“At PSV we meet with our trainers on a weekly basis to discuss scientific questions,” explains Art Langeler, PSV Academy director. He gives an example to illustrate the way in which the PSV FieldLab helps PSV develop talent: “How does this technology help us? We talk to the junior players about their development each year. If you ask boys of 17, 18 years old how they compare to Young PSV or the first team, one of them will usually say something like: ‘I can do what Wijnaldum does in the first team. It’s a piece of cake.’ “We already have Wijnaldum’s training data in our database. We collected it last season. So, now we can show our juniors exactly what Wijnaldum does and how much effort he puts into it. So many actions per minute, so many sprints at maximum power, etc. And at the same time, we can show them their profile. So, young man, you’ve got some work to do before you’re at Wijnaldum’s level. What we hope is that juniors will think, ‘Okay, this tool can tell me where I’m lacking, so I’ll work on those things and ask our scientist to help me.’ This is just one of the many advantages of the PSV FieldLab.”
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