A spatial index to measure similarity among football players
Identifying players with comparable profiles is a crucial challenge in sports like football. Scouting for new players requires a wealth of information about the available players so that similar profiles to that of a target player can be identified. However, information about the position of the players in the field is seldom used. To address this gap, we introduce a novel modelling approach based on spatial data analysis, which generates a spatial similarity index to facilitate player comparison. The use of this new spatial similarity index is illustrated to identify similar players using spatial data from the Spanish competition "La Liga", season 2019-2020.
Palabras clave: Spatial statistics similarity index sports data analysis