Dr. López del Campo, Author at Football Innovation Hub

26 Jun Locomotor characteristics of intense accelerations according to the playing position in top Spanish football teams during competition

Posted at 13:03h in Paper

Not every high-intensity action in football is a sprint. Some of the most demanding movements in elite competition occur over 8 or 9 metres. They last barely two seconds. And yet they may define performance. This study analysed 271,535 intense relative accelerations performed by 102 players from...

26 Jun LALIGA’s new tactical synchrony model: how it interpreted the latest FC Barcelona – Real Madrid ElClásico

Posted at 11:30h in Research

LALIGA’s new tactical synchrony model, developed by the Football Intelligence Area, offers a powerful way to visualize, measure, and interpret how both teams organize their blocks throughout a match. Applied to the latest ElClásico, the model reveals when a team achieves spatial dominance, how positional...

24 Jun Return to performance: machine learning insights into how absence time following muscle injuries affects match running performance in LaLiga soccer players

Posted at 12:57h in Paper

Returning to play is not the same as returning to performance. This study moves beyond the classic medical clearance question and addresses something much more relevant for elite environments: how does absence time after a muscle injury affect match running performance in LaLiga players? A total of...

23 Jun What If Rhythm Is Everything? How Ball Circulation and Recovery Speed Explain Success in LALIGA

Posted at 12:53h in Research

This study from the Football Intelligence Department at LALIGA, using Mediacoach data from the 2024/25 season, reveals how two underused metrics—ball circulation rhythm (passes per minute in possession) and ball recovery rhythm (recoveries per minute out of possession)—strongly correlate with team success. Teams that dominated...

20 Jun Are You Really Comparing What Matters? How Game Phase Bias Can Change Performance Analysis

Posted at 11:25h in Research

Which player performed best in the match? Who covered more ground in attack or defense? These are common questions for professional football coaching staff. However, analyzing raw performance data without accounting for game phases can lead to misleading conclusions. This study, conducted by the Football...

17 Jun Same player, same team, different league… will performance change?

Posted at 12:01h in Research

Can the same player deliver the same performance after a promotion or a relegation? What really happens to technical, physical, and tactical output when a footballer plays in different leagues, but stays with the same team? This data-driven study from LALIGA’s Football Intelligence Department analyzes players...

Author: Dr. López del Campo