Not only Italian football: at SFS 25 the focus broadened to the international stage with a session dedicated to the Saudi Pro League, led by Jes Buster Madsen, Director of Football and Data Science for the league.

For the past year, Madsen has overseen an ambitious project: building a unified platform capable of collecting and integrating all league data, making it accessible to clubs to better manage their season, performance and strategic planning. “We have the opportunity to create a centralized system, with all data on a single platform,” he explained. “New technologies allow us to measure technical and physical parameters with great precision, giving players concrete tools to improve every day, both in training and during matches.”

The Saudi Pro League uses providers such as OPTA and Catapult to monitor complex information, made even more challenging by the unpredictable nature of the sport. The goal is to reduce the gap with major European leagues by investing not only on the pitch, but also in infrastructure and innovation.

At the heart of the project is QIMA, the league’s proprietary platform. “QIMA gathers all types of information on players—from physical performance to sleep quality, and even financial aspects. We don’t want clubs to deal with massive amounts of data on their own: we collect it, analyze it, and provide useful insights to build scenarios and long-term perspectives for the future of football,” said Madsen.

With QIMA, any player can be compared to another by filtering specific attributes and characteristics according to analytical needs. The platform integrates multiple systems into a single environment, making data visualization both detailed and accessible. “I’m convinced that QIMA can answer any statistical question. Such a rich analysis is far more useful than traditional radar charts, which blend parameters without proper context,” he added.

The same method applies to clubs as well, analyzed through advanced metrics that help assess performance, behavior and tactical adjustments. “We can measure how ball possession changes when a team faces higher or lower pressure, and that helps us truly understand how the game develops.”

In modern football, data has become essential—but, Madsen stresses, it’s crucial to understand its purpose before using it. QIMA aims precisely to map opponents, highlight strengths and weaknesses, create weekly reports for players and teams, and track performance development. “For example, we discovered that many players improve during Ramadan because they eat a full meal at the same time each evening, and the following morning they are in optimal condition to train.”

The benefits, therefore, are numerous: unified and democratized data, accessible analysis, constant monitoring, and strong future potential. “Building a platform like QIMA from scratch has been incredibly stimulating,” Madsen concluded. “This project allows us to grow even further and look to the future of our league with real ambition.”