A Northern Irish sports analytics company is helping to revolutionise youth football globally following the launch of its groundbreaking pilot project with Major League Soccer.
'Quality of Play' data from Jordanstown-based company Taka is now driving the official league standings for multiple MLS NEXT age groups, rather than a traditional win-draw-loss format, which they believe to be a unique scenario in world football.
The programme will evaluate the U13 and U14 age groups with rankings designed to promote positive in-game moments and strategic development among younger age groups, rather than placing sole emphasis on athletic traits, which can disproportionately impact games at the youngest ages.
Taka's analysts use their cutting-edge 'scoring' technology to identify and grade significant player actions within games. These scores generate personalised player highlights on the Taka platform while also feeding into attacking, defensive and overall 'Quality of Play' scores for their team.
Taka CEO Mark Shields explained: "Players play 90 minutes, but nobody is really interested in rewatching the whole 90 minutes back so our tech takes the footage and distills it into individualised highlights for players.
"What we provide is effectively a dynamic online résumé for the player. Those are all pieces of information relating to quality of action and we can aggregate that to provide assessments on players or teams."
Taka has been operating since May 2021 and during that time has moved from the professional side of the game to focus on the amateur market and this link-up with MLS NEXT is a major coup for them.
"Our first movement into the US came with US Youth Soccer which developed the core part of the product. Two years ago we, alongside 20 other companies, applied for an RFP to be the development partner of the MLS and won it," explained Mark.
This summer, Taka will release a free version of their software to promote development and revenue generation in the grass roots game. Their long-term aspiration is to become "the biggest revenue provider for grassroots sport in the world" as they hope clubs get involved in a unique profit-share opportunity.
Mark added: "By generating short-form professional and amateur content, we will enable clubs to develop players and make money from advertising revenue. Also 50% of the profits we make from this will go to the club most important to the user.”
Sign up to our free sports newsletter to get the latest headlines to your inbox
English (United States) ·