Sports coaches have always made decisions based on experience, observation and intuition. But they are increasingly relying on hard evidence. Behind the scenes, a quiet revolution is transforming sport – driven not by human skills but by data.

Wearable sensors, video trackers, GPS and health monitors now capture almost everything an athlete does. From their speed and movement to heart rate and positioning, countless data are being recorded.

But how best apply all that data?

I work at the intersection of sports, statistics and artificial intelligence, leading the Modelling, Interdisciplinary, Data, Applied, Statistics (Midas) research team at the University of Luxembourg. Our goal is simple: use data to help athletes and coaches make better decisions.

Whether that’s adjusting tactics pre-match, predicting outcomes or preventing injury, data science is changing the game.

The challenge is to make sense of this plethora of data, which comes from different sources and is of different types. And that is precisely where statistical modelling and machine learning come into play.

By finding patterns in the data – such as why a certain (over-)training has led to reduced performance........

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