Before Zone 7 helped Liverpool to overhaul their approach to injuries, the California tech firm had one request: access to last season’s fitness records.
The artificial intelligence company’s data scientists have built an algorithm that crunches the incredible amount of data now available to clubs to predict and then help prevent injuries.
But founder Tal Brown knew that convincing people at the coal face of a professional football club that it worked would need proof.
“It’s hard for humans to put their faith in this outside box spewing insight every day. The system can potentially disrupt systems at football clubs,” he admits in an exclusive interview with i.
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“So the first thing we do is analyse last year’s data and give you a ‘what if’ moment. A few days before this (injury) happened, this is what Zone 7 would have said.”
The club were sold and the system, which delivers its results by way of an app to fitness, medical and coaching staff at the club’s Melwood training base, was something of a secret weapon for Jurgen Klopp and his backroom team last season.
The upcoming campaign will be the second of an initial four-year partnership between Zone 7 and Liverpool and the early evidence is impressive.
The Reds almost halved the number of serious injuries they sustained last year, and according to data compiled by Premier Injuries for i they suffered 6.9 injuries per 1,000 minutes.
That means that despite a gruelling schedule that saw them battle for the quadruple, they still picked up fewer injuries than 13 of their Premier League rivals, most of whom played far fewer games.
The system “runs in the background” at Melwood, alerting staff to patterns that suggest injuries might happen. Klopp has altered training plans, switched up team selections and tinkered with individual recovery based on the insights.
“Recently one of the Liverpool staff members spoke about how they use Zone 7 and it’s not about the magical black box that will solve everything,” Brown says.
“It’s about integrating this X-ray vision into a much more complex and lengthy diagnostic process.
“It’s not an autopilot that does it for you but it’s able to analyse all the data. Sometimes the machine sees things the human brain can’t.
“Of course, it’s impossible to predict which minute and which tackle which will cause something. The [Virgil] van Dijk injury, the Harvey Elliot injury – they’re not predictable.
“But if a person is showing a certain pattern around how much they’re running and sprinting that has been validated to be high risk, that’s meaningful, right? You don’t want to expose them to that pattern.”
Investors in the firm include Manchester United’s Phil Jones and Jordi Cruyff and it’s also being used by Hull, Rangers and QPR. Leeds, who had the worst injury record of any Premier League club, have signed up for next season as the club try to remedy the fitness problems that plagued Marcelo Bielsa’s final campaign.
i understands that three more Premier League clubs and a Scottish Premiership side are in talks to start using the system as word continues to spread.
“Some of the clubs we work with today wouldn’t take our call three years ago,” Brown admits.
The reason they’re doing so now isn’t so complicated.
“There are more injuries and the pressure on players to play more is there – especially in a World Cup year. Rate of injuries isn’t going down,” he said.
“We now have more data. Every game is filmed, every movement is tracked, every time they go to the gym things are being tracked, there’s more and more data. Five years ago if you worked in the conditioning department you had one spreadsheet. Now you have ten.
“Progressive ownerships are now competing for everything and they’re deploying a lot of capital into football. The owner’s capital was earned in other industries where they deployed data and they want to see what would happen if they applied the same thing to football.”
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