Cairos system to track soccer balls and players

The Cairos system provides an opportunity to objectively analyse all games and all players with the same basis of evaluation - everything from the running speed of a player right up to the length and accuracy of each pass, can be automatically tracked and recorded. This opens new possibilities for match and player analysis – in addition to automatically generated statistics, the complete athletic performance of individual players can be analysed and performance diagnostics can be inferred, which serves as a basis for the development of better training techniques.

From the technical-tactical training point of view the coach can assess the behavioural patterns of his whole team, which has not been previously possible.

If there’s a downside to the Cairos system, it’s that it is invasive (both teams must choose to wear the tags or the system will not work) and could potentially create information which will be used against the teams wearing the tags.

When asked about the Cairos System, Dr Paul Hawkins of Hawk-Eye said, “good luck to them in getting it implemented.” “I cannot imagine that the management of, for example, the Brazilian World Cup team will want the opposition to have access to so much data about their team plan and individual player movements.”

While the system will be incredibly useful for a manager/coach in the development of its own players, all of that information would also be available to opposing coaches and teams. With the Cairos system implemented, software analysis of the collected data would enable the generation of incredibly detailed player profiles which could be used to predict behaviours and enable counter behaviours – which way a player is likely to turn in a certain situation for example.

Cairos also promotes the system as a potential automatic camera control and tracking system for television, enabling cameras to autonomously track a player throughout a game.

One of the fascinating aspects of the Cairos system, if it is implemented, will be its ability to determine the movement of the soccer ball – Cairos can measure the exact position of the ball 2000 times per second, so additional ball-related data, such as acceleration, speed, spin and curve will be available, enabling us to measure just how much spin you need to impart on a ball to “bend it like Beckham.”

We’ll also be able to measure the speed of Beckham’s lethal right boot at the point of impact and compare it to the thunderbolts of fellow strikers such as Davor Suker, Ronaldinho, Luis Figo or Thierry Henry.

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