Could the goalkeeper have seen that ball coming, or should the defender have come out earlier? As an analyst at FOX Sports, Kenneth Perez always knows how to visualize these kinds of questions perfectly thanks to the technology of Beyond Sports. The Alkmaar-based company has for years made it possible for a select group of analysts and football clubs to view match images from all positions and is now taking it a big step further: with their new app GameFace, it is possible for everyone to watch the match watch what you watch in the stadium or on television can also be shown directly on your phone. This way you can see everything directly from the players’ perspective and develop it into your own, fully customized analysis that you can share with your friends.

By Thijs Verhaar

The founders Sander Schouten and Nicolaas Westerhof can hardly control their excitement when they meet the journalists of Soccer zone explain how they want to conquer the world. Their company has been gaining international recognition in technical circles for six years for their inventions with virtual reality, and Friday is the day on which the general public can finally start using it, as the Eredivisie gets the international creation. ‘Four years ago, Kenneth Perez on FOX and Jamie Carragher on Sky Sports suddenly showed up with their VR glasses on television and now we have reached the point where everyone can simply use them directly on their own smartphone without glasses. And the app also offers possibilities to edit the images with funny filters and you can edit it yourself with music and the like, so it becomes a kind of TikTok for sports ”, Schouten explains their product as simply as possible.

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– Friends of AC Milan (@AmiciMilan) 9 April 2020

In fact, the technology behind it is so complex that no other company in the world can offer the same product for the time being, the duo assures. “We are the first to do so and if the product launch in the Eredivisie is successful, we will be ready to introduce the technology to other competitions and sports as well.” Thanks to their hard work over the past few years, Beyond Sports already has a contract with, for example, the Premier League, the American Football Association NFL and the American Ice Hockey Association NHL, while they are also in advanced talks with the NBA basketball association. “All top clubs benefit from seeing things from the athletes’ perspective, because it can lead to better choices”, Schouten calculates.

By offering the technology to clubs and national associations, the Alkmaar company has earned its money over the past few years and worked behind the scenes on the bigger plan: offering the same technology to the fans, thus giving the shoes of their heroes can stand. “With our app you will soon be able to immediately see if Daley Blind, for example, is positioned correctly in the case of a goal, and you can also immediately look back to see if Steven Berghuis should have seen his teammate run or if it was impossible from his position “, Schouten and Westerhof explain. It is their dream that countless football fans will use this opportunity to unleash their own analyzes, which they can then share in the app. ‘In this way, people can build a fan base and differentiate themselves. For now it is already possible in the app and in the near future we want to make it possible to share these images on Instagram and Facebook, for example. ”

The animated images correspond exactly to the match situation and app users can see the action from all camera angles to really get involved with the players on the field.

In the app, everything is displayed as faithfully as possible, making it look a bit like FIFA. The difference, however, is that you are looking at real images, because the position of the players is one hundred percent in line with the game. ‘There are cameras along every field in the Eredivisie that record data from players and referees 25 times per second. In this way we have an overview of the whole field and you can see images from all angles and positions, ”says Westerhof. “Our technology ensures that the images are translated into animation and that an algorithm determines the movements. Unnatural things like pulling on a shirt are difficult for us to predict, so people can not play with VAR for VAR, ”he explains. ‘It’s true that our technology is still improving. For example, we also develop an algorithm with which we can predict percentages. Was the chance of a goal greater or less than Dusan Tadic played the ball? We may even visualize it in the future. ”

To us it may sound difficult to imagine, but Schouten and Westerhof are used to thinking a few steps ahead. Their whole idea originated in 2014 when Schouten was a guest at Louis van Gaal. On the advice of his performance analyst Max Reckers, the then national coach wanted to know more about the possibilities with the VR glasses Oculus Rift and Schouten came up on the spot that it should be possible in some way to change the perspective of the players for the visualize national coach. . Van Gaal immediately realized that this could change the sport and encouraged Schouten to develop the idea further. The technician also realized that he had potential gold in his hands, and he started their own business with Westerhof, who now has 33 ‘nerds with a passion for sports’, and in addition to Alkmaar also lives in New York and Los Angeles is.

From the United States, it is easier for Beyond Sports to serve other major sports such as ice hockey, basketball and baseball. It is also the promised land for IT people where extremely successful applications such as WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok have emerged and the Alkmaar company now hopes to join GameFace. ‘We really think it could be a sensation for younger football fans. How cool is it to make your own analyzes, edit them completely according to your own wishes and thus become an online star? Proof that their app could be a success story came when they were approached nine days before the Super Bowl semi-finals with a request to virtually broadcast the game. ‘It was obviously too little time to be able to make realistic graphics, and so we chose the opposite: as simple as possible. People could follow the game online, but saw square Lego-like figures instead of the real athletes. In the end, our stream had four more viewers than the broadcast on FOX. ”

Will we as a society eventually switch completely to virtual presentations instead of live matches on television? Schouten does not expect this. ‘No, a true image will always remain and so must it be. Think of it as a supplement; an extra layer to see matches from a different perspective. “What he believes will change is the momentum. ‘Until now, sport was only relevant at the time, during the summaries and perhaps the morning after if you discussed it at work in the canteen. Now it may well be that such a cool operation is done on Wednesday that people want to look again and think back to that moment. “Users can, for example, shop for themselves in competition situations, add an astronaut filter, put music or their own voice and image underneath and actually make it as crazy as they want,” Schouten sums up. “Real creatives can really let off steam and ensure that we watch football in a way that has been impossible until today.”

If you want to know more about the app or download it, go to www.gamefacebyeredivisie.nl.