Data scientists are predicting sports injuries with an algorithm

A football player wears a vest holding a GPS sensor. The data captured feed into an algorithm.Credit: Matthew Ashton/AMA/Corbis via Getty In 2005, 17-year-old aspiring footballer Alessio Rossi tore two ligaments in his right ankle during training for lower league Italian football club USD Olginatese. The injury ended his dream of playing at the highest level. Today, Rossi is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Pisa, Italy, where he collects and analyses reams of data to help prevent players at top teams getting injuries of their own. When Rossi was playing, his coaches' instincts and experiences were all they had to predict whether he might receive an injury.