Dr. López del Campo, Author at Football Innovation Hub

03 Dic “If Set Pieces Decide Matches… Why Don’t They Decide Our Training?”

Posted at 12:57h in Research

A data-driven provocation for coaches who want to win the invisible battles of modern football. The Scenario Every Coach Has Lived It’s the 84th minute.Your team has dominated phases of open play, controlled territory, and built momentum.But the scoreboard still shows 1–1. You prepare the final substitution.A corner...

01 Dic Impact of the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 on LaLiga Players’ Physical Performance: Unveiling Insights Into External Load Patterns

Posted at 12:55h in Paper

Did the Qatar 2022 World Cup damage LaLiga players’ physical performance? The tournament was played in the middle of the season.High temperatures.Compressed schedules.Extra time matches.Travel.Emotional and physical stress. The expectation in many environments was clear: post-World Cup fatigue. This study tested that assumption. Using tracking data from LaLiga players...

28 Nov The model that demonstrates that Collective Intelligence outperforms Artificial Intelligence in football

Posted at 12:39h in Research

https://youtu.be/BTlJvPcnwJU When winning depends on something no algorithm can see Imagine preparing a match against a team that is not especially fast, not physically superior, and not individually brilliant.And yet, every coach who faces them says the same thing: “They move as one. They play as if they...

26 Nov Information integration and the latent consciousness of human groups

Posted at 12:44h in Paper

Can a football team think? Not metaphorically. Not emotionally. But mathematically. This study applies Integrated Information Theory (IIT) — a formal framework originally developed to quantify consciousness in the brain — to professional soccer teams. Using tracking data from 100 LaLiga matches (2018/2019 season), the authors transformed player...

17 Nov Do Black Players Really Run More? A Scientific Examination of a Long-Standing Football Myth

Posted at 14:02h in Research

Last Thursday, during a guest lecture I gave at Stanford University’s “Science of MythBusters” course, we explored how scientific reasoning helps test long-standing beliefs by confronting them with rigorous data rather than intuition.A newly published study provides a clear example of this approach applied to...

11 Nov Do Real Madrid and FC Barcelona dominate because they keep the ball—or because they control the space?

Posted at 13:52h in Research

https://youtu.be/EFYyQPsNVkQ Football has long equated dominance with possession.But what if the real indicator of control isn’t how long you keep the ball, but how fast you can reach it? In collaboration between LaLiga’s Football Intelligence & Performance Department, the University of Zaragoza and the Universidad Rey Juan...

Author: Dr. López del Campo