On a cold winter night in London, Arsenal captain Martin Odegaard stood alone on the pitch. As fans poured into the 60,000-seat stadium, his teammates warmed up for the game with shots. Odegaard has another plan. The 25-year-old walked into a barren meadow and began his daily activities.
Suddenly, one trainer passes the ball to his foot while another blocks him from behind. In response, Odegaard quickly glanced back, checked the defender's position, and then turned in the other direction.
And that's it: checked, shouldered, touched. He repeated the routine again and again. No passing, shooting, or skill. It's all about that glimpse.
They call this technique "scanning". Odegaard is a master craftsman. In a match last March, the midfield maestro made 493 scans – a figure experts called "ridiculously high". But there was also a time when he couldn't even do one.
It was 2018 and the Norwegian rising star suffered a broken foot. His football season is over. His scan seems to be just that. Until he entered virtual reality.
A compatriot introduced Odegao to the technology. A Oslo-based startup called Be Your Best has developed VR software that generates scanned simulations based on real football matches.
This concept makes use of an emerging phenomenon in sports technology: brain training.
"It's a skill. And it will become more and more important.
Unable to move physically, Odegaard welcomed the exercise of his mind. After putting on the headphones, he entered the first-person perspective of the players on the court. With a tactile controller in his hand, he directs his avatar as the game progresses.
When he plays, the performance metrics track three aspects of his scans: scan rate (how often he scans), scan time (when he makes a critical glimpse), and critical scan (his last observation before receiving the ball). Other measures assessed his situational awareness and decision-making capabilities.
Studies have shown that it works. One study found that players who trained with Be Your Best (BYB) were able to increase the frequency of scans and forward passes – the main route to goal completion. As I found out on my own, it's also very interesting.
Odegaard provided even more outstanding support. He also contributed to the development of this product.
The playmaker wants to test his skills faster than elite level football. Tried our best to meet the requirements.
"Now you can do that in the product – play at 120% gaming speed," Andreas Olsen, the company's CEO, told TNW.
Game Intelligence
If life had taken a different turn, Olsen might have become a colleague of Odegaard.
A Norwegian kid, he was a promising player in the academy of the prestigious Viking Football Club. The youth system has produced a number of stars for the national team, including father-son duo Eric and Christian Tostvet (the latter more on that later).
Like Odegaard, Olsen suffered devastating injuries as a teenager. But unlike Odegaard, he thought it was time to put an end to his football dreams.
Olson transitioned into a tech entrepreneur. One day, he gets a call from the co-founder of Be Your Best: Is he interested in returning to football?
"I can't refuse," he said.
Be the best CEO Andreas Olsen's profile photo
Olson previously co-founded feat.fm, a web platform for live streaming family concerts. Credit: BYB
Olsen's memories of his days as a player guided his vision for the product. He wanted to alleviate the anxiety he felt at Viking Academy.
"How can we reduce this feeling among players? by training the player's in-game intelligence and scanning skills. That's a skill. And it will become more and more important. ”
In fact, cognitive performance is attracting growing interest and investment across all areas of sport. The time is also ripe for digital disruption.
Digital awareness
Contemporary sports science has brought athletes closer to their physical abilities. As the body approaches its limits, the focus now shifts to the brain.
Former Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger pushed for the shift. The 74-year-old, who now serves as FIFA's head of global football development, envisions cognitive technology that can empower talent.
"We're seeing everything improving from foot to head," Wenger said in 2021. "There is now a limit to the amount of physical time available for improvement...... I think the next step is to use technology to train our brains. ”
Arsene Wenger on the sidelines of a football pitch
During his 22 years at the helm of Arsenal, Arsene Wenger has earned a reputation as an innovator. Image credit: Ronnie MacDonald
In many of the leading teams, the next step is already well underway. French club RC Lens recently trialed a sensor-equipped headset system made by Parisian startup Spectre Biotech that identifies neurobiomarkers associated with conditions such as sleep deprivation.
Dutch league leaders PSV Eindhoven used a neurological test designed by their compatriot BrainsFirst, which measures football IQ to guide player development.
Liverpool Football Club in England conducted experiments on a brain sensor developed by the German company neuro1, which can analyze the optimal psychological state of players.
Arsene Wenger is also a big proponent of cognitive technology. When he was in charge of Arsenal in 2017, the club tested a VR system built by Dutch tech company Beyond Sport.
The system was designed to improve the player's decision-making skills, but they suffered from a common side effect of VR: motion sickness. Still, Wenger was impressed with the result.
'You can put the right-back in his position and see exactly the same vision as when he was playing,' he said. "The visual field factor and the quality of information you get before you receive the ball will definitely make a decisive difference. ”
Real Madrid star Aurélien Tchouaméni recently demonstrated this use case. Last October, the France international hired BYB to facilitate the transition from midfield to defence.
At least, the training did not hurt. Tchouameni played at centre-back and Real Madrid won 4-0.
Brain scan
Scanning is another concept that Wenger has embraced. In the 2017/18 season, the Arsenal boss made contact with another Norwegian expert in the field: Professor Geir Jordet.
Jordet is a football psychologist at the Norwegian Institute of Sports Science and a pioneer in academic research on scanning. He has been working on this concept since the 90s of the 20th century and has written a PhD on related skills and is widely regarded as the world's leading authority in the field of scanning. He is also the co-founder of Be Your Best.
In their study with Arsenal, Jorde's team found a correlation between scan frequency and passing accuracy. They also learned that high scanners complete 75% of the front passes – a typical path to goal. For low scanners, that number drops to 41%.
Jordet launched BYN to boost those numbers – and the study shows that he has succeeded. Studies have shown that Be Your Best (BYB) users have doubled their fronthaul completion rate and increased their scan rate by an average of 28%.
These factors are particularly beneficial for midfielders, as their game relies on vision, creativity, and interaction. Odegaard and Chameni are two prime examples. The other is the aforementioned Norwegian international Christian Tostved.
"As a midfielder, you have to be aware of your surroundings at all times," Tostvet, the playmaker at the heart of Sassuolo in the Italian Serie A, told TNW during a video call.
"The more control you have over your surroundings, the easier it is to make the right decisions. ”
Thorstvedt's quest for control led him to BYB. He tried the product for the first time when he was in Norway's youth team and now he plays in midfield alongside Odegaard. Four years later, he still uses the software to mentally prepare for competitions or during injury recovery.
"It's important for me to make the right decisions...... That's what I'm trying to develop when I'm using the product," he said. "It helps you gain a lot, not only offensively, but defensively. ”
But does that also help the lower midfielders? What about the absolute scum of the position? I decided to find out.
Play the game
I'm in an empty office in London, wearing an Oculus headset, typing in some settings. Suddenly, I entered the digital pitch of the virtual stadium.
The game starts immediately. Surrounding players/teammates pass and move while the opponent tries to steal possession. I wander the pitch looking for the right time and place to catch and pass.
The thin line will determine my success: move too slowly or make the wrong decision, and the ball is lost. But by reacting with wisdom, you can create a goal.
I've done it once. While the scan rate and time were generously described as "pretty good", my critical scan was euphemistically dismissed as "taking some work". It's safe to say that 120% speed is not necessary.
A screenshot of Be Your Best shows graphics of soccer players on the pitch
Under the headphones, the graphics resemble a normal football game. Credit: BYB
BYB not only exposed my technical shortcomings. It also showcases the fun of VR football simulation. Unfortunately, they are still a long way from being released commercially.
The technical requirements of a hyper-realistic sports game are too complex for virtual reality. The graphics in the headset are still limited, the movements are too restricted, and the physical movements don't naturally translate to handheld haptics – especially the feet –
Another daunting obstacle is market size. By 2023, video games are expected to have a global user penetration rate of 45%, while VR penetration is only 1.3%. You can still play soccer in real life, unlike the most popular type of VR: first-person shooters.
Currently, the cost and complexity of making a realistic football game in VR seems insurmountable. However, for training tools, there are fewer hurdles. The game mechanics are limited, the graphics can be quite rudimentary, and customers have a lot of budget to improve their players.
One of them offers particularly attractive targets.
Future players
While the likes of Thorstvedt, Tchouaméni, and Odegaard provide captivating endorsements for BYB, the company's main target users are young players.
Germany, who recently won the Under-17 World Cup, is a case in point. The other is the academy of former Champions League giants Borussia Dortmund.
As with Odegaard, sometimes the team contributes to the product. Defending Danish champions FC Copenhagen co-developed a cognitive assessment software called BYBCAT. This brain training tool tests and measures gaming intelligence in 14 different abilities, from working memory to pattern recognition.
FC Copenhagen uses the tool to develop young talent. By identifying cognitive abilities at an early stage, clubs can guide players into the first team.
"We've found that the core members of our academy have higher scan rates as well as working memory and pattern recognition, and neuroscientist Jes Buster Madsen, head of R&D at FC Copenhagen, said last year that wide players tend to react much faster.
'It allows us to say that if the player is going to break into the first team next year, he needs to develop the cognitive skills needed for his position so that you can have a more professional focus in terms of training and training content. How to develop players. ”
This is what Wenger supports.
"The problem with football is that you learn how to play the wrong way – first execution, then decision-making and perception," he said in 2019.
"I've lost a lot of top players because their minds are focused on the ball and they can't see what's going on around them...... Once the circuit is imprinted in their brains, our managers find it difficult to change that. ”
It has been particularly difficult for European clubs to change the track. Across the continent, football training methods are entrenched and new ideas are being questioned. In the United States, cognitive training techniques are more acceptable.
This cultural divide has impacted BYB's business. Currently, the company's largest market is the United States, which accounts for about 50% of customers.
Nevertheless, there are signs that attitudes in Europe are changing. Today, football is a global business in the digital age. With split-second decisions to win the game – and millions of euros – the lure of cognitive skills becomes irresistible.