Maurici Lopez-Felip: Boosting Performance in Football (Full Transcript)
Listen on Apple | Spotify | Google
Full Transcript:
Ronen Ainbinder 0:32
I'm excited to introduce and welcome our next guest to the Halftime Snacks.
Joining us from Barcelona in Spain is a behavioral science legend and an enthusiastic sports tech entrepreneur.
He's the CEO of Kognia — a sports intelligence platform that conducts in-depth tactical analysis of football games through deep learning and AI technology for teams, leagues, and coaches.
Amongst their investors, they're getting support from the legendary football icons Xavi Hernandez and Iker Casillas.
At Kognia, they are disrupting the industry with their all-in-one approach to modern-day analytics by simplifying in-depth strategies efficiently and timely.
I'm excited to have the chance to learn from him. Without further adieu, ladies and gentlemen – Maurici Lopez-Felip!
Maurici Lopez-Felip 1:18
Good afternoon from Barcelona, Ronen. Happy to be here. Thank you for the invite!
Ronen Ainbinder 1:23
I'm super, super happy that you were able to make it to her interview. I always kick it off with a fun icebreaker. So this is mine for you. Who is your second favorite soccer player of all time?
Maurici Lopez-Felip 1:35
The second one, that was a hard one. But I have it clear. My second favorite football player of all time is Luis Figo. I'm laughing because it's a little bit controversial. After all, it's a player that used to play for FC Barcelona. But then he moved to Real Madrid. But I can't deny that he's one of the best players I've ever seen.
Ronen Ainbinder 2:08
That's amazing. Who's the first one?
Maurici Lopez-Felip 2:10
First one. For me. It's definitely Xavi Hernandez. I mean, I like the playing style of Xavi and the way that he was making things very easy.
Ronen Ainbinder 2:25
Yeah, he's amazing. I'm sure he's also a great player helping you guys with going out. But we'll get to that a bit later. Yeah, happy to have you on the show. The goal of today's episode is to understand more about football coaches' behavior and decision-making process. Learn about the automated analysis that you've guys been developing, discuss a little bit about innovation in sports, and then, more importantly, have lots of fun. So let's start off with maybe a quick story. And I want to know exactly when you first developed a passion for tactics that tactical analyses and automation in sports, particularly in football? Is there any story that you want to share with us?
Maurici Lopez-Felip 3:10
Yeah, sure. I mean, I'm not sure if it's gonna be short, but for sure, there's a story behind it. I mean, it looks like football since very early in my life football or let's go by soccer if you want. It's been my passion. In the first memory, I remember from the time I was a kid that it was celebrating Ronald Koeman's goal that gave the first Champions League to FC Barcelona, which was back in 1992. I was five at the time, and from there, soccer has been the engine of my life. I was so convinced that I would become a professional player once. But unfortunately, it didn't happen. I mean, I was very close. I made it to the Catalan national team under 16, under 17. I got to play together with big names nowadays, like, say Fabregas or Pique, and so many others playing professional but, but I couldn't make it for several reasons. But in any case, what would these give me or what made me realize during those years in which I played soccer is that among different factors, like physical capabilities, family or even context, support, is the comprehension of the game above everything else? It's key tactical knowledge of the game. It's, it's key and, and I understood that. I realized that understanding the game somehow flowing naturally with the game's dynamics is crucial. Because for hours I've played football, I've trained for Boy life coach football, I have seen amazing Bayer freight players that could accelerate faster than anyone with the ball in their feet, players that dribble the ball forward-backward, Javelin players that did amazing things. But when it came the real moment too, to use those capacities, in in a coordinated ner with, with the deeds of, of the surrounding environment, men, most of these players had had some problems in making the right decisions or, and the subsequent actions, right so, so even though they successfully aged to overcome that situation, because of their physical capacities or technical skills. They then compromise to make the team, but they still didn't always make the best decisions. And, and this is something that you can still see nowadays, with some players that make it to the first team of top professional clubs, even. And you can tell that some players still have certain difficulties in comprehending the game so that they solve every single situation, from a tactical perspective, rather than supporting themselves in their physical or technical skills. You see it, you see what I'm saying? And this is why I chose an innovative solution like cochlear. And the one that we bring with our software can have a huge impact on a player's career. We have contrasted that with players and professional players. So
Ronen Ainbinder 6:41
It sounds like you would make a great coach. I mean, probably was that the idea? Like in the beginning, like you trying to become a coach and try to spread these ideas around or, from the start, you knew that this was something that you can do through technology and then apply it or combine them together?
Maurici Lopez-Felip 7:00
Well, I mean, look, neither of those, but the essence comes from that. I mean, you're right. Look, when I was finishing my bachelor's degree in sports science, I was so fortunate to start working with John Billa, a person who's very well recognized in the football industry. At that time, he was offering a consultancy service to professional players to improve Tactical Perforce. I was the guy running video analysis and generating tactical content for him based on our library of tactical fundamentals that he had developed over his career. And that includes around 230 tactics that nowadays we include those in the software and the beginning of everything. It's here; it made me think about going through that process of generating every tactical aspect of the game, generating video clips and editing them, and looking for those tactics in very specific moments of the game. It's time-consuming, it's an effort that not only takes time but energy, and I thought somehow we have to bring this process in an automated way and look, we have the amazing opportunity here because this knowledge has been contrasted with professional players I mean, drama for those who may not know he was a professional player that made keys their booth next to john Grove long time ago, in the first game of FC Barcelona when dreamless Mitchell's was a coach. And he was also deeply involved in the coaching has seen being y years in youth teams of professional clubs, influencing players and like Carles Puyol and dressing Esther or even Tiger dif and, for example, chubby one could say that, that is the maximum exponent of Joan Vila knowledge about the game Xavi is a player that is not the strongest one is not the fastest one but is the clever he was always perceiving and consequently, acting accordingly to the dynamics of the game, taking the time that it was needed to pass the ball occupying the spaces and releasing the ball in the right moments and, and it was Xavi even himself, that the day that he was living FCB he expressed his gratitude to Joan Vila recognizing publicly that all the offensive and defensive tactical knowledge that john had transferred to him somehow allowed the chubby himself to be the player that we all know. And, and these are the concepts that somehow I'm like Catania, Years ago I was generating for John Vila to transfer to particular players. And these types of concepts are, for example, tactical aspects that refer to, let's say, your center back things like when to leave the defensive line or not to leave it or when there is a lateral ball, how you need to position on the field relative to that ball relative to the defense the defenders in the same line or relative even to the attacking players, or if you're a midfielder how you position to receive balls in between the lines, or how if you got an attacker how you move behind the defensive line to take advantage of certain opportunities, stuff like that. These tactical fundamentals indeed come from someone who's got a lot of knowledge in football; he's been exposed to so many years in, in coaching football in, in studying it. And one of the things that it's very important to acknowledge is that these tactical aspects are generic or somehow objective; right, they are not dependent on a playing style or a particular form of the game. , any type of concept like, for example, defensive line imbalance, happens, whether you play on a 3-4-3, 4-4-2 or for whatever formation, right, so, what's called near captures on all these fundamentals, the essence of it is to capture physical relationships, that they take some meaning by happening in a football field. Still, they can happen in any type of formation. And, and again, 14 on that is when I realized that somehow, there had to be a way to automate this process that I was doing, having didn't know the pain in the neck, that it's to go through a whole match for one player, that defines all the tactical aspects that he's doing in every single moment to provide feedback to him. But that player needs that to improve; otherwise, how he's going to improve, running faster, not waiting more, lifting up more weight. No, he's going to improve if you tell him. Look, when the environment is like that, you have two options to avoid danger for your team. Either you leave the space, or you occupied it, but consider this thing and this other thing. And I'm basically this is this the story, So I thought to look when he talks about these, and if we get to that somehow to make it automatic that detection of these tactics, then we could scale up this business model and rather than advising professional players only in a face to face fashion, we could do it all over the place a different group ages or different playing levels. And this is the story behind the copier. This is how it came to happen.
Ronen Ainbinder 13:10
It's incredible to hear you speak about it with such passion. And it seems like a deconstructive the COVID the that the mindset like or the mental capability of a player not not not necessarily his physical, it's more about what's inside his mind and the way he's able to think about the game and debate able he's able to react to things that happen. It's super fascinating. And Maria, you also have some experience or some background in behavioral science. So I want to just touch a little bit on that point. And I want to ask you if there are any classic behavioral mistakes that you've you've seen coaches or players do, that you learn through through Kognia and through doing all this technical analysis through through through all these years, things that you've you've seen that coaches thought was right, and their religious behavioral biases are things that it can be easy to give to be fooled by your or to be yeah, just fooled at the moment of the game. Is there anything that you can share with us in terms of a couple of behavioral mistakes?
Maurici Lopez-Felip 14:25
Yeah, I mean, well, first of all, calling it heavy needs to be I wouldn't I will highlight on behavioral mistakes but indeed, for example, what I've realized is that with Kognia Kognia is opening a new domain of information, I think we are opening a new era of information. We are opening the door towards the tactics and the generation of tactics in an automated way. And what it helps us with software like ours is that so far technical stuff, what they were doing is basically, after the match, they were concerned in generating information about the game and information that helped them improve those particular aspects of the team or at the individual level. That allowed them to quickly correct a few things, but doing it very quickly and very generically. Because sometimes when you are in the elite, competing on top professional leagues, or competitions, you have three days, maximum sometimes to, to prepare a game or five, right and, and you don't have a lot of time, with a tool like Kognia, or what I'm seeing in coaches like Xavi, or technical staff or for Nigeria, for example, is that after the match, they already have a substantial amount of information about the tactical aspects of the game. So, for example, every time we've lost a ball, right, how we were positioned relative to the ball, and which type of fundamental was performing the striker was it? Was he positioning himself behind the back of the center back? Or was he in between lines? Right stuff like that are aspects that we are already generated. And that by some advanced filtering options, the users can do a quick search through the software. And that's helping them a lot in terms of that. So now, instead of having to generate information yourself, you already have the information. You can transmit or make sure that this information gets to the real characters of the whole movie, which are the players, And that's why I said that I don't think that's a mistake or behavioral mistake. It's just something that it's opening up an opportunity by having this improved technology. I think we will see these every time more solutions, like the one we're offering, are being presented in the clubs.
Ronen Ainbinder 17:24
And do you think there's any, there's any part of the coaching job that I mean, you kind of like did for them that besides this like time-saving element of it had like a specific advantage or something that some feedback that they told you these obvious? These other coaches told you that there were some very big advantages of Konya that you didn't expect. The other that impressed you the most was there any other advantages, obviously. Next to the ones that they're, they're already there, which are very clear.
Maurici Lopez-Felip 18:04
Yeah, yeah, of course, solo comments, like, for example, the fact that our software, for example, not only the text, the tactics on the game, but it also draws have an automatic illustration technique. So it throws the tactic on the video that helps many coaches gain objectivity before it's being detected as one type of fundamental tactic or, or not, right then and there. And suppose you apply the software across different games or across different teams within the same club. In that case, that's very helpful, Because the text is always the same sort of tactic with the same objectivity. And you can study this type of behavior or monitor this type of tactical situations, across different group ages, different teams, and, and obviously here is when some of the clubs that look at Kognia are not only to be implemented for the first team and for the pro teams but also to be implementing this software across their whole Academy. They highlight that this is a platform in which we can now embed our football methodology because it allows us to monitor these tactical aspects reliably and objectively. And we know that that concept means that concept across all teams in our club and obviously the ability to generate video and process the video automatically and highlight put the focus on the right relationships that have some meaning in terms of tactics for them. It's crucial, So, these are the types of aspects that, yes, we've, we've received some feedback from. And obviously, apart from the abuse of saving a lot of time and having the possibility to make better decisions based on that. Yeah, one of them, one of the anecdotes that when presenting the software with some of the coaches, you can tell, which are the coaches, for example, that that are passionate or as passionate as you in terms of analyzing the game and that they have gone through, they have gotten their hands dirty in analyzing, right, because when they see a software like ours, like Kognia, a software that detects tactics, and that the feedback that it gives is in the language of coaches, right. It's our software. It leverages artificial intelligence in a way that it doesn't give you numbers; it doesn't give you statistics. Of course, we could do it because we generate the data, But it gives you his feedback in the language of coaches. And these coaches, professional coaches, have been in the, in the, in the, in the model of video analysis, they ask you, the first thing they ask you is who the heck came up with this idea? And this, to me, is one of the most satisfying reactions that I've encountered because it's like, I wish I had this idea. After all, that's, that's cool. Right. And, and well, this, beyond that, the particular advantages, this is one of the reactions that, that it's very satisfying.
Ronen Ainbinder 21:47
Let's talk about innovation as something popular nowadays. Do you think that teams coach leagues players can still avoid innovative platforms like Kognia? Or? Or do you think they can still figure it out on their own? And if you think they can still figure it out on their own? I wonder how long do you think it will it will take for this answer to become a no and that everyone, like, with no exception, is going to need a platform such as Kognia for developing solutions and being on top of the game and staying, staying with the most, or the best technology available to compete at the highest level? So what are your thoughts on that?
Maurici Lopez-Felip 22:38
So, let me answer the western by separating the question into two parts, right. One is whether they can avoid using a technology called solutions like ours and whether they want. Ok, that's what makes a difference here. So, can they avoid using technological solutions like Kognia? my quest my answer to that in a humble way, but the consistent way is definitely not I mean, look, this is an extremely competitive wall, you cannot allow your competition to get any advantage without exploring it yourself, I mean, as the possibilities increase, and the platforms like ours get more and more advanced, The advantages are only more and more obvious, So, the longer they collapse or resist these changes, the more they will be left behind. And, and this is one side of the coin, right, because as you were pointing somehow in your elevation of the question, then there are these other clubs that are very innovative. They find innovation everywhere, and they sometimes know they want to do it on their own and build up from their own from an in-house approach and, we realize we realize that. These types of clubs or institutions are indeed becoming more open to innovation. But when they realize these, what we see is that the facing of some of these clubs is to start this processing house and then start hiring some profiles like data scientists, ai machine learning engineers or whatever right and, and to me, this is a mistake to mistake because the technology is advancing so quickly. Everyone underestimates what is needed from a technology point of view. What happens is, the House staff becomes overwhelmed with all the short-term concerns of preparing for them. Next opponent and aging the week that it's impossible to develop any long term program to increase innovation and, and instead, with Kognia's expertise, for example, clubs have a company that has been developing or building for years, all these pipelines, we've made, all of them trustable reliable, we've optimized and speed up all the processes. And, and furthermore, we provide insights on it, right. So, suppose clubs need to develop something like this, rather than leveraging all the infrastructure that already provides insights about the game and take advantage of it by improving perforce. In that case, it will be a very time and money-consuming effort. So there are these two sides, right, the reticent ones, and ones that are very, that are very innovative and underestimate the difficulties in developing certain technological processes. So how long? I don't know how long it will take until the Radisson ones stop being reticent. And the ones that are very pro-innovation will start taking more on this type of technology. But it will be evident as soon as technologies like ours start spreading around, and everyone will see the benefits.
Ronen Ainbinder 26:32
Yeah. And I want to ask you about that. What is the plan or strategy you have in your mind to scale Kognia to the whole world and serve every athlete in every team coach at play and League, from the top divisions to the grassroots? And classic community sports?
Maurici Lopez-Felip 26:47
Yeah, I mean, our first idea, strategically, is to become a company that it's well recognized because of the know-how that we incorporate in our technology. For sure, there are technological solutions out there that can do any of the technological processes that we do. But the difference in Katya is that we have tactical knowledge that it's unique because nobody else has this know-how. And we have it in a way that all our technology and our pipelines have been developed so that they are structured and built to satisfy this final goal that we have, which is automating the tactical analysis of the game. So we want to be recognized worldwide, around tactical analysis, automatic tactical analysis. Obviously, this happens through to two, or it is crucial to make it happen in professional football. Still, obviously, we have built a technology that works not only for professional clubs but also in any football game of any age at any type of level. So the same technology that we can apply when a team is like the Poland national team when they play. We are one of the power cells, one of the technical stuff and codes that rely on Kognia. For example, the Henney national team can use it the same way that any grassroots team from your hometown could use it. So, of course, our idea is to spread around and grow one and on the professional market or segment. Still, we are also aware of this long tail volume market opportunity. We definitely have the technological solution to satisfy.
Ronen Ainbinder 29:29
I'm looking forward to seeing that to see it then every field and grassroots place in-game worldwide looking forward. I'm sure the platform is super robust. You have the edge on, as you mentioned, tactical analysis and is one of the most efficient platforms that can combine all the factors together, and that's fascinating. Time has gone so fast. We've been learning so much about you and about your story in your development of Kognia that I can't leave without asking you a more personal question, and that is, what is one habit that you've been adapting into your lifestyle recently that you can share with us and why, why you're, you're adapting this new habit to you and your lifestyle.
Maurici Lopez-Felip 30:14
This is funny because it's one habit that I took while doing my Ph.D. At the University of Connecticut, I had a professor, Dr. Michael Toby, who was very demanding with his students. Even though he treated us very well every Friday, he would invite us to his home to drink some beers and talk about science. He was always telling us that young men work hard and make discoveries at the end of the night. And that means that every day. It doesn't matter what happens; you need to work, even if it's just a little, to take one step forward. And this is a philosophy, a habit that I've wanted to implement in Kognia every day or every meeting that I've got with my team. When we conclude the meeting, I always say the magic words- ok, the team for this week, for this milestone, for this achievement, let's work hard and make progress. And this is something that I apply every day in my life. And that's the hobby dies. I think I had to share
Ronen Ainbinder 31:38
amazing amazing. Where can people learn more? About Kognia? If they want to learn more, or may they be interested in the platform? Where should they find you? What channels should they use?
Maurici Lopez-Felip 31:50
Yeah, they can look for information on our website. We also have Instagram and Twitter. And obviously, they can get in touch directly through the website or even reach out to me, and we'll be happy to get back to them.
Ronen Ainbinder 32:08
Amazing. Amazing. Very true. Well, I want to thank you so much for taking the time to come to the halftime snacks and discuss with me everything between, behavior and decision-making process of football coaches and players, the value of automated analysis, innovation in sports, it was so much fun to host you and listen from you and your insight, and you're passionate about football, I appreciate it. Hope we can do this again in the future. But for now, thank you so much for coming to the Halftime Snacks.