"Using statistic analyzing tools to help football coaches with strategic planning and players' state management." The "secret weapon" used at the training ground of Chinese Super League appeared at the Football Championship of Wujiaochang Elementary School. This is the first application of smart football system in elementary and middle schools in Shanghai to assist the youth training with the power of technology as used in professional football games.
We saw at the training ground that every young football player has a black bracelet on their wrist and their heart rate, running distance, energy consumed and other statistics related to their movements were shown on the big screen. After the game, the coach would receive, along with the results, a detailed report including the possession percentage, pass rate and challenge time of each player. This "black bracelet" technology collects these statistics of the players and the whole team so that they can be analyzed. In this way, the coaches can not only use their own experience and power of observation but also the insights from the data when they do strategic planning and player selection. "In the past, all we knew were the results. Now with the data, we can analyze every student to figure out who is good at what role as shown in the report," the coach of Wujiaochang Elementary School told us.
Apart from the black bracelet, "chip football" was also used in the game. At the individual skill challenge area, the students were taking challenges in juggling, backwards spike and pull back V with a specially designed football.
This football looked the same as ordinary ones from the outside, but is quite different inside. The designers' team told us that inside the football there were high-speed trajectory calculation module, integrative mini computing chips and high-performance sensors that perform professional trajectory calculation and analysis and record the results in detail. The coaches at the challenge only needed to download an exclusive App which will film the entire process and also count the time and results.
Is it too early to use these professional magical technologies at an elementary school football court? The coaches commented that while the professional teams focused on results, the training at elementary schools aimed at presenting the diversity of football culture through the technology. "Being exposed to technology-assisted coaching and engaged in training, these kids might become football stars that can represent China one day."