Bundesliga And AWS Introduce Further Match Facts To Enhance Viewing Experience

Bundesliga fans will see their match experience even further enhanced. This week the Deutsche Fußball Liga and their partner AWS announced the introduction of two additional match facts. “Set Piece Threat” and “Skill” will debut on matchday 25.

“Set Piece Threat” will deliver insights into a team’s scoring ability from free-kicks and corner kicks. Teams score about a quarter of their goals from set-pieces. “Set Piece Threat” will quantify a team’s chance to score from a set-piece situation by comparing them to the league average.

The new statistic will be used during live broadcasts to give viewers instant access to a team’s goalscoring probability from a set-piece. The second new AWS match fact is a bit more in-depth.

The new “Skill” match fact will combine and compare the cumulative stats of every Bundesliga player to assess their skills across different categories. The four stats are: finisher, sprinter, initiator, and ball winner.

Finishers are players who have high goalscoring probabilities. The most obvious examples are Bayern Munich striker Robert Lewandowski and Borussia Dortmund forward Erling Haaland. But other players like Bayer Leverkusen’s Patrik Schick also come to mind. Schick, in fact, leads this category, but the Czech striker will be out on matchday 25 with an injury.

Sprinters are players that generate a maximum speed on the pitch, and those players engage in a sprint more often than any other player on the pitch. The current leaders in that category are Mainz’s Jeremiah St. Juste (top speed 36.63 km/h), Bayern’s Alphonso Davies (36.37km/h), and Freiburg’s Kevin Schade (36.37 km/h).

Next are initiators. Those are players, who accumulate assists, and second assists, through a high number of difficult passes. Here AWS looks beyond the traditional assist provider but instead tries to establish the ranking of players that find solutions while under high pressure and in the most difficult situations.

For example, Saturday’s Topspiel Bayer Leverkusen vs. Bayern Munich will represent the duel of the third-highest ranked initiator, Florian Wirtz, against the first and second-ranked initiators, Thomas Müller and Serge Gnabry.

The final skill will be ball winners. Ball winners are players that create a high amount of turnovers from the opposing team by winning the ball in an aerial or ground duel or by intercepting an opponent’s pass. Surprisingly, the best player in this category is Danilo Soares from promoted VfL Bochum. In Anthony Losilla, Bochum also has the third-best player in this category, which perhaps explains why the promoted club has been able to turn heads this season.

If a player ranks in the top ten of any of the above categories, AWS and the Bundesliga will highlight those players ahead of every game’s broadcast. The statistics will also be available in the Bundesliga app. All facts are generated using live match data with AWS using machine learning to create and deliver on-screen graphics during broadcasts. Players and coaching staff also use the match facts to gain live insights and visual support as games happen.

Manuel Veth is the host of the Bundesliga Gegenpressing Podcast and the Area Manager USA at Transfermarkt. He has also been published in the Guardian, Newsweek, Howler, Pro Soccer USA, and several other outlets. Follow him on Twitter: @ManuelVeth