Wearable trackers are now the norm in soccer. Heart rate monitors – training load for each player. How much time each player spends in their 90% zone. How their fatigue is building up. The Sounders are using an Omega wave system this pre-season to determine how hard players need to be working. Sounds like quite the professional outfit.
Even Lionel Messi Wears a Heart Rate Monitor
The Sounders have been in Casa Grande, Arizona for a week now and in training camp since January 25. Sigi Schmid knows this is a long preseason and is using technology and experience to prepare his team for the long MLS season. The Sounders also head to Spain for some preseason match where Zigi Schmid said they’d also get a day off.
The Seattle Sounders FC has consistently been one of the most dominant MLS soccer squads in its six years of existence. While the team has yet to win an MLS Cup, it has qualified for the playoffs every season and had the best regular season record in 2014 — all while playing the most games out of any team in the league since 2009.
Sounders FC Sporting Director Chris Henderson at the SLU Chamber luncheon on Wednesday.
Part of that success is arguably due to the team’s advanced use of analytics. At an SLU Chamber luncheon event on Wednesday, Sounders Sporting Director Chris Henderson offered a behind-the-scenes look at how the team closely tracks player performance during games, practices, and even sleep.“We monitor players with everything they do — which they don’t like very often — but it’s the way we can optimize their performance, keep them healthy, and not get anyone injured,” Henderson said.
He added that the club focuses on three aspects of analytics: descriptive, predictive, and prescriptive.
