Technology Changes the Game at Euro 2016 and in the Middle East

Real-time technology is changing the game for global sporting leaders, including Germany at Euro 2016 and Aspire Academy in Qatar.

For the 2016 European Championship, SAP continues their partnership with the German National Football Team (DFP) to develop two new prototype technologies. These new innovations build off the success of 2014, when SAP technologies helped Germany secure their fourth World Cup.

In the Middle East, Qatar’s Aspire Academy is the region’s first youth athlete academy to sign with a global technology company. With SAP technology, Aspire Academy coaches, sports scientists, and athletes can access real-time data to enhance youth development and national team competitiveness.

On SAP Sports One, a new penalty insights function gives coaches and goalkeepers crucial data to analyze penalty kicks. Users can search the players most likely to take penalty kicks, the area of the goal they usually aim at, and specific shot characteristics such as the player’s run.

They can pull video clips of past penalty clips provided by InStat, a professional football analysis company. The historical reference data is processed in real-time through the SAP HANA Cloud Platform and integrated into SAP Sports One, SAP’s first sports-specific cloud solution.

SAP Challenger Insights helps the DFB prepare for each of their European Championship matches by providing data insights on opposing teams. The data includes offensive tendencies, defensive tendencies, and formations. Data is enhanced with video replays that bring the insights to life.

A team’s match analyst reviews the opposing team’s tactical characteristics and create a match plan. Players check the match plan by looking at iPads prior to a match or during halftime. They can also familiarize themselves with opponent tendencies and reference past video replays.

Users can alter their on-field strategy manually if an opposing team changes their lineup or formations. SAP Challenger Insights provides a more dynamic, real-time, and all-encompassing platform to inform players ahead of or during a match.