A central midfielder in Millwall F.C.’s youth development program was favoring his right foot to an extreme. While coaches could explain that to him, having data better illustrated the magnitude of his right dominance.
All of Millwall’s academy players now affix PlayerMaker to the outside of each shoe. The device tracks a slew of technical, tactical, and physical metrics, including recording touches with the right foot compared to the left. The right-dominant youth player started at 90 percent right, 10 percent left, but was given a target from Millwall’s lead youth development coach, Dan Mlinar, to improve that ratio by 10 percent every eight weeks. The player has completed two cycles and now has a more appropriate, but still right-dominant, 70-30 split.
“We can give them actual facts about what they’ve done, which just adds to the perceptions that you have [as a coach],” Mlinar said.
PlayerMaker is the latest technology produced by Motionize, an Israeli startup that began with products for kayaking and paddleboarding. One U.S. sprint kayaker, Maggie Hogan, credited Motionize with helping her train for the Olympics. PlayerMaker is now in use by English teams Millwall, AFC Wimbledon, and EPL club Fulham. The first U.S. client is the women’s soccer program at the University of Pittsburgh.
Yuval Odem, PlayerMaker’s COO, said the development process for the soccer product spanned two years and included nearly 80 players in Israel testing the device. That provided a large data set to identify sport-specific movements, he said, “like pass, kick, jump, tackle, whatever, but in more detail. Like if it was a pass, which part of the foot?” The wearable sensor rests on an area of the foot that rarely connects with the ball directly, but the machine learning algorithms are still able to detect the contact point between the shoe and ball.
“There are [metrics] related to player assessment and technical, tactical performance, so this is relevant for both first team in training sessions or for the academy in player development or player assessments,” Odem said. “And there are benefits related to the physical side, like peak velocity that’s relevant for rehabilitation or to prevent injuries.”
PlayerMaker has begun collaborating with universities on scientific research into injury prevention, aiming to measure the biomechanical load of each of a player’s legs.
Odem said a new feature also allows PlayerMaker to sync with video platforms to clip individual player actions automatically. “This is a huge revolution in making the video analysis much more accessible for clubs,” he said.
Mlinar outlined four primary uses for PlayerMaker at Millwall: building player profiles, validating practice sessions, reviewing performance at regular intervals, and benchmarking individual skills. That last point includes not only the right-left touches as detailed above but a player’s physical output.
PlayerMaker doesn’t incorporate a GPS sensor but does have a gyroscope and accelerometer. That can’t provide as much detail, such as directional movement, but in instances when players were wearing both GPS and PlayerMaker devices, Mlinar believes PlayerMaker was “slightly more accurate” in measuring speed and total distance covered.
The other area of use that intrigues Mlinar involves tactical analysis of matches. When PlayerMaker is worn by both teams, additional data can be collected such as pass completion rate, possession analysis, and a player’s passing network. That type of information otherwise can only be collected from optical tracking systems, which are expensive and thus impractical for most youth academies.
According to Mlinar, only teams under the age of 16 are permitted to wear the sensors in competition. However, he estimated that Millwall has played seven or eight academy games against opponents wearing the devices so far. As more clubs purchase and use PlayerMaker, the opportunity for that use will only grow.