When you watch soccer, do you ever notice the advanced technology used on the field? For example, VAR and goal line technology, players running around on treadmills covered in patches during physical tests, or blood being taken from earlobes on a regular basis. The eagle-eyed spectator will have noticed the undershirts underneath the players' jerseys, the coaches on the sidelines have turned their notepads into iPads, and the teams use cameras to record the game from the far side of the field, all of which are essential elements of modern soccer.
Technical force is not behind Japan, the team and the J League can be seen related to the application of science and technology, black undershirts during the game, practice shirts, and even designed to be placed in the pockets of the sensor material, this type of wearable device, you can get two types of information: one is the location of the information, through the GPS function to record the formation, to facilitate the review of the game; the other is the physiological state of the record, including the running distance, the number of times the sprint, speed, intensity, lactate value, heart rate and so on.
And in recent years, wearable devices have begun to be used in Japan at the Breeding Years level, such as high school and club youth levels, with Japanese soccer legend Keisuke Honda coming up with the notion that "If Japan is to catch up with the world, it must take the measurement of Breeding Years data for granted!" Based on this philosophy, Keisuke Honda's company, SOLTILO Knows, developed affordable and easy-to-use measurement devices in 2018 specifically for Breeding Era teams, even on stadiums without Wi-Fi service.
Keisuke Honda, who also has overseas experience, coaching experience and a career in development, has a unique insight into the devices used in the development years - "how to quantify perseverance" has become a major issue for the development team, sorting out the mental attributes that are difficult to quantify, along with the device to obtain a large amount of physiological information on the players, such as: how much they have run when their heart rate is high? For example, how much did the player run when his heart rate was high? This is a kind of indicator to determine "how hard did you work when it was difficult? The team collects data for these indicators, and through objective data, the "quality" of the previous evaluation of the players becomes visible from abstraction.
SOLTILO Knows offers a rental service that has been welcomed by teams in their formative years and has been adopted by 250 high school teams in Japan.
For non-professional teams, recording the game is always a part of the team's labor, and you can always see assistant coaches or managers running to the high ground to find a barely suitable filming spot like a stunt in a stadium with no bleachers, but in recent years, the Danish-made sports AI camera "Veo Cam 2" has gradually taken over the work of filming.
Video description: Match recorded with Veo Cam2
"Veo Cam 2" has a lens on each side of the camera body, with a shooting angle of 180 degrees and a tripod up to 7.4 meters, which can easily overcome venues with protective nets or without bleachers. Because it can capture the complete condition of the field, there is no need for manual operation of the machine, and it can be used with a device to monitor or broadcast live. After the game, the AI is able to quickly mark key moments of the game, such as kickoffs, goals, and halftime, and it can also freely switch the viewing angle, making it easier for the instructor to get the information from the video footage and focus on teaching the field.
Within a year of KAMO's introduction of the Veo Cam 2 into Japan, despite the fact that the machine plus AI services cost nearly 400,000 yen, hundreds of units were sold, and there are even companies that offer rental services, and more and more Breeding Years teams are setting up their own Youtube channels to record or live stream their team's matches with AI cameras.
The supplement market is full of products ranging from protein powder and BCAAs to creatine. However, Yasutaro Matsumoto, President of Kagoshima-based NORM Corporation, realized that there was more potential in the supplement field. After conducting market research, he realized that existing supplements lacked the ingredients and qualities suitable for high-intensity professional athletes, so he had an idea to create a supplement brand for top athletes, those who fight for their country.
After successfully developing supplements for top athletes in multiple fields, NORM was awarded soccer, baseball,
soccer
With the support of many top athletes, such as students and golfers, NORM has once again found a new business opportunity in the development of players through the success of the market segmentation of "sports characteristics". The nutritional needs and objectives of students and professional athletes are different. Student athletes are more likely to have problems such as anemia because of the need to grow up and growing neuralgia, and because of soccer, which requires a lot of running and requires a lot of running ability to be built up during the student years. In order to meet this need, NORM has launched a special supplement for students, which is combined with a blood test so that players can choose the right supplement according to their individual conditions.
Although NORM sells supplements at a higher price on its website, NORM offers the lowest prices in the industry when ordering student supplements on a monthly team basis. This pricing policy has resulted in the student supplements having taken orders from nearly 200 high schools in less than a year on the market.
