Football IntelliGym Improves Soccer Players’ Cognitive Gameplay With Spaceships Game

IntelliGym

What if soccer players were spaceships scoring with, defending, and fighting over a hexagonal ball on your computer screen? That unlikely scenario is the reality in Football IntelliGym, a computer-based training program that is designed to improve the cognitive skills associated with playing soccer.

According to IntelliGym CEO Danny Dankner, the training software improves players’ “game IQ” — in other words, their ability to make fast decisions under pressure.

The science backing the IntelliGym product is similar to other cognitive training programs, such as that of the New York Sports Science Lab. Researchers at VU University in Amsterdam studied IntelliGym’s effectiveness by running the training program on Dutch football academies PSV Eindhoven and AZ Alkmaar. In the study, 52 players aged 14-17 used the IntelliGym twice a week for 30 minutes over a 10-week period, and it was found that the experimental group — the group that used IntelliGym — showed a 30 percent improvement in on-field performance.

Dankner said the biweekly sessions are designed to optimize the brain’s ability to consolidate and store information overnight. Just as overdoing it in the gym can be physically harmful, overdoing cognitive training can have negative effects on the brain.

The program works as a video game wherein the user controls a spaceship on a virtual soccer pitch. The first module, which SportTechie tested, trained skills such as field vision, pattern recognition and teamwork by dragging the spaceship to block opposing shots or set up teammates to score. One exercise required the user to track two spaceships as they moved around the pitch, then find those ships in a cluster—a test of field vision and knowing a given player’s location on the pitch.

IntelliGym itself is the progeny of a cognitive training simulation that was originally developed for and used by the U.S. Air Force to train pilots. According to the IntelliGym website, cognitive training was first implemented in the 1980s and 1990s within the United States and Israeli air forces. The technology, sponsored by DARPA and NASA, increased fighter pilots’ skill in the air.

Then, in the early 2000s, the program was applied to sports. According to Dankner, the under-17 and under-18 U.S. national hockey teams won nine gold medals in 12 international competitions over a two-year span while using IntelliGym. Three IntelliGym products are now on the market: basketball, hockey, and soccer.

The gist of Dankner’s product seems to be this: If you’re an athlete, working your muscles improves your strength, speed and other core athletic functions. But working your brain improves your sense of the game and your ability to know what’s happening on the field — a true competitive advantage.