November 28, 2011

Our Thoughts on Adidas' New Football Boot

Adidas has a new football boot, to be released in Australia next year. What makes it special? It contains an embedded microchip that transmits information from the player direct to the coach. Pretty flashy, right?

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But what valuable information could be obtained from a boot? I asked Robbie - being a scientist that studies soccer performance - what would he want to know for the $338 USD price tag?


Robbie thinks that really useful measures would include record running speed, foot speed, the number of times the ball strikes the boot, the velocity of the foot as it strikes the ball, and orientation of the foot when it hits the ball.

What does the boot actually do? Not as much as we'd like, but it's a start ... measures include speed, average speed, maximum speed, number of sprints, distance, distance at high intensity levels, steps and stride rates. This is great from a fitness context, but as we've said before ... more holistic analysis needs to be taking place. Including skill assessment.

But we don't see this as a bad thing ... because realistically, all this fitness-based information is going to be most useful when used in conjunction with analysis of success rates in passing and scoring, requiring more time than most coaching staff have.

Perhaps opening the door for more scientific soccer analysis and performance companies (like our own) ...

It's a hope.

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