FutbolFutbol · Research & development
Making player evaluation inspectable
An independent football analytics project exploring how transparent ratings, data quality and coach-informed evaluation can support player assessment and scouting.
Project and responsibility
Organization: FutbolFutbol
Project lead: Mario Casamalhuapa
Focus: football analytics, player evaluation and research software.
FutbolFutbol is an independent project. This page documents its current development work and proposed research agenda; it does not represent university affiliation or institutional accreditation.
Current work: RPIX
RPIX is an experimental player-rating framework implemented in the FutbolFutbol platform. The site publishes its methodology, player profiles, source references and comparison tools so that users can examine the inputs behind a score.
Current development includes position-based player comparisons, squad and lineup exploration, and clearly labelled AI explanations of supplied statistics. A generated explanation is not independent evidence that a rating or conclusion is correct.
Research questions
- Validity: Do player ratings add useful information beyond simple measures such as minutes played?
- Robustness: How sensitive are comparisons to weights, missing data, position groups and competition context?
- Practical use: Where do quantitative comparisons agree or disagree with coaches, and what explains those differences?
Proposed evaluation programme
The following studies are proposed, not completed findings. Before each study, we intend to specify the question, eligible sample, comparison baseline and evaluation criteria.
- Time-separated evaluation: freeze ratings and data dates before assessing later outcomes, to reduce leakage from future information.
- Sensitivity analysis: vary weighting choices and missing-data treatment, and report which conclusions remain stable.
- Coach review: collect structured assessments and document agreement and disagreement without treating either a coach or an algorithm as an infallible reference.
Data and reproducibility
Transfermarkt is the principal player-profile source identified by the project; ESPN is used for selected cross-checks and fixtures. Sources and dates should be inspected on the relevant profiles. Access to a public website does not itself grant a licence to redistribute its data.
For proposed studies, the aim is to document methodology versions, inclusion rules, data cutoffs, corrections and evaluation procedures. Sharing of underlying data will depend on the applicable permissions; this page offers no third-party dataset for download.
Limitations and research status
RPIX remains experimental. This page makes no claim of peer-reviewed validation, calibrated win probabilities or established predictive accuracy. A squad average is not a starting lineup, and a player rating does not capture every tactical role or contribution.
Coverage, playing time, position definitions and missing observations can affect comparisons. Market context and youth-related components require particular care when interpreting a score as current sporting performance.
This page does not list completed research publications. Proposed studies will need documented results before supporting stronger claims.
Contact and collaboration
For questions about the project, methodology feedback or potential research collaboration, contact Mario Casamalhuapa through the FutbolFutbol contact page. No external collaborator or institution is represented as a formal partner here.
Research overview · Updated 13 October 2026