Every turn, every goal, every pass – the computer records everything. The software giant SAP is working on a program that teams and coaches to cast their mistakes. Coincidences, it should no longer be playing football.
The place of the great revolution is behind a security gate on the ground floor of the SAP headquarters in Baden Walldorf. At the end of the Ganges plain, which could also lead to a municipal registration office, the door opens to the office of Fadi Naoum. The manager, vice president of sports and entertainment, was born 54 years ago in Beirut, a slight man, polite, with a soft, melodious voice. A revolutionary we tend to view differently.
His office is sparsely furnished, a pennant Bayern in one hand, a flag of Bundesliga TSG 1899 Hoffenheim in the other corner. The two chairs surrounded Visitors table the manager has opened his laptop. A mouse click, the program opens, “There they are!”.
The Home shows circular photos of the football World Cup of 2014. Top left the coach Joachim, Hansi and Andreas, including the players, starting with Manuel, Mats, Philip and level. A next click, and everything spreads out what there is to report on New, Hummels, Lahm and Höwedes: a never-ending collection of data on members of the German national team as they play, if they are good, and what are the reasons when the team loses.
SAP match Insights means based on mainframe computer program for almost two years, the Group developed together with the DFB and the Bundesliga club Hoffenheim. The program aims to raise the football tactics and doctrine in the Bundesliga and in the leagues abroad to a new level.
The new software will not miss anything, with the help of cameras, it marks the precision of passports, they recognized the time between acceptance of the ball and his passing, she notes pedantic mileage and acceleration. Much closer can you get this sport barely. The footballers for glass athletes. There are many indications that the game can be cast as some of these typical coincidences with match Insights finally, so often decided an encounter in the past. Which would still be the question of whether this is really a step forward.
In any case, should the time be gone when painted coach plays on flipcharts with thick felt tip pen. Had noted – Unforgotten the image of the German national goalkeeper Jens Lehmann in the World Cup in 2006, when the front of the penalty shootout studied a note on the goalkeeping coach Andreas Koepke pencil shot the habits of Argentines – “Messi bottom left”. Match Insights explores deeper. Up to half a dozen high-resolution cameras bring the video analysts the whistle unless they cut 90 minutes of the game the Germans and their enemies in its details. How does the opponent we play? How Messi plays outnumbered the enemy, as Neymar, when returned are the Brazilians?
How can we help you? With this issue, the software engineers and programmers have reached out to the soccer players and the DFB tip. “Forget for a moment IT, the whole computer, forget all the software out there already! Say what you want! What an idea you want to see realized her?”
“design thinking workshops” called Naoum this rounds, to which his people met in the months before the world championship with the footballers. How to get into conversation with each other, how does one contact when the one with a club in Germany plays, the other in Spain, Italy or England? The desire for communication within the team then stood at the top of the list. “The best by using an app on the iPad” how the SAP manager recalls.
“If we send them e-mails, they do not respond, because most do not read them.” Also WhatsApp is hardly questioned. Naoum wants “a secure system, in which exchange videos, discuss the scenes can.”
But that’s not enough. Everything should be as simple as possible, be weary of serving players in their sleep. Without special training, without an intensive course. Thus, the task for the Walldorfer data specialists is once roughly outlined.
Fadi Naoum describes himself as a “nerd” as a computer geek. A nerd as he takes no more than five hours of sleep at night, he can completely buried in a problem. “I am very hardworking, very determined, I’ve always been, so I do not give up.”
This trait has helped him nearly forty years ago. At that time, in 1978, he got into his native town, between the fronts of the Lebanese civil war, ran on a street in the line of fire of a tank. The volleys of gunfire could fly through the air the then 17-year-olds. He threatened the right leg to lose.
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