Deep in the bowels of Sunderland’s training ground a cannon whirs into life, preparing to spit a football out at 50 miles an hour.
Luke O’Nien, the Black Cats’ effervescent midfielder, traps the ball dead.
In front of him, a fluorescent target lights up. O’Nien cocks his right boot with minimal backlift and sends the ball sailing through the hole.
It is all over in a few seconds before another ball fires towards him. What’s different about this training drill, though, is that it is all being done in almost total darkness.
More from Football
Chelsea Supporters' Trust call for 'inclusive' new owners as anti-Ricketts protests grow23 March, 2022
'The Jewel' has lost his sparkle at Juve but Arsenal or Spurs could offer chance to shine again23 March, 2022
From bottom of the National League to verge of the World Cup, Joe Morrell's rollercoaster ride23 March, 2022In the mid-90s Sir Alex Ferguson brought Gail Stevenson, a vision specialist, to work with the first team at Manchester United, convinced sight was the next frontier in sports science. More recently, Arsene Wenger said training the brain would be football’s next obsession.
But this, in an airless gymnasium at Sunderland’s training ground with the walls daubed matt black and a series of blue, red and magenta light bulbs overhead, is the first real world application of a science that its early adopters believe has the power to transform football.
Okkulo works on the idea that training in low light levels slows down visual processing. To compensate the brain subconsciously filters out unnecessary movement, helping goalkeepers’ reflexes to speed up, while outfield players report crisper, sharper touches.
Here’s the kicker: when the lights are turned back up, the brain has formed new neural pathways that mean the improvements endure.
It is the brainchild of Mel O’Connor, Okkulo’s founder. A former filmmaker who worked on Emmerdale and Byker Grove, the idea came when he was flicking through a science magazine.
Two decades of honing the technology and working with pre-eminent scientists in the field of vision followed.
“Vision has hardly been touched. It’s so untapped – this science hasn’t been done before and it’s about educating people about what it can do, really,” O’Connor says. “20 years ago, people wouldn’t have been ready for it.”
Early tests with Salford City and Durham cricket convinced him he was onto something.
“I’m a really logical person. If it hadn’t worked, I’d have given up on it,” he says. “But honestly, players love it. They get a number based on the speed of their touch and it’s like a golf handicap.”
Plenty of clubs have shown interest but Sunderland are the first to install it on site.
“There are a lot of snake oil salesmen out there so you have to be careful because everyone is selling the next big solution but this is genuinely really exciting,” James Young, Sunderland’s head of data and analysis, tells i. “Players are queuing up outside to use it.”
O’Nien delivered the big breakthrough when he returned from a four-month injury with a sparkling, goalscoring cameo against Fleetwood.
Frustrated by “losing his identity as a footballer” as he waited to return to training after a serious shoulder injury, he found salvation spending hours with the team striking the ball thousands of times in the dark.
“The ball comes so fast when you’re in there,” O’Nien tells i. He is an energetic, magnetic personality. Ten minutes in his company is enough to see why he is viewed as a leader at the club.
“You start off a little bit slower, consciously trying to trap the ball. But as it gets faster, it becomes unconscious. You’ve got to trust the body, especially when the lights are down. The brain sees it quicker and adjusts.”
It will come as no surprise to anyone who knows him that O’Nien embraced the technology.
The sheer attention to detail that goes into his craft – studying hours of footage of how he controls the ball in the cube – is testament to his thirst for improvement.
“The first time I tried it the ball came flying at me and it hit the back wall! But I was in here for hours,” he says.
“We filmed a lot of it to see my body shape, how I was moving. I was looking at body weight, angle of my foot, a whole load of things. We looked at good first touch and bad first touch and broke everything down.
Related Stories
'Watching that Netflix film broke my heart': Mannone on Sunderland, Arsenal and his future20 December, 2021
Sunderland on the up as 'revolution' gives Wearside reason to dream again06 January, 2022
Loyalty, family and a 4.20am start... what I learned on English football's longest away trip14 December, 2021“When you come back from injury, it’s the touch and feel that goes. I’ve come back from injuries and had some absolute stinkers. Your brain is telling you to do something but your body can’t match it.
“But this time, in my first training session back – even in the boxes or the ‘rondos’ – my first few touches were there from the start.”
Those behind it can feel the momentum building around Okkulo. The science is so new it has taken time to convince some clubs.
They are in talks with two Premier League clubs – including one of the biggest in the league – and a major European network of clubs. Major League Baseball franchises are also interested.
That Sunderland are the earliest adopters says much about the direction the club is heading in. Young was one of a number of summer hires driven by owner Kyril Louis Dreyfus, whose vision is to make the club an innovator.
“One of the classic terms that gets used a lot in sports technology is you want to be a first follower,” Young, a former consultant for Deloitte, says.
“You want to see it tried and tested and then pick it up. Where we are in League One, we can’t be the first follower because once you’ve seen it tested you have to pay the extra £50,000 to £100,000 for it. We’ve got to be at the cutting edge,” Young says.
“We’re lucky that this is really mutually beneficial. Those circumstances we’re in predicate we have to be more forward thinking and this is the start of one of many relationships we have with third parties that come with a little bit of risk that it may not be the solution.
“But if we’re not at the cutting edge, we’re going to get left behind and lose that competitive advantage. The fact this is the first one of those and it’s going really well is a huge relief.”
After successive years of decline the Black Cats still have work to do to convince a bruised public about the new model. But there is a sense of renewal at the training ground.
“For me I’m nervy about the term ‘new Sunderland’ because 80 per cent of the people at the club have been here all along and they’re very good,” Young says.
“It’s a new Sunderland but taking into account things that have gone before. We’re a reinvigorated Sunderland after a few years of neglect.”
from Football | News and analysis from the Premier League and beyond | iNews https://ift.tt/Ayt7IX3
Post a Comment