European Football Championship 2008: Wenger ‘inside’ the index

Castrol ambassador Arsène Wenger hits the TV screens to sing the praises of the Performance Index…

During Monday night’s Inside Sport on BBC One, Arsenal boss and Castrol Performance Index ambassador Arsène Wenger discussed some of the benefits of using the Index – as well as the advantages of goal-line technology.

Wenger – a man often described as ‘the professor’, with his degree in engineering and a Masters degree in economics – was one of the inaugural users of player analysis in this country, and in a previous Castrol interview, admitted he was “addicted” to the kind of pioneering statistics that the Performance Index will use this summer. Now, the analysis made possible by Castrol’s Match Tracker system allows coaches to assess which players are playing to their potential – and which ones are underperforming.

DECISION MAKING

“I like football and I like to know more – we have big responsibilities to pick the team, because every time, a hundred thousand people pick the team as well,” he told Inside Sport. “So, on the Performance Index, you have the passing quality of the player. And you can say if a player wins more balls than another player in every game, so you can see if he’s defensively good.”

The Match Tracker system allows coaches to watch every player’s performance across 90 minutes. And as well as being able to analyse every goal in real time, a coach can examine the team’s shape, plus every player’s movement, contribution and positioning.

“I would not sign a player using [the statistics],” said Wenger, “but I could drop a player on that. The difficulty of our job is to go to the root of the problem. That demands a lot of analysis before you make the right decision.”

RESPECT

On the programme, Wenger also explained what he feels is the virtue of goal-line technology. FIFA has decided against using Euro 2008 to test any innovations, but the Arsenal manager believes that the use of the technology would allow fair play and respect to take centre-stage, and thinks this summer’s tournament would be the perfect showcase.

“I would love FIFA to have a much more innovative approach, because I believe when you love football, you want justice to be done as much as possible,” he explained. “You cannot accept a situation where a game is watched by a million people and everybody sees a goal that the referee doesn’t – you cannot help him and that’s unfair. I personally think [goal-line technology] would give the referee more credit and more respect.

“It works so well in rugby,” he continued. “I believe that elite football has that responsibility. Rather than [Diego] Maradona is caught using his hand and he gets away with it, I’d say ‘No, I’m sorry that was a handball.’ And the guy says, ‘Yes, the goal has not been given.’ People who are against the video would say, ‘Out of 100 mistakes you [would still] get it wrong a few times,’ but instead of making 50 mistakes, if you only make 20 you’ve already improved the problem.”

For more news on the European Football Championship 2008 please visit http://www.castrolindex.com

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