Knowledge representation in soccer domain: An ontology development

In soccer, in order to evaluate teams´ performance, a complex set of variables must be analyzed (aside from the final game result). However, in some cases, the concepts used by the analysts are different when compared to the ones used by the coach or the players. The main goal of this research project is the development of an ontology capable of standardizing the concepts related to a soccer game. Using Protégé (as development tool) and OWL (as language), low- and high-level concepts were created and validated by 60 soccer experts. From the 40 tested concepts, 33 were completely validated, which constitutes excellent indicators about their understanding and correction. In the future, the ontology developed in this project will be used as a base for a real-time analysis system capable of executing soccer player behavior analysis.