In this guide, we’ll explain where to buy football data, why you should, what to look for, and how to choose the right provider.

Het bericht Where can I buy football data? verscheen eerst op Sportmonks.

It doesn’t matter if you are a basic user or a data rockstar looking to create a comprehensive player profile, join us in this episode of our guide as we go over six steps on how to build soccer player data profiles.

Why are Soccer player data profiles important?

The importance of soccer player data cannot be overemphasised, as it serves as a crucial tool in modern football, providing valuable insights across various aspects of the game. Hence, it allows data-reliant stakeholders such as coaches and analysts to track detailed performance metrics, such as passing accuracy, dribbling success, and defensive contributions.

By understanding these statistics, team analysts can identify strengths and weaknesses in players, helping them tailor training programs for improvement where necessary.

For clubs and scouts, player data profiles are essential in the recruitment process. Rather than focusing on only one specific metric, such as goals, they can rely on a wide range of indicators to make decisions and player evaluations.

Fantasy football platforms and sports betting markets also rely on player data. Fantasy football players use these profiles to make informed selections, while bookmakers and bettors analyse trends, injury histories, and player form to make calculated decisions.

How about commentaries? Commentators rely on player statistics for pre-match, post-match and in-play analysis to drive deep fan engagement.

In addition, artificial intelligence and predictive analytics have taken player data analysis a few notches up. Many clubs apply machine learning models to predict a player’s potential impact on the squad based on his data profile.

We will show you a practical example of how to build a player’s soccer data profile using Sportmonks Football API and a programming language of choice.

Let’s get started!

Het bericht How to Build soccer player data profiles using Sportmonks Football API verscheen eerst op Sportmonks.

Some of them could have actually been done right on your app! Yes! With a shoestring budget, you too can rub shoulders with the crème de la crème of sports news.

Perhaps you would like to carve a niche in football transfer news related to a specific club, maybe Chelsea? Or one of your favourite players? Don’t fret! In this blog, we will explore club transfer activities with Sportmonks Football API and Dart, an object-oriented, class-based programming language with C-style syntax.

So, grab your favourite jersey and join us as we dive into this football transfer mania!

What is Dart?

The language, which first appeared on October 10, 2011, was designed by Lars Bak and Kasper Lund before Google adopted it.

Dart is an object-oriented, class-based, garbage-collected language with C-style syntax. It can compile to machine code, JavaScript, or WebAssembly.

Who Uses Dart?

Dart can be used to develop web and mobile apps as well as server and desktop applications; hence it’s an ideal choice for HTTP applications. Never mind it ranks 17th on a recent survey on Stackoverflow’s most popular technology, an active community of Dart developers is available when required.

While Dart is not particularly popular in the programming world, Dart is adopted in many everyday apps such as Google Pay, AdSense, and eBay Motors.

Did you know Google Play Console, which lets app publishers market Android apps, is written completely in Dart? The list goes on with many more Google apps. Google One and Google Fibre have adopted Dart in one form or another.

In addition, e-commerce giant Alibaba makes extensive use of Dart.

Het bericht Exploring Club Transfers with Sportmonks’ Football API and DART. verscheen eerst op Sportmonks.

Designed and developed by Ary Borenszweig, Juan Wajnerman, Brian Cardiff, and more than 400 contributors, Crystal, which is currently in active development, is a high-level general-purpose, object-orientated programming language.

The Crystal compiler was first written in Ruby but later rewritten in Crystal, leading to the first official version being released in June 2014.

Adoption – Who Uses Crystal?

While Crystal is not particularly popular in the programming world, it has been adopted in several fields such as biometrics, networking, cyber security, SaSS, and several gaming projects.

Het bericht Exploring Top scorers with Sportmonks’ Football API and Crystal verscheen eerst op Sportmonks.

Our football API ticks many of the boxes; however, the data format is only available in JavaScript Object Notation format, or JSON for short. Don’t fret; JSON can easily be converted to different formats, such as CSV, XML, HTML, or for use in a spreadsheet application such as Excel.

In this blog, we will focus on the latter, Excel, where we shall retrieve data from our fixtures’ endpoint, which is just one of more than 65 available endpoints on Sportmonks’ Football API.

What is JSON?

JSON is a language-independent, open-standard data and interchange format that uses human-readable text to store and transmit data objects consisting of name–value pairs and arrays.

The file format was derived from JavaScript and originally specified by Douglas Crockford in the early 2000s.

It gained widespread popularity and became the preferred choice over formats like XML due to several desirable qualities. Its text-based format, which is easy to read by both humans and machines, aids quick transfer due to its small size.

JSON is also platform agnostic and can be used with almost any programming language. While it supports complex data structures, it is also easy to maintain and update. In addition, its interoperable nature makes it an ideal choice for web services.

Why is Excel beneficial?

Data manipulation directly on a spreadsheet such as Excel allows for clear organization. Excel is also compatible with many programming languages, allowing easy integration with different systems.

While data organised in an Excel sheet can be ideal when enforcing data quality, parsing data from JSON to the popular format also comes in handy for sharing data in a structured format with third parties.

With that much said, let’s dive into the task at hand.

Het bericht Converting JSON Data from Sportmonks’ Football API to Excel. verscheen eerst op Sportmonks.

While Lua is not popular in the mainstream programming world, it can be found in many applications. Adobe Photoshop Lightroom is one of them.

Lua is also applied extensively in video games, with Angry Birds, being one. Popular flight simulator X-Plane uses Lua for its aircraft systems and plugins.

The mobile payment app Venmo, for example, was built using Lua. The programming language was also used in the development of CISCO Systems alongside other networking applications.

Chapter 1: Setting up your environment

In order to write and compile Lua, we need to set up an environment to do so.

While there are a host of development tools available for use, we will choose the option of installing an IDE to get us up and running in no time.

1.1 Installing an IDE for Lua.

The platform-independent ZeroBrane Studio is an ideal choice for today’s exercise. The lightweight IDE is available for free and easy to install.

Head over to the official website to download a suitable version for your workstation.

After installation, we shall need an API token to authenticate all our requests to the endpoint of our Football API.

1.2 Obtaining an API Token

To use the API, sign up for an account. Your account automatically comes with the Danish Super Liga and Scottish Premier League, these are free plans with no costs.

Head over to the create an API Token section.

Once you have your API Token, which is required for authentication and accessing the data endpoints, you must keep it private.

Het bericht Create a Text-based Match prediction bar chart with Sportmonks’ Football API and Lua. verscheen eerst op Sportmonks.

Each chapter will build on the next one as we go through each exercise. Now, let’s dive in!

What is Rust?

Rust is a general-purpose programming language emphasising performance, type safety, and concurrency. It’s known for its reliability and safety.

Software developer Graydon Hoare created Rust as a personal project while working at Mozilla Research in 2006, a project which the company officially sponsored three years later.

The programming language has been used in the development of software such as command line tools, web services, DevOps tooling, and search engines. It has also been used in programs for Internet of Things applications and machine learning.

Who Uses Rust?

Many years later, following the first stable release in May 2015, the programming language was adopted by several companies such as Amazon, Discord, and Dropbox. Firefox and Cloudflare are also applications built with Rust.

We shall put Rust to use in our blog to retrieve and format JSON data for match commentaries on any fixture of interest. Let’s sink our teeth into the task at hand.

WHY DO MATCH COMMENTARIES MATTER?

Match commentaries add a textual representation of the actions that take place during the course of a live match. As an alternative to live TV or streaming, they offer a clear picture of the game’s proceedings minute by minute.

While match previews and post-match reviews, which are also part of our robust Football API, offer the buildup and summary to the match, respectively, match commentaries offer a unique angle to the game’s coverage as it is live.

Why deny your users the opportunity to experience the game like never before with real-time, dynamic commentaries?

As we are about to show you, with a few lines of code and minimal programming skills, you too can integrate our Football API to give your users the thrill of live play-by-play updates. Sign up for a free trial now to begin!

Het bericht Exploring Match Commentaries with Sportmonks’ Football API and RUST. verscheen eerst op Sportmonks.