィック「WORLD CUP 2010: THE 48 MATCHES OF THE GROUP STAGE」 – 図解思考 ビジュアルシンキング wrote:
[...] michael deal world cup infographics for umbro（designboom） Football As Art: the vital stats as you’ve never seen them before（Umbro Blog） Comments (0) Tweet [...]
On 6 Jul 2010, at 7:21 pm Geoff wrote:
I want to buy a print for my wall! Excellent.
On 6 Jul 2010, at 10:39 pm Anonymous wrote:
If anyone wants to play with World Cup player stats interactively, try this out http://pivot.metia.com/worldcup/default.aspx
On 6 Jul 2010, at 11:54 pm Anonymous wrote:
As a professional inforgraphics designer I think this graphics is beautiful. It is visually interesting and super compact. You have to take into account the amount of data displayed here. A few people complained that it is complicate, but I think it is actually pretty simple and elegant. You can scan the charts quickly to get the scores, when each goal happened during the game, and the most active period of the game (with highest number of shots and completed passes). What else could one ask for? Perhaps highlighting the winning team a bit better, instead of me counting the read dots. But overall, I really like this graphics.
Good job.
On 7 Jul 2010, at 2:36 am 【やじうまWatch】 Twitterのクジラ画像の二次創作作品まとめ ほか -INTERNET Watch « Webのログ wrote:
[...] ◇各国代表のパス・シュート・ゴールを見事に表したインフォグラフィック by Umbro（ajickr blog） http://ajickr.sakura.ne.jp/archives/2413 ◇Football As Art: the vital stats as you’ve never seen them before（Umbro Blog） http://blog.umbro.com/2010/06/30/football-as-art-the-vital-stats-as-youve-never-seen-them-before/ [...]
On 7 Jul 2010, at 5:05 am MediaMind Launches Video Ad Selector; TRAFFIQ Adds Another Agency Partner; EMC Acquires Greenplum wrote:
[...] Sure you can have loads of data spewing at you from all directions, but how do you display it and make it actionable, let alone interesting? Take a soccer game's data, for example. That's exactly what graphic designer Michael Deal did using the time each team controlled the ball as one data point among many for recent World Cup soccer games. See it on the Umbro blog. [...]
On 7 Jul 2010, at 11:02 am Anonymous wrote:
Really cool, aesthetic – Anyone finding this difficult to analyse and ‘not getting it’ must have a very,very low IQ.
On 7 Jul 2010, at 12:04 pm What’s the Point of Football Statistics? | Dani Pratomo's Blog wrote:
[...] http://blog.umbro.com/2010/06/30/football-as-art-the-vital-stats-as-youve-never-seen-them-before/ [...]
On 8 Jul 2010, at 7:27 am Sase Antic wrote:
Interesting graphic presentation of the stats from WC 2010.
On 8 Jul 2010, at 10:07 am Andy J wrote:
I love this, it actually makes it simple to see possession, pressure and goals – great. A nice addition would be to see a game changing sending off marked on the graph / canvas.
On 12 Jul 2010, at 5:36 am Tiago Dória Weblog » Blog Archive » Infográficos são o grande destaque da Copa 2010 wrote:
[...] Umbro, por sua vez, contratou o designer Michael Deal para produzir alguns infográficos estáticos, porém primando pela simplicidade. Linhas verdes representavam os passes; triângulos azuis, [...]
On 13 Jul 2010, at 6:51 pm FIFA™ Weltmeisterschaft 2010 Visualisierungen | Design Journal - Interaktives Design & Neue Medien wrote:
[...] als Kunst, als ungesehen vitale Statistik stellt Umbro im eigenen Blog vor. Der Grafik-Designer Michael Deal visualisiert geschickt das Geschehen Spiel für Spiel, von [...]
On 19 Jul 2010, at 2:22 pm Umbro Blog – Football As Art: Michael Deal brings South Africa 2010 to life wrote:
[...] revealing half of his collaboration in the shape of this, his graphical representation of the group stages in South Africa, we’re very excited to [...]
On 9 Aug 2010, at 9:11 pm Michael Deal for Umbro | cupstadt.com wrote:
[...] der diesjährigen Großveranstaltung von Michael Deal für Umbro. Näheres gibt es auf dem Umbro Blog oder auf der Seite mikemake zu finden. Vielleicht findet sich aj doch noch was, wir werden sehen. [...]