Escola Universitària d’Enginyeria Tècnica de Telecomunicació La Salle Final Thesis Graduate in Management of Business and Technology BIG DATA AND THE IMPLEMENTATION OF NEW TECHNOLOGIES IN RCD ESPANYOL Student Promoter Fabio Canavese Aarthi Rajaraman 1 ACTA DE L'EXAMEN DEL TREBALL FI DE GRAU Meeting of the evaluating panel on this day, the student: Fabio Canavese Presented their final thesis on the following subject: BIG DATA AND THE IMPLEMENTATION OF NEW TECHNOLOGIES IN RCD ESPANYOL At the end of the presentation and upon answering the questions of the members of the panel, this thesis was awarded the following grade: Barcelona, MEMBER OF THE PANEL MEMBER OF THE PANEL PRESIDENT OF THE PANEL Acknowledgments I would like to express my gratitude towards the people that helped in the process of writing this thesis and supported me throughout the years of my university career at LaSalle. First of all, I sincerely concede my gratitude to my promoter Aarthi Rajaraman for her tremendous well rounded guidance and support throughout the course of this research work. In fact, without her invaluable guidance and remarks, this research would have not been completed otherwise. I express my sincere gratitude to my family and my friends for their continued support and encouragement throughout it. I thank you all for your understanding and support. Furthermore, I want to express my gratitude to each of those professionals who have been interviewed for this thesis and for taking their time in order to answer my questions. My warm thanks to Antonio Uceda, Álvaro Salarich, Chechu Fernandez Conde, Jaime Morales Matosas, David Viejo Romero, Daniel Marín Gambarte, Miguel Navia Peñalver, Bruno Rousso, Tomás Guasch, Sergio Fernández, Claudio Della Pietra, Jose Antonio López, Victor Hugo, Pablo Refojos, Tony Dávila, Ruben Arce and Sergi González. Finally, I would like to extend my thanks to La Salle University for giving me the opportunity to enrich my knowledge and academic discipline. I am most grateful to all my professors who have taught me. To you all, I give my sincere gratitude. 1 Abstract This thesis strives to analyse whether Big Data and new technologies applications can help football clubs so as to enhance their performance in competition by focusing on the RCD Espanyol situation. The study contains a first literature review which addresses three main topics. These topics have been the historical evolution of football and the first analysts, the definition of Big Data and how is implemented in football and, lastly, the analysis of RCD Espanyol. To answer the research question “Can Big Data and new technologies improve the performance of RCD Espanyol?” qualitative primary research has been carried out through interviews with field professionals and secondary research about some examples of new technologies in football and the analysis of 2.700 players has been conducted. The information extracted from the interviews combined with the findings of the secondary research form the base on which the initial question is being answered. 2 Executive Summary The aim of this thesis is to state whether Big Data and new technologies applications are implemented in football and how can help them to enhance their performance in competition and create added value, focusing on the RCD Espanyol situation. This research paper aims to answer this question. Analysing the history of football, many tried to create methods and strategies to win and succeed. Some wanted to learn about football and break it down to see what is in the game and collect all these actions in the form of data through which to draw conclusions. One of these early football analysts was Englishman Charles Reep with his long ball theory. Nowadays, Big Data allows you to analyse a wide variety of data, high volume, at high speed, truthfully and providing value. Especially in the football industry, the big data process can be summarised in three stages: compilation, analysis and drawing conclusions. Focusing in RCD Espanyol, it will be analysed how new technologies are being adapted as well as the implementation of new methods within the entity itself. In addition, it will be analysed how the club's scouting department works and how Big Data is used. The secondary research will lead to the creation of a new literature which will analyse, first, the implementation of new methods and systems of cognitive training in football, such as the Neurotracker, the Footbonaut or the Helix. Secondly, it will be analysed some examples of clubs that have already used computer tools and data analysis to achieving success, such as Sevilla, Leicester or the German national team Lastly, it will be analysed the comparison of some RCD Espanyol players with other players based on statistics and graphs taken from different platforms. The aim will be to analyse the players of the current squad and compare them with players with similar characteristics in the market, so bring a quality leap to the team. After the analysis of the collected data there have been drawn several conclusions. Firstly, data analysis and the figure of the analyst are increasingly implemented in football clubs, but there are still many years left for it to become more professional and rigorous. Furthermore, it can be asserted that Big Data does not condition the victory of a match, but most experts believe that it is crucial and it reduces the luck factor as much as possible. 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgments ……………………………………………………………………….… 1 Abstract ……………………………………………………………………………………... 2 Executive Summary ……………………………………………………………………….. 3 1. Introduction …………………………………………………………..……………….. 5 2. Research Questions and Research Objectives ………………………………… 6 3. Literature Review ……………………………………………………………..……… 7 3.1. Background ……………………………………………………………………….. 7 3.1.1. Brief historical evolution of Football …………………………………….. 7 3.1.2. The first analysts of Football: Charles Reep and his Long Ball ……… 8 3.1.3. The Moneyball Effect …………………………………………………….. 11 3.2. Big Data …………………………………………………………………………… 12 3.2.1. Definition …………………………………………………………………... 12 3.2.2. Big Data applies to football ………………………………………………. 13 3.3. Analysis of RCD Espanyol……………………………………………………….. 17 4. Methodology ……………………………………………………………………….….. 20 4.1. Secondary Research ……………………………………………………………... 20 4.1.1. Implementation of new technologies in football ……………………….. 21 4.1.2. Some examples …………………………………………………………… 25 4.1.3. Analysis of RCD Espanyol players and comparison with others …….. 30 4.2. Primary Research: Qualitative Interviews ……………………………………… 33 5. Findings and Data Analysis ………………………………………………………… 35 6. Conclusions …………………………………………………………………………… 36 7. References …………………………………………………………………………….. 38 8. Appendix ……………………………………………………………………………….. 41 8.1. Appendix A. History of RCD Espanyol …………………………………………. 41 8.2. Appendix B. Future strategies of RCD Espanyol ……………………………… 42 8.3. Appendix C. Questions for interviews …………………………………………... 44 8.4. Appendix D. Transcript of interviews ………………………………………….… 46 8.5. Appendix E. List and analysis of players ………………………………………. 55 Word Count: 10.886 4 1. Introduction In a reality as changing as the present one, in which technological advances are part of our daily lives, it does not seem pertinent to ignore or neglect the advantages that these can grant not only to any organisation but also to any citizen. Technological applications take over our reality and make our tasks more efficient, either allowing them to be carried out in less time or at a lower cost. This new technological era, referred to by some as the fourth industrial revolution, is an increase in dependence on connectivity. In other words, the current trend is for everything to be connected to the network and for the flow of information to become increasingly greater and more dependent on it. Therefore, the level of data available for analysis is overwhelming. The challenge lies in using not only ethically, but also correct the information obtained. Technology makes it possible to access this knowledge, this information unknown until a few years ago. Therefore, the management and use of the data obtained will give competitive advantages to some organizations to the detriment of others, as it will allow better decisions and hire more qualified workers and adapted to the needs of the organization. As this new reality is going to affect globally, I find it interesting to see how organisations such as football clubs are adapting to these changes, how important these opportunities are being given and whether or not they really have an impact on their sporting success. This thesis will attempt to reflect how useful information is collected, stored and extracted from the vast amount of data that revolves around organizations. The aim will also be to find out how big data affects the reality of clubs and whether the use of this technology favours the detection of talent. Since this topic is very extensive, I wanted to focus on a top-level club in my city, the RCD Espanyol, in order to investigate how new technologies are being adapted as well as the implementation of new methods within the entity itself. In addition, it will be investigated how the club's scouting department works and how Big Data is used. The elaboration of this document has been carried out by seeking, reading, and studying different bibliographical sources. 5 2. Research Questions and Research Objectives 2.1. Research question This thesis strives to analyse whether Big Data and new technologies applications can help football clubs