Automation and rationality in decision-making to replace a sportman at decisive moments

Increasingly, the sport entertainment is emerging as an object of study in advanced research centres, as a result of the need to manage the high budgets of sport entities. To win in sports like football or basketball depends on many factors, almost all studied thoroughly. It shows, however, that in one of them, the decision making is hastily and intuitive. It’s the substitution of a player by another one that should enter into the pitch to fulfil some tasks that the replaced one, for whatever reason, can’t carry out. The coach is forced, then, to take a decision almost always under ambient pressure and conflict of sensations often contradictory. In this paper we propose an algorithm easy to use and apply for answer to the following question: is it necessary to replace a player? And if so, on which of them should be replaced.