At the elite level of football, performance gains are often found in the smallest details. For clubs operating across multiple squads and development stages, managing player load, performance, and recovery requires more than intuition, it requires robust, actionable data.
The Role Of Data in Performance
For First Team Senior Director of Sports Science, Felix Proessl, data sits at the heart of the club’s performance model ,not as the final authority, but as the motivator for collaborative decision making.
“Data is central to our decision making at the club. Whether determining training targets, rotating players, individualizing workloads, or monitoring opportunities for players across age groups, data acts as the primary conversation starter. We make data informed, not data decisions.”
Rather than replacing coaching expertise, performance data provides a shared language across departments, aligning medical and sports science staff around a common understanding of the player readiness and risk.
One System Supporting Long Term Athlete Development
STATSports technology supports the club’s day to day operations, helping staff keep players healthy while maximising performance output.
By objectively measuring physical demands, coaches can design sessions that integrate tactical, technical, and physical objectives within one framework.
“GPS data allows us to design training sessions that align technical and physical concepts within our tactical periodisation, individualise workloads across players with different physical profiles, and make more informed decisions when reintegrating athletes post injury.”
Crucially, the system supports players who move between squads a common reality in professional environments with academy, reserve, and first team pathways.
Monitoring training exposure and match minutes across teams allows staff to preserve player welfare while accelerating development.
“Because we monitor athletes across age groups, we can track opportunities, compare physical development at different career stages using age specific models, and fine tune long term development across our pro pathway.”
This extended view enables the club to set realistic performance targets, identify developmental gaps early, and ensure players are prepared for the demands of higher competition levels.
From Weekly Planning to Longer Term Strategy
GPS and workload data also shape how the club plans training cycles across the week and throughout the season. By understanding the physical demands of different drills, staff can deliberately structure sessions to overload players progressively while ensuring freshness for matchday.
“We prospectively plan sessions that progressively overload athletes yet optimise freshness going into games, aligning physical emphases with technical and tactical concepts.”
Through systematic analysis of exercises, even small adjustments like pitch size, shape, rules, or repetitions can significantly alter physical output. The performance team uses this insight to predict training demands before sessions begin.
“By analysing different exercises, we understand how subtle tweaks to environmental constraints affect physical characteristics. That helps us anticipate demands and provide feedback on dimensions, durations, and near max velocity exposure.”
After each session, expectations are validated against actual data, creating a continuous improvement loop. The result is smarter programming with reduced injury risk, and more efficient performance development because future sessions are informed by real evidence rather than guesswork
The Power of Real Time Data in Training
While long term planning is essential, football environments are dynamic. Session intensity can shift due to tactical adjustments, player availability, or natural variability. Live GPS data enables staff to respond immediately.
“Live data allows us to and compare the training demands, we anticipated prior to the session with what is actually occurring on the field, finetuning
our recommendations to the coaching staff”
If a session fails to produce the intended physical load for example, insufficient high speed running, coaches can modify drills or add repetitions on the spot and cover as much as possible of the physical demands by bridging those gaps with modifications of new or existing exercises.
“If the planned session doesn’t elicit the anticipated demands, live data allows us to identify those gaps and bridge them through modifications or top up runs.”
Importantly, this process operates at both team and individual levels. Players with different match demands or physical capacities can receive tailored exposures while maintaining consistent relative workloads.
Matching Training to the Demands of the Game
Different training days emphasise different physical qualities. Small sided games typically drive accelerations, decelerations, and explosive movements, while larger formats expose players to high speed running and sprinting. Live monitoring ensures that each session delivers what it was designed to achieve.
“Live data validates that we are in line with expectations for each training day, optimising repetitions and durations while ensuring we meet training targets.”
Tracking peak speed exposures across the week is particularly important for injury prevention and performance readiness especially for players splitting time between multiple squads.
“Monitoring maximum speed achieved in each session ensures players receive adequate near maximum velocity exposure, which is critical for those training across different teams with varying competition schedules.”
For players who train across multiple teams with differing competition schedules, these metrics help ensure that each athlete receives the appropriate intensity, even if total training volume varies. By tracking maximum speeds, coaches can individualise sessions, replicate game like sprint demands, and prevent both underloading, which can limit performance gains, and overloading, which can increase injury risk.
Ultimately, the club’s approach highlights a modern performance philosophy: technology provides clarity, but people make decisions.
By combining objective data with coaching insight, medical expertise, and player feedback, the organisation creates an environment where athletes can develop safely, perform consistently, and transition smoothly through the professional pathway.
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