Bundesliga fans will already be familiar with the Bundesliga Match Facts powered by AWS that appeared towards the end of the 2019/20 season. During games on TV and in live text blogs, innovations such as Expected Goals, Average Position and Speed Alert appeared. These innovative real-time statistics give viewers, fans and clubs completely new insight into the game.

Rolfes: 'Statistics are a big part of football's future'

In Simon Rolfes, the Bundesliga and its partner AWS have an expert who knows the Bundesliga from A to Z. Bayer 04 Leverkusen's Sporting Director, Rolfes has been responsible for shaping the club's squad since 2018 and has recently brought young stars like Florian Wirtz, Patrik Schick and Moussa Diaby to the banks of the Rhine. As a former player, club official, entrepreneur and TV pundit, Rolfes is the ideal man to write a weekly column for the 'Bundesliga Match Facts Zone' on bundesliga.com, analysing current trends and giving unique insight on the Bundesliga Match Facts.

More background on Bundesliga Match Facts

"Statistics are a big part of football's future," Rolfes said. "At Bayer Leverkusen, statistics play quite an important role in pre- and post-match analysis, as well as in scouting. I'm really looking forward to working with the Bundesliga and AWS."

Rolfes was himself one of the players out there on the pitch creating such stats in the Bundesliga. After being at SV Werder Bremen's youth academy and gaining experience at SSV Reutlingen and Alemannia Aachen in Bundesliga 2, he arrived at Bayer Leverkusen in 2005. There, Rolfes shone as a central midfielder and captain for a decade.

288 Bundesliga games, 70 European appearances, 26 caps

In 288 Bundesliga games, he scored 41 goals and finished league runner-up in 2010/11. He also made an impression in continental competition, playing no fewer than 70 matches in the UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League and the UEFA Cup. Between 2007 and 2012, he was a fixture in Joachim Löw's Germany squad, playing 28 times for his country and helping them to runners-up spot at UEFA EURO 2008.

Though he stayed connected to football after his playing career, he also added a number of other strings to his bow: he started a consulting agency for young high-performance athletes and took over Vieww GmbH, a company specialising in real-time sport image analysis. Between 2015 and 2017, he was a Bundesliga pundit for the German TV channel ZDF, and then he returned to Leverkusen, firstly as Youth and Development Coordinator and latterly as Sporting Director.

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