One of the newest trends in the World of Soccer is the high-tech indoor soccer stadiums. They are used for all year around play without regard to seasonality. Many of these stadiums are owned by companies, which lease or rent them out to the teams. The business model is quite profitable and some markets have more than one company with more than one facility each. These companies also sell items such as soccer balls, refreshments and video play back services. They also often have automatic kicking machines for practice like those used in tennis or for batting training in baseball.
Since these soccer arenas are indoors and climate controlled I propose that we take the coaching and training to a much higher level. I propose that we incorporate Holographic Technologies, which are getting closer to becoming reality, and use them to
teach soccer techniques. Imagine the benefits to coaching if you took some of the greatest plays in World Cup Soccer and allowed the kids to replay them. Setting up the holographic 3D images to move in full motion video on the field.
First you would put an athlete next to each of the players and then run the projection as the athletes matched them stride for stride and step for step, aligning themselves to confront the opponent by moving with the hologram into position and taking the shot or defending the goal. The athletes and players would learn emensly by watching and playing along side the greats. And all this is nearly possible. By using special coatings on the artificial grass to help the projection reflection it could be done quite easily. Think on this new technology and what it means for youth soccer.
Lance Winslow
Written By: Lance Winslow
