Footbonaut
The Footbonaut is a football training machine which fires balls at different speeds and trajectories at players, who must control and pass the ball into a highlighted square. In addition to honing ball skills, the machine is designed to improve a player's reaction time.[1]
Development
Footbonaut was invented by Christian Güttler in Berlin, Germany.[2] The machine is also described as a robotic cage.[3] The Footbanaut, which costs $3.5 million is as large as an apartment with a cube shape and is capable of firing balls from a range of 360 degrees at different speeds and trajectories toward the training players.[4] The players, who are standing inside a circle, must control the ball and pass it through one of 72 gates.[5]
Mario Götze's winning goal of the 2014 FIFA World Cup Final has been credited to his years of practice using Footbonaut.[6] It was reported that the team achieved its highest finish - ninth - in the Bundesliga for five years after using the contraption.[5] There are three clubs currently using Footbonaut in their training. [7]
References
- ^ Wilson, Jonathan; Hesse, Uli; Lyttleton, Ben; Rabiner, Igor; Fanning, Dion; Montague, James; Horncastle, James; Udoh, Colin; Yokhin, Michael (2013-12-09). The Blizzard - The Football Quarterly: Issue Eleven. Blizzard Media Ltd.
- ^ The making of a Fussballwunder, economist.com.
- ^ Football enters space age with 'Footbonaut', edition.cnn.com.
- ^ Wahl, Grant (2018-05-01). Masters of Modern Soccer: How the World's Best Play the Twenty-First-Century Game. Crown/Archetype. ISBN 9780804137065.
- ^ a b Grez, Matias; Thomas, Alex (November 9, 2017). "'Footbonaut': German clubs lead football into the future". CNN. Retrieved 2019-02-22.
- ^ The making of a Fussballwunder, economist.com.
- ^ "Meet the Footbonaut, the futuristic pass-master currently firing Borussia Dortmund and Hoffenheim".
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