Pochettino's artificial intelligence against Barça

“Many things are said about Ney, but your injury is fortuitous. Now that I have been able to meet him I know that he is a great professional, who works with humility and commitment to the club“Beyond the typical public exculpation of a coach towards his player, the defense of Mauricio Pochettino on criticism of Neymar Júnior's way of life after breaking the adductor, they enclose a new paradigm. The one with artificial intelligence. The same as the current coach of Paris Saint Germain has at his disposal to measure himself in the eighth of the Champions League with Barcelona. And the laboratory is not located in the French capital, but a few kilometers from the Camp Nou.

Pochettino is not based on suspicions, but on endless variables on skills, conditional circumstances and emotional situation of your staff, which once ordered are filled with meaning. Can the Spanish-Argentine and his staff control through a screen from the arrival of your footballers every day to the sports facilities before training, to intuit who appears sleepy or with a more lively attitude from the first hour, until determine depending on the tastes of each one if they would like to take a nutritional shake with vanilla or strawberry flavor.

And of course they know if a certain player is prone to a specific injury, if due to its loads there is a risk of breaking and how to change them, or if there is any routine in your life that needs to be enhanced or varied. In other words, a cocktail of objective and subjective parameters at your fingertips to optimize performance to unsuspected limits: “The three centimeters that separate whether or not the toe of the boot reaches a goal or not“.

Soccer System Pro It is the 'software' that hides behind this surgical application of football, in which Pochettino became interested a few months ago, before even signing for PSG, and which has been taken to the Parque de los Príncipes, as they had done before and clubs from both LaLiga, cases of Atlético de Madrid, Villarreal, Valencia, Betis, Real Sociedad, Espanyol, like half a planet: Watford, Girondins of Bordeaux, Guangzhou Evergrande, Videoton of Hungary or, much more recently, the selection of Poland.

Gregori Ortanobas, CEO and founder of MDM Systems, the mother company of this tool, was already working in the world of engineering a decade ago when he thought about the convenience of its use in football. And, although it took five years to convince his first client, today the Gran Vía de les Corts Catalanes office is brimming with algorithms. But not in any way. “We flee from the eroticism of Big Data. It is not only about knowing if so and so is injured, but about making a scientific interpretation. It is useless to have the 200 data that a GPS can give you if this does not solve problems “, he warns in statements to AS. And solves:”Artificial intelligence will change the research paradigm; in football and on any field “.

With your control over any situation, Pochettino in the days before Barcelona can change the training of any player, his weekly plan, his recovery, he can even modify the content of his talks depending on what motivates each player.

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Because the tool works with a 360 degree perspective, in it they pour their parameters and their conclusions from technicians to physical trainers, retrainers, doctors, psychologists or nutritionists. So much can be information about a mood profile such as the muscular perimeter of a leg, through hydration or blood, saliva or urine tests. Or, in these times, adjusting the work at home of a player who has tested positive for COVID-19. And, in all cases, more refines as the history is broader. Ideal for situations such as Ángel di María, martyred throughout his career due to muscle injuries, such as the one he currently suffers.

“In the end, it's about helping the coaches so much that, once all the knowledge has been applied, they just have to say to the players 'come out and enjoy', in the style of Johan Cruyff, because everything else will be more than done. “The next step for MDM Systems, with its nine employees in Barcelona plus other external collaborators, will consist of “democratize” the tool. In bringing Soccer System Pro closer to 'amateur' football. And in delving into the clubs from the quarry. Meanwhile, it will continue to be Pochettino's secret weapon, his laboratory of ideas, to face Barça.