A boot-mounted sensor fromTel Aviv-based PlayerMaker, which tracks soccer players’ movement to build an accurate “gait profile,” will help Argentina’s Olympic football (soccer) squad prepare and train for next year’s games in Japan.

Players were fitted with PlayerMaker’s sensors during training sessions and games for the recent United International Football Festival in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.

The Argentinians competed against pre-Olympic soccer teams from Brazil, the United States and Gran Canaria, one of the Canary Islands. This was the last opportunity for Argentinian coaches to assess players before the Olympic qualifying games in Colombia in early 2020.

“The possibility of being able to analyze the performance of the players we are training gives coaches an important tool to direct the team and the anticipated results,” said Luciano Nakis, the Argentine Football Association’s delegate to its National Team.

“The Olympics is the pinnacle of sporting prowess in the world,” added Guy Aharon, PlayerMaker CEO. “It is a privilege to be part of the Argentinian team’s training and continued development.”

The unobtrusive boot sensors –which include a gyroscope and accelerometer that will “know if you make a pass, a run or interception,” says Aharon – were first adopted by the Maccabi Tel Aviv soccer team.

Customers quickly began lining up, including the Philadelphia Union, the University of Pittsburgh’s women’s soccer program and the San Jose Earthquakes in the US, and English clubs in Wimbledon, Millwall and Fulham.

Some 80 clubs, comprising 200 teams, are now using PlayerMaker’s technology.

PlayerMaker has built what it describes as the world’s largest database of soccer player movements, comprising “around half a million motion events,” the company’s CTO Moran Gad told ISRAEL21c.