Usage of Player Monitoring Data and Machine Learning in Football: A Systematic Review

With the increasing availability of player monitoring technologies, football clubs are increasingly adopting data-driven approaches to support performance analysis and decision-making. The aim of this review is to outline the applications of monitoring data within football and to examine how such data are combined with machine learning techniques. This review will intentionally exclude injury prediction and injury-related outcomes, as this area has been extensively covered in existing literature. Instead, the focus will be on alternative uses of monitoring data, such as performance evaluation, player development and readiness. The objectives of this review are to summarise the primary applications of monitoring data in football, identify the machine learning branches, algorithms, and methods most commonly employed, and examine the performance outcomes investigated using these data. Through this synthesis, the review aims to highlight current trends, capabilities, and potential future directions for the use of monitoring data in football.