Punditry app lets coaches analyse matchday performance

Football coaches will be able to analyse their team’s matchday performance in the palm of their hand with a new punditry app created by a Scottish technology company.

Lesley Little, managing director of Sports Technology Services in Aberdeen

Team talks will be taken to a new level by CoachCam which uses video clips and a series of tools to break down performance of players, in the same way that broadcasters do.

The footage can be marked up in various ways. Players can be cut around and moved within frames to illustrate improved positioning, for example.

Manoeuvres can be highlighted and frozen, with comments attached to individual frames within the clip.

CoachCam has been devised by Sport Technology Services (STS), which is based in Aberdeen and sees the device as an affordable alternative to the expensive equipment used by broadcast pundits

Managing director Lesley Little said the app signalled a “revolution in coach communication and affordable grassroots coaching tools”.

Ms Little said: “We’ve worked closely with UEFA and coaching professionals for many years and so Coach Education has always been at the heart of what we do.

“ Mobile devices now make video so much more accessible and coaches have been loving the way the television pundits have used marked up video to illustrate their analysis comments but these broadcast tools are complex and very expensive.

“CoachCam is affordable, accessible and simple enough to use as a regular tool in the everyday coaching toolbox.”

The Company have spent the last 4 years managing and developing TactX, an animation software now used by UEFA coaches.

Ms Little said that CoachCam could effectively be used beyond football training

She added: “Obviously, our background and network is in football coaching but we’re really excited that CoachCam allows us to branch out into other sports because the tools are not in any way football specific.

“In fact, the tool can be used for any kind of training and we’ve already had interest from people who are involved in Industry Training, Health and Safety and Education. If you can video it, you can CoachCam it.”

CoachCam has now launched in Apple and Google stores with users signed up from Premier League teams, European National Associations and North American governing bodies.

Hans Leitert, Head of Goalkeeping Development for Red Bull Global Soccer and Goalkeeping Coach Instructor for FIFA and The Spanish Football Federation, said: “Every professional coach who wants to work successfully in his area needs to make sure he uses his time on and off the pitch as efficiently as possible.

“Therefore he needs to make use of the best technology available to get messages and technical content across.

“CoachCam is such a tool because it is easy to handle and it delivers immediate feedback to the players during the training process – the coach therefore can have a very positive impact on the players development”