U.S. Soccer
About U.S. Soccer
Founded in 1913, the U.S. Soccer Federation has been the official governing body of the sport in the United States for more than 100 years. During that time, the sport has grown tremendously at all levels. As U.S. Soccer looks towards the future, its mission is to make soccer the preeminent sport in the United States. With a long-term and strategic approach, U.S. Soccer aims to accomplish its mission by supporting its members to increase participation at the youth and adult levels, develop world class players, coaches, and referees to consistently win at the highest levels on the international stage and serve the fans by engaging with them in deeper and more meaningful ways. For more information, visit ussoccer.com.
Key Takeaways
The Opportunity
U.S. Soccer has achieved unprecedented success on the field in recent years, particularly on the women’s side. To continue its tradition of excellence, the organization seized the chance to improve how it collects, organizes, and applies sports science and medical data for National Teams, including their youth teams. Implementing an athlete management system (AMS) had the potential to positively impact on-pitch play, expedite data analysis, and simplify research into best practices.
The Challenge
Depending on the team, U.S. Soccer uses between five and 10 systems, apps, and devices to gather player data, none of which were previously integrated. This made it difficult to unite information centrally in a way that it could become usable by coaches, performance staff, and players. Extending human performance analytics to 25 teams and larger talent pools meant managing data for the 500 to 600 National Team players.
The Solution
U.S. Soccer is using Smartabase to consolidate, visualize, and monitor player data before, during, and after National Team camps. Collecting comprehensive medical and sports science information enables staff and coaches to closely monitor daily availability, injury status, and wellness, manage player load, perform screens and physical tests, and more. Smartabase also allows U.S. Soccer’s sports scientists to export player data into tools like R, Python, Tableau, and Power BI to perform advanced statistical analysis.
The Impact
Replacing Excel spreadsheets and multiple disparate databases with Smartabase has allowed U.S. Soccer’s performance and HP analytics staff to consolidate player data in a well-organized, central library. Having ready access to this single source of truth allows them to do more with player data in less time, become more proactive in monitoring player workload, health, and wellness, and create a standardized approach to data-informed decision-making.