KEIR RADNEDGE in DOHA: The sport science of incremental gains will feature in innovative fashion at the World Cup finals which hosts Qatar kick off against Ecuador.

FIFA will employ a team of 78 data analysts to track every action of every player in every match and will publish all the statistics within four hours at the behest of a technical study group led by Arsene Wenger, FIFA’s development director.

‘Captain’ of Wenger’s team will be Jurgen Klinsmann who was a World Cup winner in 1990 and later coached Germany and United States at the finals. The other TSG experts are Italian coach Alberto Zaccheroni, Nigeria’s Sunday Oliseh, South Korea’s Du-ri Cha and former goalkeepers Faryd Mondragon (Colombia) and Pascal Zuberbuhler (Switzerland).

Klinsmann said: “I have lived in America for 20 years and you can see there how data is being used in baseball, American football and basketball. These tools bring another element to your portfolio as a coach or journalist or fan.

“In the past the technical study report was published three months later but now we want the information spot-on without having to wait. This is a marriage between the technical part and the data side and for us it will be an interesting learning curve.”

Klinsmann is not one of those observers who fear for players flying directly from the cut and thrust of domestic competition to the World Cup.

He said: “I think the quality of this World Cup will be high because the players don’t need another preparation as they did when they had a four-week break. They come here fresh and hungry and for all of us this is what we live for – that excitement, the emotional side of the game.

“That’s why I also think this could be a World Cup of surprises because if some of the African and Asian teams are courageous they can go far in this tournament. This is not a tournament in which to sit back and defend. It’s a tournament inviting you to go forward.

“The teams are fit and hungry and want to get going.”

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