The device, which is being used by the club’s Football Academy is intended to drive insight and provide analysis - with educational and training content from the Club, providing an opportunity for players to learn from and understand Man City’s training philosophy while having visibility to their progress over time, based on personalised data. Players of all levels will now be able to understand their strengths, where they can improve, and how.
CITYPLAY provides scores for critical football skills, allowing players to better understand their technical skills levels, such as first touch and dribbling, and their physical skills levels, such as speed and agility. The tracker is seamlessly mounted onto a player’s footwear with a silicon elastic strap, containing a lightweight and tiny tracking sensor that is initiated by the player’s source of motion providing a comprehensive performance analysis.
This breakthrough technology is combined with personalised training advice that builds on Manchester City’s training methodology, through the CITYPLAY app. These include the provision of context of why certain skills matter and for what, position-specific instructions, as well as training exercises which can be practiced individually or with other players. The CITYPLAY app also allows players and peers to connect in the CITYPLAY community.
Commenting Jorgina Busquets, Managing Director - Football Education and Recreation, City Football Group, said, “We have spent many years improving our knowledge of what it takes to continue to perform and succeed at the highest level. Previously used within our Academy, we’re pleased to now be able to offer this to anyone who wants to improve their skills, further expanding the reach of our methodology to those both in the UK and globally.”
Guy Aharon, CEO of Playermaker added, “CITYPLAY is a significant milestone in our long-term mission to allow equal opportunities in the game for all players with the use of advanced technology for player evaluation. Working together with Manchester City and adopting their unique training philosophy CITYPLAY enables us to discover new ways on and off the pitch to improve the quality of development of players by bringing automated, AI-based objective scores like first touch, agility, speed and personalised training advice from City at your fingertips.”
