How to tag a football match for video analysis

Tagging, or coding, a match means marking the moments you want to look at again while you watch the recording. Done well, it turns ninety minutes of footage into a short list of plays you can review, clip and show your players. Done badly, it turns one evening into three, and you still don't know what to tell the squad on Tuesday.

This guide is the method we'd give any coach, with or without software: what to decide before you start, how many buttons to use, how to tag in one watch, and what to do with the bookmarks afterwards. The second half shows how the same method works in Enlyo. It's written for football, and it works the same for hockey, basketball, rugby or volleyball.

What does it mean to tag a match?

A professional analyst may code every pass, duel and set piece, because a club wants the numbers. Most coaches don't need that. You need the ten or twenty moments that answer a question about your team, and you need them by the next training.

So think of a tag as a bookmark: a stretch of video with a name, marking something you want to see again. The full record of a match is a different job. If you try to do both in one watch, you'll do neither well.

Why mark anything at all, instead of watching and remembering? Because memory of a match is patchy. In a study of qualified, experienced football coaches who watched 45 minutes of a match and were then questioned about it, the chance of recalling a critical event accurately was 59.2%, even though they were allowed to take notes. A bookmark doesn't forget.

1. What should you look for before you press play?

Start with a question, not with the footage. Good questions come from your last training week or from the game plan:

• Did we press high after losing the ball, as we practised?
• Where did their chances come from?
• How did we get out from goal kicks under pressure?
• What happened at our set pieces, for and against?

Pick one or two questions per match. Each question becomes one or two things to tag. "Did we press after losing the ball?" becomes Turnover: you mark every time you lose it and look at what happens next. "Where did their chances come from?" becomes Shot against.

Write the list down before kick-off on the recording. If something outside the list happens and it matters, tag it anyway with a general button such as Key moment. But the list keeps you watching for what you came for.

2. How many tag buttons do you need?

Four to eight buttons is enough for most matches. With more, you start looking at the panel instead of the pitch, and you miss the moment you were waiting for.

A good starting set for football is four actions, each for your team and against it:

That's eight buttons and only four things to remember. Add one button for this week's question, such as Press or Build-up, and drop one you don't need.

Every sport has its own four. In field hockey it's often goals, shots, circle entries and penalty corners. In basketball, made twos and threes, turnovers and offensive rebounds. In rugby, tries, turnovers, penalties and lineouts. Choose the moments that decide matches in your sport, then the ones that match your question.

Whatever you use, give each button a key. Your eyes stay on the video and your hand finds the key, the way it finds the space bar.

3. Tag in one watch, with a time window

This is the part that saves the most time. Don't stop the video to tag. Press the button when you see the moment and keep watching.

The trick is a time window. A press marks not just the second you pressed, but a stretch around it: for example 15 seconds before and 5 after. You always react a moment late, and the build-up to a shot is usually what you want to see. The window catches both. A goal kick that ends in a turnover twelve seconds later is in the bookmark of the turnover.

A few habits help:

• Press when it happens, not when you're sure. A bookmark you don't need takes a second to delete later. A moment you didn't mark takes minutes to find.
• Don't rewind during the first watch. If you miss something, keep going. You'll see it again when you review.
• Watch at normal speed. Faster sounds efficient, but you miss the movement off the ball, which is often the point.
• Undo the wrong key at once. Then carry on.

Tag this way and the match is tagged when the recording reaches the final whistle. For a 90-minute match that's one sitting, not an evening.

4. Review the bookmarks, not the match

Now go through the bookmarks only, one after the other. For each one, ask: does this answer my question?

• Keep it if it shows the point clearly. Add a short note on what you see: "Wide player doesn't tuck in."
• Trim it if the window is too long or starts too late.
• Delete it if it doesn't add anything.

Slow down for the important ones and step through them frame by frame to see who moved when. If you filmed from two angles, switch to the other side for the moments where the first one doesn't show enough.

Out of twenty bookmarks, you'll often keep eight. That is the analysis. Everything else was the search for it.

5. Turn what's left into something for your players

Bookmarks are for you. Players need something they can watch: a short clip per moment, or a few moments stitched together. Our guide on how to make video clips for players covers which moments to choose and how to share them. If one player needs to understand a single decision, talk them through it. See how to give video feedback to players.

Common mistakes

• Tagging everything. You end up with two hundred bookmarks and no time to look at them.
• Building a new set of buttons every week. Keep the same core set, so your hand learns the keys.
• Tagging without a question. You'll mark what's easy to see, like goals and shots, and miss what you needed, like how the shots came about.
• Leaving the review for later. Do it the same evening or the next morning, while you still remember the match.

How to tag a match in Enlyo

Enlyo is built around this method. Here's how each step looks in it.

Your buttons are ready. When you sign up, you pick your sport from about 40. For football you start with Goal, Shot, Corner and Turnover, each as a for button and an against button. The for button is the bare letter: g, s, c and t. The against button is Shift plus the same letter. Eight buttons, four letters to learn.

Every press makes a bookmark, and the video keeps playing. Each starter button covers 15 seconds before the press and 5 after. Press its key and a bookmark titled after the button lands on the match, around that moment. The keys work with the tags panel collapsed, so the match can fill the screen.

Change the buttons to fit your question. Open them from Settings → Player, or from the player header while you watch. Each button has a title, a key, a colour and its seconds before and after. Add a Press button for this week, drag the buttons into the order you like, delete the ones you don't use. Your buttons are yours: they follow you to every channel, and nobody else sees them. Changing a button never changes the bookmarks it already made.

Undo a wrong press. ⌘ / Ctrl + Z takes back the last press, up to 25 presses back, and ⌘ / Ctrl + Shift + Z puts it back.

Review from the keyboard. j and k jump 10 seconds back and forward, the arrow keys 3 seconds. , and . step a frame. < and > slow down and speed up. Each bookmark has a title and a note, and you can trim it. Filmed from two sides? Add both recordings to the match and switch angles with the number keys.

Start before the upload finishes. Upload the match and start watching straight away, from the copy on your computer, while the upload runs in the background.

Bring tags from other tools. Tagged the match in Sportscode, Nacsport or Dartfish? Import the tags and each one arrives as a bookmark, named after the tag, with its note.

Every plan has every feature, the free one included, with 10 GB of storage. See what's in Enlyo and what each plan costs.

More on match analysis

• Match review for coaches: the whole routine, from upload to the team meeting.
• Opposition scouting: the same method on your next opponent's matches.
• Video analysis by sport: football, field hockey, basketball, rugby and volleyball.