First international skills.lab Summit

Soccer experts got together in Graz and Wundschuh.

Innovation connects. According to this principle, skills.lab by Anton Paar invited to the first international skills.lab Summit in Graz and Wundschuh at the beginning of August. Important partners from professional soccer such as FC Bayern Munich, TSG Hoffenheim and FC Ingolstadt from Germany as well as the defending Polish champion Lech Posen accepted the invitation. The field of participants was completed over the three days by representatives of SK Puntigamer Sturm Graz and the Austrian Football Association (ÖFB). What unites this field of participants: They all rely on the skills.lab training systems from Anton Paar.

The summit was opened by the two hosts, Friedrich Santner, CEO of Anton Paar GmbH, and Johannes Tändl, General Manager of Anton Paar SportsTec GmbH. Both emphasized the steadily growing importance of Anton Paar as a globally active measurement technology company in the world of soccer.

In action: skills.lab Arena and skills.lab Studio
In the following contributions, the speakers addressed the different facets of the use of high-tech measurement and training systems. Oskar Kretzinger, skills.lab team leader at FC Bayern Munich, gave a detailed insight into how the German record champion integrates the skills.lab arena into its daily training work. From regular screening of all academy players, to targeted individual training, to transparent, data-driven scouting – the skills.lab Arena now plays a key role in numerous areas of player development.

With the same professionalism but different focus, the TSG ResearchLab works at the training ground of TSG Hoffenheim. Jan Spielmann, General Manager of TSG ResearchLab, provided comprehensive field reports on how the skills.lab Studio is systematically used to objectively measure and specifically train the cognitive performance of athletes. The skills.lab Studio is a cylindrical system with a diameter of 6 m and a 360° projection surface, which was developed by Anton Paar together with the TSG ResearchLab.

And since the truth lies on the pitch, according to coaching legend Otto Rehhagel, the summit was also an opportunity to exchange experiences between coaching teams in practical sessions. The skills.lab Summit clearly showed that even if the teams are competitors on the pitch, they are moving forward together in terms of high-tech soccer training.