The Road To Gothia Begins For The PLAYR Academy

Is it possible to get 15 players together who have never played before, kit them out with the GPS football technology used by the professionals and then enter them in the world’s largest international youth tournament in Sweden? PLAYR Academy intends to find out.

With the help of Chelsea F.C scout Sean Conlon and We Make Footballers coach Marcelo Graca, we’ve assembled a squad containing some of the finest under-16s from academies such as Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur and QPR. Those who make the cut will be heading to the Gothia Cup in Gothenburg this summer, and considering legends such as Xabi Alonso and Andrea Pirlo have appeared at the competition in their youth, PLAYR Academy will be up against some of the best teams worldwide and, quite possibly, future professional internationals.

Our technology will be giving the PLAYR Academy the data that matters most at every step of the journey, and with just six weeks before the tournament kicks off, both the coaches and players have been reliant on PLAYR to ensure preparation, performance and recovery is to a professional standard.

“We’re going to take a group of under-16 players to the Gothia Cup and the challenge we’re going to have is that teams out there are going to be well organised and will have played together for years,” Conlon says. “Our group will have played together for six weeks. We’re looking for technical, intelligent and athletic players – it’s important to have a good balance.

“PLAYR is really important for me. As a coach, I’ll be giving them information and feedback from a tactical and technical point of view, while the app helps players with putting together a recovery programme, preparing them from a nutritional point of view and giving them exercises to do throughout the week, preparing them for the next game or training session.

“Obviously in modern football, players have to be able to get around the pitch well – athleticism is so important. Sometimes you can bias by assuming players are more athletic than others so it’s important to look at the data to make decisions regarding which players get flights and which don’t.”

We’ll be detailing every step of ‘The Road To Gothia’, so make sure you keep an eye out for all the action as the PLAYR Academy looks to make history in Gothenburg.