Add a direction of play/attack arrow example

[andrewRowlinson]

A direction play/attack arrow is often displayed on pitches.

Add an example to the gallery of ways of doing this. The examples are found here:

• mplsoccer/examples/pitch_plots

The examples are structured as python scripts using Sphinx Gallery. See the following guide about how to structure these scripts files: https://sphinx-gallery.github.io/stable/syntax.html

[karlosos]

Can you precise what kind of arrow is wanted here?

I think that there are basic pass/movement arrows already implemented (documentation, code).

Do you mean something more like this?

[andrewRowlinson]

Hi @karlosos. The idea is that all the event based data is orientated so the attacking direction is left to right. It's not immediately obvious to someone outside the analytics community that this is the case. So often we put an arrow under the chart to explain the direction of attack.

Here are some examples:

• https://twitter.com/utdarena/status/1385712120977924098?s=20
• https://twitter.com/Twenty3sport/status/1400722866803556352?s=20
• https://twitter.com/Worville/status/1365738445826633733?s=20

It can be accompanied with some text, e.g. direction of attack or direction of play.

The idea of the example would be to introduce the concept and give a few different ways of plotting it. For example:

• an arrow under the pitch as in the examples above
• three arrow markers under the pitch (i.e. a jazzier version of an arrow)
• a large arrow on the pitch the blends into the background

This is particularly relevant for kdeplots or heatmaps plotted on a full pitch as it's not obvious which direction they are orientated in.

[snehangsude]

Hi, Andrew. I see this is not being assigned to anybody, would you mind if I handle this issue?

[andrewRowlinson]

@snehangsude happy for you to do this.