Politehnica Timisoara was among the clubs that applied for funding for a sports project through the Call for Projects 4/2021 launched by the Timisoara City Project Centre. Our initiative, which targets performance sports, initially received insufficient points to be accepted. However, following the appeal, the project “Improvement of sports performance through GPS monitoring of football players of Politehnica Timișoara” was accepted with a much better score and will benefit from a grant of 75,000 lei.

The project for the implementation of a live GPS monitoring system during training sessions and matches is addressed to athletes registered in the club’s Junior Academy and to seniors – occasionally, during training periods and evaluation of physical capacities. By implementing this system, the members of the technical staff of Politehnica Timisoara will be able to monitor in real time several physical parameters and will be able to make an analysis of the workload and the way of working, in relation to the coach’s requirements.

By making a detailed analysis of the performance given by each player during training sessions or matches played, it will be possible to see the areas where the player needs to improve his performance, as well as to identify the strengths of each player, which he can speculate to the advantage of the team. Also, constant monitoring and analysis of all the information collected can prevent physical overloads of players and avoid injuries, which is extremely important, especially for junior athletes. It is a similar system used by European clubs such as AZ Alkmaar, Shahtior Donetsk, FC Bruges, KRC Genk and Rapid Vienna.

“One of the objectives of the Politehnica Timisoara project is to give young footballers from our academy the chance to make the step up to senior football as soon as possible. But this does not mean skipping stages, but making this transition when they are ready for a different pace of play, a different intensity of duels. Through complex and constant monitoring of their physical parameters, in parallel with the assessments made by specialised staff in this respect, we will know much more precisely when that time has come. This will only have beneficial effects on the development of our children and their quicker integration into the senior team. I am glad that following the appeal submitted by Politehnica Timisoara, the specialists from the Timisoara City Project Centre have carefully evaluated our project, choosing to finance innovative activities in the field of sport. These activities have measurable results and will contribute, in time, to the development of performance sports in Timisoara”, Sebastian Novović, Director of Image Politehnica Timisoara

The total value of the project is 85,000 lei, of which 75,000 lei is non-reimbursable funding through Call 4/2021 and 10,000 lei from own sources. The implementation of the monitoring system will take place during October-November. The technical consultant is Miodrag Todorov, a coach specialized in physical training at the Polytechnic.