Kasem Abotel, senior director of product management,
Strategic Projects and Innovation for SAP Customers
When star Neymar was carried off the field on a stretcher during last year's World Cup, with a fractured vertebra caused by a kick in the back, teammates and fans around the world were horrified. A player's worst nightmare had come true: Brazil ended up losing the world championship and the serious injury could have ended the player's career or even left him immobilized for the rest of his life.
Injuries are common and can be costly
Anyone familiar with the sport knows that football players “bet everything” in the 90 minutes. During that time, they feel pressure from fans, coaches and league managers on a minute-by-minute basis, while feet, joints and ligaments seem to take a brutal beating. Each kick, run, turn, twist and collision takes its toll.
The cost of players' injuries is surprisingly high. The estimated average value of injuries in the four major professional football leagues in 2015 was US$ 12.4 million per team. It is estimated that soccer teams annually lose the equivalent of 10% - 30% of the players' wages with injuries.
This means that even a small reduction in the number of injuries can result in big savings. So, imagine if half of all professional sports injuries could be prevented! The amount saved by men's leagues alone would be more than US$ 1 billion per year! (see the infographic at the links: goo.gl/n7tpcZ (English) and goo.gl/LtgDO1 (Spanish).
Turning the game
When a player suffers an injury on the field, several recovery processes are put in place. The good news is that many injuries can be prevented if the risk is known in advance and the athlete goes through personalized corrective intervention programs. This is where technologies like SAP's Injury Risk Monitor (IRM), currently a solution in the proof-of-concept phase, can make a difference.
How it works
Injuries can happen for a variety of reasons, including overexertion, age, technique, lack of hydration and even the weather. By identifying deficiencies in physical preparation, techniques and workload management, SAP's IRM system aims to highlight chances of injury before it happens. Any problem becomes a critical point in the tool and can help to more accurately predict the risk of future injuries to the player. The solution can also anticipate the risk of similar injuries for other players in the same circumstances.
IRM takes into account all relevant player data, including training sessions, fitness tests, matches, demographics and location, and applies them in a mathematical formula to find the risk of injury. Data is collected using conventional and wearable electronic devices - "wearable" and "non-wearable".
The risk of each type of injury to the player is calculated so that physiotherapists can make simulations and take appropriate measures or corrective actions. As the solution runs on the SAP HANA real-time data processing platform, it is possible to process an unlimited number of factors and find relationships between them. This fundamental resource helps physical therapists to quickly understand what are the problem areas or what is influencing the risk of injury. The monitoring of the player during the training sessions and the subsequent definition of the remediation plan can be done in real time, with the necessary speed.
In summary, SAP's IRM can assist in monitoring players like Neymar while recovering from injuries, measuring how the situation progresses and providing data that collaborates to prevent new cases.
The big difference
Unlike other solutions on the market that are based on sensor data, SAP's Injury Risk Monitor runs on SAP HANA, a platform with a wide variety of features that allows you to have a holistic view of all relevant athlete data. The great differentiating element is the tool's risk determining framework, which generates a personalized profile for each athlete, together with the option of defining tailored intervention programs.
SAP's IRM uses IoT (Internet of Things) technology and is being developed in conjunction with customers and partners. When IRM ends its proof-of-concept phase, the plan is to include it in the SAP Sports One solution launched earlier this year - this is the first sports-specific cloud solution run over SAP HANA, which provides a unified platform for team management, training planning, fitness monitoring, performance optimization and talent identification.
Will Neymar have a second chance at the next World Cup? Nobody knows. But with technologies like MRI, the risk of sports injuries around the world can be greatly reduced, saving money for teams, headaches for fans and physical stress for players.
EN 
PT 
