How Video Analytics Can Transform Performance At Your Football Academy

As Steven Gerrard approached his final years as a professional footballer, he decided it was time to do something for the next generation of England stars.

So in 2011, the Glasgow Rangers head coach set up The Steven Gerrard Academy, with the mission of offering a high-quality environment for 16-19 year-olds to pursue a career in football, without compromising their education.

Student academic performance is now above the national benchmark — while an outstanding football schedule gives them access to the expertise of UEFA-licensed coaches, many of whom once worked at Liverpool FC.

Still, that’s not all.

The academy also introduced a football video and analytics hub to help its students do even better, using artificial intelligence to give coaches the data they need to tailor each training program for every player.

The system has helped transform team and player performance at the academy.

Let’s see how.

AI-enabled video footage makes training more effective

Every young footballer wants to play their best. 

But the only way they’ll hit peak performance is with sufficient support from their coaches, including personalized feedback and tailored training sessions.

AI-enabled video footage makes this possible by tracking each player’s movement on the pitch, both in training and matches. The football training technology automatically collects data before feeding it into a central hub that processes various data points to generate player-specific insights. 

The system can even detect a player’s position on the pitch, helping coaches track everyone’s performance. Staff can then review the footage and annotate key events (like dribbles, passes, interceptions, tackles, and shots).

And, ultimately, football academies can gather enough data to ensure every player receives the support they need to excel.

Delighted with the results

The Steven Gerrard Academy relies on one system, in particular, called Pixellot Air.

Pixellot Air is a sophisticated yet simple-to-use camera that lets football academies track player performance and tailor training schedules.

The entire system relies on a single pitch-side camera, which captures all the action without a human operator. An integrated mobile solution then lets coaches review, analyze, and share content, meaning the Steven Gerrard Academy finds it easy to offer focused support. 

At the same time, the system gives players a digitized ‘football CV’ to take with them when they graduate. Better still, the players can always refer back to academy footage to benchmark their improvement. 

As the academy’s head of sports science, Andy Marshall, explains:

“Our process starts with the Pixellot Air camera. We film all of our sessions. This gives our players the opportunity to watch training sessions. We encourage them to go back and look at things we worked on. We want them to think about what we do at the sessions – we do it for a reason. Once the game day is finished, we upload the games. I would like to stress how easy and streamlined the process is with the Air camera. It’s a massive, massive help”.

At most academies, players can only access limited video footage for a limited time, whereas thanks to Pixellot’s integrated system, the videos and breakdowns are accessible anytime, anywhere. Now, the Steven Gerrard Academy players can benefit from the content whenever they need to.

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