By Toby Wolpe, July 18, 2014,
Andre Schürrle's cross and Mario Götze's chest and volley may have won the World Cup for Germany in extra time but enterprise software giant SAP is claiming a hand in the victory.
Its Match Insights software, which employs SAP HANA in-memory computing, was originally taken up by Bundesliga side 1899 TSG Hoffenheim, which is about 20km from SAP's Walldorf headquarters near Heidelberg, south-west Germany.
In October last year, SAP and the German football association - or Deutsche Fußball-Bund - started collaborating on adapting the software for the German national team for final preparations for the World Cup and during the tournament itself. A prototype was delivered in March.
The images shown here is taken from the software running analytics on the November warm-up game against Italy. The white lines across the German backline and forwards show the operator in this case is studying playing formations and the relative position of players in these units.
In practice games, players can wear wireless sensors from partner company Amisco to relay geospatial and performance data but in real matches those digital tags are not permitted for safety reasons and because coaches are barred from using in-game technological aids.
According to SAP head of discrete manufacturing industries Nils Herzberg, the technology is not just for coaches. It can also be used by players to analyse their own performances.
"It is more for training but also for post mortems. Well, in the case of Germany there wasn't one. Everyone else could have done with one," Herzberg said.
The technology could also be used one day in other fields, such as in military exercises, for example.
"You could actually use it for the training of soldiers for special missions, if you want to make sure certain instructions and behaviours are followed," Herzberg said.
Toby Wolpe is a senior reporter at TechRepublic in London. He started in technology journalism when the Apple II was state of the art.
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