Since September of last year, the Soccermetrics API has been in a “semi-public” beta.  What that meant was that if you expressed interest in the API, you would send an email to request an authentication credential and you would receive one.  It was a manual process, to be sure, but it kept the list of users manageable while continuing to make changes to the API infrastructure.

Effective immediately, the API is now in a truly public beta stage.  You can access the Soccermetrics API Developer Portal and request your own API credentials.   There are other resources you can access as well:

• Soccermetrics API Documentation
• Soccermetrics API Client Documentation for Python
• Soccermetrics API Client Documentation for Perl

The beta version of the Soccermetrics API contains data from the MCFC Analytics enhanced data project so that you can understand the capabilities of the web service.  But as we said in September, we weren’t going to stop there.

Our goal with the Soccermetrics API is to connect data on the world game to the entire football industry: provide a platform for distribution of data from every type of football competition in the world to every end user in the world, and provide a platform for delivery of  football data analytics to the world.

We are finalizing an agreement with a major data supplier to distribute in-match data for every match of the world’s premier quadrennial football competition. (That description keeps us on the right side of the copyright attorneys, but you should know what we’re referring to.)

We will be making changes to the API design to accommodate this competition which is quite different from a domestic league competition.  We will also charge for access.  But the main features of the API design will persist between the two versions.  And if you sign up for the beta now, you will be considered for early access to the paid version of the API.

So please, check out the Soccermetrics API for yourself by receiving a credential at the Developer Portal.