Technology in today’s Football

Technology is revolutionizing the way we conceive football. It is a change in the way in which professional football teams optimize their performances, their training, their encounters. But also when it comes to improving their income through other channels: their relationship with fans, revenue from retransmissions, control of tickets or the sports management of the football team.

Today we want to review the latest technologies that have recently been incorporated. Technology in football to understand what is to come.

No doubt technology has revolutionized our lives, football is also sensitive to these changes.

VAR: So fashionable nowadays it is a technology that is used as an assistant for the referee in plays and occasions of difficult interpretation.

Identification systems: The Fan ID was launched in the last World Cup in Russia, it is an identification technology through a chip in which all the data of the carrier is collected. It allows for example to enter a country only to watch a soccer match for 10 days. Thanks to this chip, basic user services can be included, such as free transport, access to exclusive spaces, etc.

Smart shoes: Sports brands are not far behind in the use of technology applied to football. Nike, Adidas or Reebok already have in their catalog special editions of models that use technology to adapt perfectly to the foot of each player.

Undoubtedly, the textile world still has a lot to say about technology, but they have already begun to offer their first models of textile technology.

Smart ball: Also a novelty in 2018, it is a ball inside which there is a chip that allows to connect with a Smartphone or Tablet. In this way coaches can create special exercises for their players in order to train certain impacts on the ball, special controls as well as record all data and information.

Wereables: Technology accessories are the order of the day. The main technology manufacturers offer smartwach, smart wristbands and all kinds of accessories for athletes. These devices incorporate technology designed to record all activity of the athlete: heart rate, temperature, steps, distance traveled, impacts, GPS, speed and endless applications.

The use of these wereables is fully extended among amateur and professional athletes. They can be used both inside the training and outside to monitor the 24 hours a sports activity of an elite footballer.

GoalControl: Goal line technology to avoid phantom goals. It is a camera system to help the referee and placed facing the goal to control the goal line.

EPTS (Performance Monitoring): This is another great novelty regarding football technology that was also premiered at the World Cup in Russia in 2018. A system that allows collecting data to analyze everything that happens on the pitch. EPTS is an electronic performance tracking device.

It is a technology that allows monitoring and improving individual and group performance in football. The technology registers the positions of the players and the ball, which mixed in combination with other data capture devices accelerometers, gyroscopes or pulsimeters, offer a very important information for the coaching staff.

GPS training vests: It is becoming more frequent to see them in the training photos. This is a training suit that incorporates GPS technology to monitor each player to improve their performance. Teams like Barça use it daily.

With only a weight of 66 grams, this vest is able to collect and measure the heart rate of each player, accelerations, decelerations, number of ball passes, kilometers traveled, body impacts and player wear.

4k retransmissions: Although it is not given as much importance as other technologies, this undoubtedly helps the loyalty of fans. The high resolution of football matches are already offered on different payment platforms where the matches are broadcast.

RFID Tickets: One of the best hosted technologies in the world of football is precisely the one that is aimed at preventing fraud of illegal entries, falsified or resold. It is a technology that is not new but that already applies in football in many of the matches of FIFA.

Sensors: Used in bibs, t-shirts, sneakers, balls … but also in external devices that allow pointing the player or the football field to know each movement and monitor the performance.

Use of treatments with stem cells: Without a doubt, another of the factors that most stresses the sport management of a club is what concerns the health of its players. Prevent injuries, illnesses or risks that endanger the sports performance of each player.

In this sense elite athletes of all sports or even ordinary users, already use these treatments that apply technology to use the player’s own blood to cure their ailments through the extraction of stem cells.

Nutrition technology: Following this line of health in athletes, there are also different technological applications that allow focusing on the diet and nutrition of soccer team players. Thus, according to the needs of each one, the best solutions in nutrition can be allocated.

Monitoring of vital signs: Both before and after each training, football teams become increasingly obsessed with the health status of their players. Thus they use different technologies to monitor the health of the players: temperature, heart rate, etc.

Before a signing, during the preseason or at certain specific moments the teams make tests to their players. In these tests the use of technology applied to health is crucial to prevent ailments and injuries. More and more attention is paid to the physical problems of the players.

Edible technology: NASA already created edible sensors for use in astronauts. It is an edible created with a quartz crystal inside which contains a micro battery with a sensor that provides information about different vital signs such as heart rate and temperature.

It is important to know the technology that is already changing the world of football in order to understand the technology that is to come. No doubt every year new advances are made. We no longer conceive football as it was 20 years ago. No doubt the future is to obtain more data so it will be essential for soccer teams to have programs that allow to collect and integrate all this information.

At director11 , we are experts in creating these technology integrating programs in order to collect all this data and read and interpret them in a single sports management platform.