Decoding the psyche: engineering psychological profiles in football through YODA analysis

Engineering of Sport 15 - Proceedings from the 15th International Conference on the Engineering of Sport (ISEA 2024)

In football, victory is etched deeply in the psyche of the players who navigate the field with their distinct mental imprints. These aspects, however, are frequently overshadowed by the emphasis on physical agility and tactical expertise. These psychological undercurrents, often subtle and unquantifiable, remain largely uncharted in conventional sports analytics. Though existing methodologies adeptly measure a sprint's speed or a shot's precision, they falter at the doorstep of the mind, unable to decode the intricate weave of emotions, resilience, and cognitive reflexes that equally dictate a game's tempo. In this paper, we present an application of "YODA: Your Offence and Defence Analysis," a newly devised framework in this unexplored terrain. YODA is used to systematically analyse the psychological profiles of football players from two distinct teams, elucidating aspects previously obscured in the dynamic context of the game. YODA compares players' psychological landscapes across intrinsic player traits that influence team dynamics, strategy formulation, and ultimately, the scoreboard.