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We're into the second week of the Euros this week and it's been a superb tournament so far! Lots of great goals and a few teams really starting to strut their stuff. Currently I feel like Spain are the best performing team but there's still a lot of time for things to change (and hopefully England will change for the better too although four points from the first two games isn't anything to sniff at!).
As I write this, I'm also watching England qualify for the semi-finals of the ICC Men's T20 Cricket World Cup. They've come quite a distance since that first fateful wash-out against Scotland, when qualifying out of the group was suddenly in doubt, but they look good now. Special shout out to Afghanistan too, who beat Australia the other day and are still going from strength to strength.
And it's not just sporting results that continue to impress and inspire me - here's some visualisations that had the same effect!
I'm starting with a great cycling visualisation by Jay Charole focusing on the history of the Tour de France. This is an absolute must read for anyone whether you've never watched the Tour or you're a season follower. There's so much insight packed into this visualisation, and a really great balance of BANs and graphs. I had no idea that the Tour used to be so much longer, and it's impressive that the average speed of the winner has continued to increase even as mountain stages are a growing part of the race. I also really like Jay's soft beige & grey colour-scheme with sports of deeper colour and bright orange highlights. Super stuff.
Following on from last week's festival of Euro-themed visualisation (and there was still plenty of non-Euro ones too!), Ryan Soares is keeping it going this week looking at the age vs experience of the different squads. This visualisation has been burning a hole in my brain when I've been watching England matches because this squad is so much less experienced than others as well as being really young. The previous winners (cleverly highlighted in black and white rather than full colour) tended to have one or the other if not both.
There is well-known visualisation in cricket affectionately known as the "worm chart" which tracks the progress of each team during a match. Yash Sakhuja has written a blog exploring how to recreate this effective visualisation in Tableau. I particularly enjoy how Yash has used reference bands to separate the different phases of the game too. Worth a read for any aspiring cricket analysts at least, and also for anyone who is interested in different ways of showing the narrative of how a game unfolds.
Dan Wade's one-man Formula One viz-marathon continues this week by looking at how things sit after the first 9 races compared with previous years. Even if he's not as dominant this year, I wonder if Verstappen still has enough in the tank (pun intended) or if someone else will reel him in...
I always love data visualisation in the wild especially when it is something physical too, and this ticks both of those boxes! Featured by the Data Visualization Society, Anna Ivashechkina has created detailed crochet dolls to show a mountain of information about clubs in the Russian Premier League this season. There is so much creativity and ingenuity on show here, not to mention skill with a crochet needle!
And lastly, we're pleased to say that we have teamed up with Makeover Monday this week to have a go at some statistics from the Euros! Check out more on Irene's tweet/post below, grab the data and dive in. I can't wait to see all your makeovers!
Cheers all. Here's to some more football!
Mo & the #SportsVizSunday team
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