CD Castellón's 2023-2024 season can be described as nothing short of spectacular, culminating in a well-deserved promotion to LaLiga2. Their success was not only a testament to their attacking style of play but also a result of their innovative approach to player development.
With a forward-driven and attacking style of play, they ended in the top position of the Primera Federación with 82 points and 74 goals scored. Not only their style of play was refreshing in the Spanish Third Division, but also their individualized approach to developing players was revolutionary, the average age of the starting 11 was 25.4 years, one of the younger squads in the league.
Forward Style of Play
The team of Coach Schreuder is an attacking and high-intensity playing squad.
- Created the most chances in the league with 527 chances created
- Covered the most Sprinting Distance and High Speed runs in the league with 161.22 meters / 90' and 38.45 / 90'
- and the most active in the final third, 21.7% of their passes were in the final third not only leading in their league but also the 3rd best team of the Big Five Leagues in Europe
It would not surprise you that in the training ground, you see visual reminders for the players like THINK FORWARD, PLAY FORWARD. It's a philosophy you see drilled down to the players and their targets in their Individual Development Plan.
"We had a really successful season, with a clear Style of Play but it's not an overnight success. It's about repeating every day to the players what we expect and showing them individualized videos" Johan Plat - Assistant Coach
CD Castellón has used MyGamePlan since the start of the 23-24 season, their event data, tracking data, and video get connected into one tool where they can create queries to calculate the success of their style of play, but also quickly share videos with their players to educate them on taking better decisions.
Incorporated tracking data is crucial, because of their intensive style of play, measuring deep runs and forward running patterns is a key element to their style of play.
This kind of metric allows the coaching staff to not only find examples of when the deep run did occur but also when the player did not perform a deep run while it was expected.
Another key principle of CD Castellón is to recover the ball as soon as possible after they lose possession. The so-called Gegenpress is almost impossible to tag or manually analyze, the staff members use a combination of a pressure definition and a time rule to track these moments, but also to quickly analyze the moments they did not recover the ball within 5 seconds after they lost possession.
They also lead the league with this metric, recovering the ball within 5 seconds every 5 possession losses.
The players will be able to see this within their PlayerApp and can keep track of their performance with video to learn how to behave when this situation arrives in future games.
"It's not only the time saving that is important for us but also to be able to show video clips to the players of moments in the game they can improve" Dennis van der Meulen - Tactical Analyst
Increase in player market value
The result of the individualized plans for the players is monitored by the total increase in market value in the Executive Dashboard. The main goal of Individual Player Development and showing clips to players is for them to perform better and increase in market value. On average 38% of the total revenue of a club comes from outgoing transfers, so it's crucial to have an individualized plan for the players to increase their performance and therefore the market value.
"For me, it's important that we have an ROI on the players we invest in. Providing each player with an individualized plan to maximize their potential, leads to an increase of their performance and market value" Bob Voulgaris - Owner CD Castellón
MyGamePlan supports clubs with these individual plans to make sure that they can measure their principles and automate as many tasks as possible to support the players.
Eventually, this individualized approach leads to clarity for the players and makes sure they have a clear target, connected to videos to show them how they should improve their game.
With CD Castellón, the total team market value of the players in the last 12 months increased by 15.59 % leading the Primera Federación on this metric.
CD Castellón increased the total squad value by 15.59 % or € 1.384.000, leading the Primera Federación
MyGamePlan and CD Castellón partnered together since the 2023-2024 season. It's a Belgian startup founded by Berten Knaepen and Dries Deprest, using their expertise from working experience at different clubs. They help clubs reach their targets by connecting different data sources into one tool for executives to monitor performance, increase asset value, and impact of scouting & recruitment.
