Bolzfabrik, a Cologne, Germany-based company that creates technological solutions for football coaches, trainers and players, announced a long-term partnership with Beyond Sports earlier this month. A Dutch company, Beyond Sports offers virtual reality training in a number of formats, including spatial awareness, decision-making in match and high-pressure scenarios, and high-density (series of situations in short time span). Users of Beyond Sports’ services can run with pre-made training programs or they can customize a regimen based on a team’s strategy, coaching methods, a specific player’s needs, and other options.
Often, practice is viewed as a physical activity, a method for athletes to run through game situations on the field and even to get stronger or more fit for their sport. Beyond Sports’ virtual reality training gets to the heart of the mental aspect of sports. In a video from NOS, a young soccer player is shown training with a virtual reality headset, asked by his coaches if he can follow the ball and describe his position on the virtual field.
“I really like it, and I get the feeling that it is helping me,” Nick Tuijn, the young boy in the video, said. “I thought I was positioned correctly. But after I saw the tactical camera view, I changed my mind. I quickly learned in an easy way that it was wise to move to a different spot.”
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The technology is making itself present in Europe’s youth soccer academies as well as within its top teams and leagues. From the start of their careers, players are being introduced to virtual reality training as a way to quickly and easily learn the game. Another potential unseen advantage? The risk of injury that exists in live practice could be completely removed in virtual reality sessions.
Beyond Sports can’t reach its target market fully, though, without bolzfabrik’s help in the arena. Bolzfabrik’s relationships with the German football clubs and coaches and trainers provide them the position of seeing where teams could improve and advance, and the technological solutions that might be applied to those teams’ operations. Then, Beyond Sports can introduce its virtual reality training systems to the clubs.
“Virtual reality has played an important role in our strategic considerations for a long time,” bolzfabrik CEO Mario Welte said in a statement. “This is why we are delighted to team up with a partner like Beyond Sports, who is a pioneer in VR applications for sports. We share the same vision of a digital sporting landscape by a hundred percent.”