1 September 2026
By Roger Kennedy
roger@TheCork.ie

Entertainment

Football training in Ireland is not what it was twenty years ago. The basics haven’t disappeared — players still run, work with the ball and spend plenty of time listening to coaches — but there is much more happening around those sessions now. Cameras, GPS trackers, tablets and performance software have become part of modern sport. Technology is everywhere in people’s spare time too, whether that’s streaming a match, checking scores or trying demo slots online. For football clubs, though, the useful part is being able to see things that coaches once had to judge mainly by watching.

Training Has Become More Measured

A coach can watch a player running and get a decent idea of how hard they are working. A tracking device can add another side to that picture.

GPS equipment can record movement during a session, including how much ground a player covers and how their workload changes. That becomes useful when a squad is training several times in a short period.

Not everybody needs the same session either.

A midfielder who played a full match at the weekend is in a different position from a substitute who only played ten minutes. Someone coming back from injury is different again. Having more information makes it easier for coaches and fitness staff to adjust the work rather than treating the whole squad exactly the same.

The numbers aren’t there to make every decision. They give the staff something else to look at.

Video Is No Longer Just for Match Day

Video analysis has been around for a long time, but it has become much easier to use.

Instead of sitting through an entire match looking for one particular mistake, coaches can review selected moments and show them directly to players. That might be a defensive shape that keeps breaking down, a forward making the wrong run or a midfielder missing an easy passing option.

For young footballers, seeing the mistake can be more useful than simply being told about it.

It works the other way as well. Coaches can show a player what went right and why it worked. Sometimes a short clip explains an idea better than ten minutes standing beside a tactics board.

Young Players Are Growing Up With Data

Academy football is one area where technology could make a noticeable difference over time.

Young players now grow up in a world where recording a training session is hardly unusual. Coaches can keep a closer eye on development rather than judging somebody from one particularly good or bad game.

Still, youth football creates a problem that numbers can’t solve.

Players develop at different speeds. The strongest 15-year-old isn’t automatically going to become the best senior player. Physical development, confidence and maturity all change during those years.

Data needs context, especially with teenagers. A statistic can tell a coach what happened. It doesn’t always explain why it happened.

Coaches Still Have the Final Say

There is a temptation with sports technology to assume that more information must always lead to better football. It isn’t quite that straightforward.

A club can collect thousands of numbers and still make poor decisions if nobody knows what matters. Coaches need to understand which information is useful and which can safely be ignored.

Irish football clubs are unlikely to stop relying on experienced coaches, scouts and academy staff. Technology works better alongside those people rather than instead of them.

The biggest change, then, may simply be that coaches have more evidence in front of them. They can watch the player, look at the video, check the workload and then make a decision.

Football remains a human game. Technology just gives the people working in it a few more ways to understand what is happening.