Software doesn't score goals, or does it?

At the 1954 World Cup, the innovation famously came from Adi Dassler, then the team's kit manager. Unlike the other teams, he equipped the German team with shoes with screw-in studs, which were new at the time.

It rained cats and dogs throughout the final in Bern. During the halftime break, the cleats were replaced and thus the shoes were adapted to the changing conditions.

Germany celebrated its first world championship title. Dassler founded Adidas. To this day, the national soccer team wears the jerseys of his sporting goods company. July 12, 2014, one day before the World Cup final in Brazil:

Oliver Bierhoff posts a photo of Philipp Lahm with tablet in hand at the team headquarters in Campo Bahia:

"Philipp Lahm prepares for the final."

Analyze goal scenes, count ball contacts, or evaluate Ronaldo's sprints. With the data analysis app SAP Match Insights, SAP supported the German national team in its mission to win the World Cup.

At the 2006 World Cup in Germany, German goalkeeper Jens Lehmann was still informed via note about the penalty preferences of the Argentine opponent.

Thanks to SAP technology, the team was now able to analyze huge amounts of data at the 2014 World Cup and thus adjust training accordingly, Bierhoff explained.

"Imagine: Ten players can generate over seven million data points in ten minutes with just three balls. Hana can process this in real time."

The future of soccer

Because the next innovation projects beyond pure game analyses are already planned.

"With the help of technology, we want to combine different disciplines such as psychology and medicine with game analytics in the future and integrate all the data into one solution"

said Stefan Wagner of SAP Labs Brazil.

This involves recording data for long-term soccer research, for example health data, players' training schedules, but also evaluating opponents. One day, the national coach might then be able to decide on tactical decisions such as substitutions at halftime, according to Bierhoff.

Based on the experience of the World Cup and the cooperation with FC Bayern Munich, SAP has developed its 25 industry solutions for Sports & Entertainment. Initially, soccer clubs are to benefit from the new cloud solution SAP Sports One.

Other sports are to follow. As in other areas of society, Big Data has also arrived in sports, noted Bernd Leukert, Chief Technology Officer, at the initial presentation in Munich's Allianz Arena at the end of April.

The task now is to "turn the unimaginable volumes of data into information that sports can use profitably. It is important to make all the data available on a single platform so that it can be stored and analyzed in real time.

General Manager Stefan Wagner, who is responsible for media, sports and entertainment, added:

"It's the only way club managers and coaches can take care of their core business, which is sports."

Sports One is designed to help manage teams and business operations more efficiently, retain more fans and improve individual player performance.

Bayern Munich, for example, wants to "completely reorganize itself digitally" by July of next year with the help of SAP, as Stefan Mennerich, Director of New Media at FC Bayern, reported.

With 260,000 members, the world's largest club is currently modernizing its entire IT landscape on the basis of Hana. This will include globalizing e-commerce using Hybris solutions and redesigning all digital platforms to attract even more fans to the club. FCB will also install several SAP Sports One components.

Modern technology can accelerate the conscious actions of players on the pitch, explained Prof. Jan Mayer, sports psychologist at TSG Hoffenheim.

The TSG coaches use the "Helix," a 180-degree projection surface developed by SAP, to optimize the players' imaginative processes "to make them faster in their heads."

Innovations in other sports

Tennis - WTA Coaching App

SAP has partnered with the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) to develop a solution that, for the first time, will allow tennis coaches to use their WTA-approved mobile devices for on-court coaching purposes during tournaments.

This allows them to evaluate the players' performance in a tennis tournament in real time and analyze it point by point. The smallest changes in the techniques used by the players during the match can be visualized.

As part of this co-innovation, SAP developed a simple and intuitive app that allows players and coaches to view key performance metrics, such as the strength and direction of the serve or the placement of a ball, in real time during the match.

Sailing - Sailing Analytics

SAP presented SAP Sailing Analytics at the Kieler Woche. The annual sailing regatta that just ended is considered one of the largest sailing events in the world.

Sailing Analytics were developed primarily for moderators. However, they are increasingly being used by sailors to evaluate their races. Of particular interest is the use of SAP dashboards, which, based on the Hana platform, allow the evaluation of sailing performance over an entire regatta or even an entire season.

Another solution, the "Strategy Simulator" from SAP, shows wind fields and current situations and allows the calculation of optimal courses in virtual situations. In this way, different strategic approaches can be played through in a race analysis.

Equestrian Sports - Equestrian Analytics

In equestrian sports, SAP is working with Olympic champion Ingrid Klimke. A prototype of the SAP Equestrian Analytics platform was first shown at the Chio Aachen last year.

The platform enables fans and riders of the eventing discipline to follow what is happening on the cross-country course in a vivid way. A 2D viewer that presents the data in an easy-to-understand way, a ranking view and an interactive diagram provide interesting information about individual routes, pace, time intervals and heart rate of the competition participants.

Riders can also use this data to optimize their training. In addition, Klimke and SAP have successfully tested a new, intuitive interface that links video from the rider's helmet camera with digital data from the SAP Equestrian Analytics platform.

This allows spectators to see and experience the course and events up close from the rider's perspective.