Citec, quite a technology in Mexican football

Citec makes available to the club's information on the performance of each of the players.

Citec, quite a technology in Mexican football
The Technological Innovation Center makes available to the club's information on the performance of each of the players. Citec

The Center for Technological Innovation (Citec) of Mexican football is the world's largest platform that generates data, information on the performance of footballers and First Division teams, Liga de Ascenso, Liga Femenil, and youth categories sub 20, sub 17, and sub 15.

Information on the performance of more than 2,625 players of Mexican football is analyzed by Golstats, Wyscout, Wimu and See U Play, data analysis platforms that make up the Center for Technological Innovation, the project that democratized and standardized the use of technology in the national football, and that means the only project of its kind in international football since it unifies the interests of Liga MX and Federación Mexicana de Futbol, organizations that cover equally the budget of the project.

To have an idea about the information capacity generated by a football player, a statistical player analysis software (Golstats) can generate more than 1,200 variables on their performance on the playing field. A football match for 90 minutes yields more than 20 million pieces of data. All this information is available to the clubs, which through their Sports Intelligence areas are responsible for interpreting, weighing, and performing detailed analysis on the performance of the players, in favor of their use in the game.

"The clubs stopped investing in software individually. There is a budget assigned to the Citec, and a negotiation was made in economies of scale. It's not the same as the team going individually with Golstats that you have the whole league, that's why it's an industry project, "says Víctor Guevara, director of operations, competitions and development of Liga MX / Ascenso MX, in interview with El Economista.

Data obtained by El Economista indicate that the annual membership to have access to the four software that makes up the Citec would mean an investment of $ 250,000 for each team. The 18 clubs, only for a total access account for Golstats, Wimu, Wyscout and See U Play, would spend 4.5 million dollars a year, but the Citec services are also at the service of Liga de Ascenso, Liga Femenil, and sub 20, sub 17 and sub 15 categories, which enriches the platform and its opportunity to develop new technologies.

The great benefit with the creation of Citec is not only the reduction of costs or the implementation of consolidated purchases, which when negotiating directly with the directors of each of the technological platforms, access a better price; Among the advantages of the platform is the centralization of information, the creation of databases on the performance of players at the service of clubs and the opportunity to improve sports decision processes.

For at least five years, Liga MX clubs have already invested in performance analysis software. Even, the contest maintained by nine years an alliance with Match Analysis, to gather information of the parties, but only of First Division.

"The percentage was 25% on the equipment that was invested in different technology platforms and none closed the cycle," says Ricardo Bernal, senior consultant at Citec, on the fact that none of the First Division teams had access to the four platforms that now conform the Citec.

In addition, "there were two clubs that had a device of a previous generation, and three that had devices three generations earlier. Now, all Liga MX clubs have the latest generation of technology available in the market. There would be no way they would have achieved it alone, "Bernal adds.

Juan Carlos Hernández, director of the Innovation Center, explains that the objective of the platform is the centralization of the processes, the technology tools, and the research to develop new products.

"He has this work to incubate ideas, develop new processes, and the initiative to create new products. We are already applying it in reports prepared by the Citec, of specific orders of the clubs, "says the platform director.

The Citec is made up of 25 people specialized in the management of software and computer programmers, who carry out detailed reports requested by the teams, create and test new data analysis tools and provide service to the personnel of the sports intelligence areas of the teams.

Citec Golstats Mexico

Function: Telemetry software that analyzes and creates a database of statistics of the performance of the players during their activity. You can obtain information about the number of passes, speed, acceleration, distance traveled, and more than 1,200 variables. The platform allows analysis and video editing of matches, live monitoring of leagues from more than 40 countries.

Infrastructure for clubs:

Only for First Division teams

Five accounts of total access to the software and database

Electronic tablet for tracking live matches

Adjustable touch screen for strategy analysis

Falcon application for live tracking of statistics

For teams of Women's League, Ascent, sub 20, sub 17, and sub 15

One access accounts limited to the category in which Women's League, League of Promotion, sub-20, sub-17, and sub-15 participate

Falcon application for live tracking of statistics