The elite German soccer team TSG 1899 Hoffenheim is owned by one of the founders of the database company SAP, so it may not be surprising that they’re also playing in the big leagues of technology. According to this story on SAP’s site. Hoffenheim is sticking sensors in its players shinguards, clothes, and balls, collecting movement data, and breaking it down with SAP software.
They’re saying the software collects and analyses 60 million data points for a match. In 90 minutes and 11 players on a side, that’s about 30,000 pieces of data per player per minute. or 500 samples per second. Associating leg movement with ball movement may be particularly interesting, for instance.
Now, this is one team in one country — and this tech will not make it into the World Cup this cycle. But it sure might it be a competitive edge in practice…
