I’m just back in my office after watching Liverpool defeat a 10-manned Inter today at the San Siro. Tough luck for the Italians in the Champions League this round. Anyway, you might remember my post from last week’s AC Milan/Arsenal game where I mentioned the stats shown on the TV? Well today I paid particular attention to the technology that surrounded the game.

First of course, we were watching ESPN2 HD on a flat screen mounted on the wall at the bar…. LIVE from the San Siro. There was unlimited instant replay for offsides, fouls and interesting plays. Stats started appearing just into the 2nd half.

The 52nd minute brought a pop-up showing passes completed and shots taken in the game for each team.

There were quite a few free kicks and yellow cards, but only two occasions where the distance from the goal was shown: Twenty six meters for Milan in the 56th minute, and 20 meters in the 70th minute.

On every substitution, ESPN showed the distance the player had run, and simultaneously the team average. In the 73rd minute, they showed the passes completed and shots taken in the game for each team again.

In an exhilarating turn of events, my soccer mate, Cyrus, asked me what Benayoun’s weight was. I jumped right onto the Internet, found it was 70kg, and converted it 154lbs. (Sadly, that was about the most exciting part of the match following Liverpool’s goal.)

Here we are – Cy and me after the game. We saw that USA vs Cuba will be playing at 5pm here in San Francisco. It scrolled across the feed at bottom of screen, so we’re planning to watch the game later.

Go USA.

Tagged as: analysis, champions league, Men's Soccer, statistics, Technology