The Master in Soccer Science and Technology prepares coaches for the 21st century

The School of New Technologies (ENTI), a center attached to the University of Barcelona, ​​​​​​​​​​​launches the first official Master’s Degree in Football Science and Technology dedicated to sports science professionals and students who want to focus their steps on technical careers within the world of football at a time when more and more data analysis determines everything from the design of training sessions to the preparation of tactics on the pitch.

Today, there are few football teams, clubs and federations competing at the highest professional level without technological support and tools that provide massive amounts of data on themselves and rival players, and this is a trend which will continue more in the coming year. As seen in the study The Impact of Technology on the Future of Football – A Global Survey, more than 140 technical directors endorsed the knowledge and use of big data as highly relevant to the future.

This need for a greater ability to understand and interpret these data is one of the motivational pillars for the creation of the Master in Science and Technology in Football. In this way, ENTI-UB aims to train the technical profile in data analysts, a professional profile that is increasingly present in professional football organizations and creates a very high job demand for professional experts in the field of sports performance, sports analysis and sports training.

Despite the existence of various postgraduate degrees dedicated to specific training in sports training, science and sport and/or data analysis at a national level, the ENTI-UB program has a differential approach, as it specifically incorporates the content specific to sport and training in the field of digital sciences, specific content on research methodology and statistics, and ecological physics.

The ENTI-UB program combines the contents of sport and training in the field of digital sciences

ENTI-UB, a university center specializing in new technologies, has been associated with sports science for many years, as a technological partner of a university degree in technology and physiotherapy, and with the prestigious Harvard Medical School (USA) in the joint realization of a symposium on “Serious Games for Health & Sport”.

For this master’s degree, it will have the collaboration of EUSES-UdG and INEFC-Universitat de Barcelona, ​​​​​​which will put students in contact with the best resources and professors with teaching experience and research in the field of sport, digital technology and the big data, as well as prestigious professionals in the sports industry and, especially, in football.

EUSES-UdG and INEFC-Universitat de Barcelona will be the main collaborators of the master’s degree

The director of the master’s degree, Dr. Marc Vives, has been a Senior Football Sports Technician (UEFA PRO) and coach of Vissel Kobe (Japan) and has 15 years of university teaching experience. He will be joined by Josep Segura and Francisco Seirul·lo, both professionals with extensive experience in the world of football in general, coaches of FC Barcelona for many years and professors at INEFC Barcelona.

Among the faculties you will find Dr. Andrés Martín, current physical trainer for the Futbol Club Barcelona first team, Dr. Eduard Pons, former physical trainer for FC Barcelona and the senior men’s team, Josep Segura, former coach of AEK Athens FC, Olympiakos FC, or Liverpool among others, as well as Dr. Lluís Vicent, academic director of ENTI-UB and specialist in information technology and its management.

The student of this master’s degree, which is an official degree from the University of Barcelona,​​​​will be part of the ENTI-UB university community with access to its network of facilities and libraries, as well as also its own space with 40 places for consultation and material use. Thanks to the agreements with INEFC (attached to the University of Barcelona) students will benefit from collaboration in training, teaching, research and exchange of information in the field of physical education and sport.

Thanks to the collaboration of three entities (ENTI-UB, INEFC and EUSES-UdG) there are extensive internship agreements with various companies in the technology and sports sector and sports clubs. The signing of agreements to conduct outdoor practices with FC Barcelona, ​​​​​​RCD Espanyol, Girona FC, Club Gimnàstic de Tarragona SAD, CAR Sant Cugat, Federació Catalana de Futbol and other affiliated clubs is planned.

In this way, it is intended that the graduate of the Official Master in Science and Technology in Football from ENTI-UB will be able to meet the needs of different sectors and subsectors related to football science and knowledge, as well as start their own business technology, thanks to the emerging creativity of this practice and the many opportunities for the creation of new companies that add value to the sport through technology.