Project
The Challenge
Create a startup venture and digital products to connect superior training programs from global organizations and experts to local youth organizations for positive impact on player development.
The Outcome
A digital platform that allows individuals and organizations to gain access to world-class training with a comprehensive toolkit to track and manage progress at a fraction of the cost of traditional solutions.
Most young soccer players aspire to be the next Messi, Ronaldo or Pogba. Many have the desire and drive to be successful. If it is what they want, they will inevitably dedicate every spare moment available to pursue their dream. For many, their greatest limitation is not their skills or desires but their access to quality coaching and training.
A few coaches involved with David Beckham’s academy realized that young aspiring players, due to their location and the distances required to travel to training, could not receive quality coaching. Often, cost barriers worsened the situation. Similarly, while coaches have access to professional education courses, it may be at a significant personal expense, and access to the best teachers and practitioners around the world was mostly prohibitive. Aligning with an investor who shared a passion for the game and continuous learning brought about a solution that would change how soccer coaches taught, players learned and administrators managed. The team was tasked with bringing the best training from the world’s top academies to all students and teachers of the game, and providing local youth clubs with the ability to create robust development programs.
The team of professional trainers, executives, videographers, web developers and programmers connected a network of global professional organizations with a shared goal of providing all players around the world access to their coaches, philosophies, programs, and expertise. Understanding the unmet needs of individual players, coaches and development programs was an important step in defining the scope of the initiative and assessing the optimal delivery of programming.
The resulting product was the first comprehensive, digital video-content-learning system in the sport. It also included a set of capabilities allowing coaches and organizations to develop customized and tailored training programs. These programs could be shared and evaluated, while providing players access to view the precision of movement and form in the various skills. The solution included a player progression system, a tool that could be used to track, evaluate and manage all facets of a player’s development.
The overall solution provided simplicity, consistency, and accountability in player development. The product was informed by first-hand evaluation of the practices and policies adopted by the top professional clubs. Interviews from players, coaches and youth organizations provided insight into their challenges in developing world-class development programs. The team created solutions that delivered simple, consistent quality programs on a mass scale. The input dictated the content format, filling both the education and entertainment needs as well as ensuring it would be accessible to users of all ages and levels of expertise and experience. Initial prototypes were developed and a basic framework was rolled out to test the concept to determine if it met the needs of user groups. The Player Performance system was developed together with a top international pro-club and then validated within their academy. Next, the system was tested with local organizations. User feedback was incorporated to tailor a simple and readily usable product for mass usage.
Knowing that the game is about individual styles, players, and coaches, it was important to provide a flexible education and delivery solution. Individual users could adapt the product to suit their personal perspectives on teaching the game and structure training programs.
The solution has given millions of players in more than 100 countries access to some of the best training in the world along with the ability to see how the training should be executed. For coaches, it provided a wealth and breadth of knowledge, global coaching principles and guidelines. For both organizations and coaches, there was access to the necessary tools to guide, manage, track and evaluate player and team development.
