In the 2021/22 season, for the ninth time in a row RB Salzburg has managed to dominate the Austrian competition. RB Salzburg’s rise to the championship podium is actually not surprising. The reason is, as we know, they have indeed built the foundation with great care, so that achievements keep coming their way.
RB Salzburg, at least in the last decade, has indeed become a team that cannot be underestimated at all. They have become a regular for European giant butchers in the highest competition, so they often send high-quality talents to clubs spread across the Blue Continent.
Yes, Salzburg is known as a club that is diligent in producing bright talent. Instead of wasting huge funds to bring in star players, they instead chose to be patient by investing funds into the club’s training system.
Therefore, it’s only natural that recently, Red Bull Salzburg is known as a club that has an excellent academy, which is no less elegant than FC Barcelona’s La Masia to Ajax Amsterdam’s De Toekomst. Starting operations in September 2014, the Red Bull academy, which sits on an area of 12,000 square meters, has at least 200 young footballers from seven countries.
With the slogan ‘Enter The Next Level’, young players educated at the Red Bull academy are indeed prepared for the future. Like a playground for children, the atmosphere created by this academy is also very fun and high-tech. There are six football fields both indoor and outdoor.
In addition there is also an athletic hall and room. What is no less interesting, all supporting facilities are supported by high technology that can help the development of every academy-trained player. An interesting training system and the best approach taken by educators has made this academy develop so rapidly.
As a result, young people who train and do activities here managed to become champions in the UEFA Youth League competition in 2017 by beating great teams like Manchester City, Paris Saint-Germain, Barcelona and Benfica.
One of the distinguishing features of this academy is the philosophy of play and training. FC Liefering’s CEO, Manfred Pamminger, said that every coach, employee and all players operate according to a predetermined idea. Philosophy and spirit supported by high-tech facilities. That’s the key to their success. For the record, this academy also houses FC Liefering.
So, what are the best facilities and high technology used at the Red Bull academy? Launching from the redbull.com site, the first facility that attracted a lot of attention was the athletics room. This space was formed with the aim of creating players with good running ability and high speed.
In this room, the players would train in slightly different methods. They would tie a belt around their hips connected to a high-tech, computer-controlled rope winch via cables, and walk against levels of resistance that could be adjusted as needed.
With this technology, the coach will later analyze the performance of each player to get data on how strong the players can get their maximum performance out of running. Moreover, the player’s strength in maintaining their maximum running level can also be assessed.
It’s not enough to issue data about each player’s running level, this technology can also find out which leg is a player’s greatest strength. If all the data has been collected, then the next training process will be given according to their respective portions.
This facility is one of the most relied on by the Red Bull academy because they really need players with high speed to support the game scheme that is implemented on the field. Second, there is a facility called the high-tech gym or high-tech gym. Unlike gyms in general, players who enter this facility will immediately be faced with a screen to measure their abilities.
Every tool used in this facility has the best sensors so that every player’s movement will be directly connected to the coach’s computer. With this, trainers can immediately monitor the activity of each player in the gym, where they can monitor details such as how strong and how long a player lifts the barbell, in real time.
Then there is the anti-gravity running track. Technology which has been developed for astronauts, makes players perform movements such as moonwalks with the aim of getting them used to natural running movements without a run. Manfred Pamminger explained, players will be asked to wear super tight clothes complete with a blower that creates pressure in them to reduce body weight by up to 80%. They will be asked to run on a track with a slope of up to 15 degrees, which is believed to increase the player’s level of alertness.
More than that, it was also explained that this technology really helps every player to recover from injuries more quickly. As we have realized, no matter how fit a football player is, injury will always be the scariest scourge. The next facility that is no less interesting is soccerbot 360. The name that brings this super-sophisticated technology is Alexander Schmalhofer, who is the club’s head of match analysis & innovative projects.
The concept of this technology is asking players to kick the ball towards the goal, where the goal is reflected through a projector directed at the wall. There are six projectors with relatively small goal images. This exercise is like a game for young academy players to increase their creativity and sharpness in shooting accuracy.
Through the goals that are reflected from the projector, the coach will know the ability to pass, kick speed, to the determination of the goals set by each player. The fifth facility is Local Position Measurement (LPM). This system allows coaches to get data on every detail of a player’s movements on the field.
The data obtained from this technology will be very useful for coaches and players themselves to develop games. Because the innovation includes data on player speed, movement slowdown, passing opportunities, ball possession, down to details such as heart rate, breathing, to skin temperature.
What makes it even more special, it is said that the LPM system is 100 times more precise than GPS. With the investment made in the academy system, Red Bull Salzburg can be said to have reaped the rewards. Apart from being able to win successive league titles, they can also talk a lot at the European level.
Some of the best players to have studied at this academy are Xaver Schlager, who joined Salzburg as a youth player in 2012. Contributing as many as four league titles to Salzburg, Xaver Schlager is now one that is quite reckoned with in Wolfsburg.
Then there is the name Marcel Sabitzer who, although he did not join the Salzburg youth team, he managed to become a mainstay of their senior team. Experiencing a high-tech training system, Marcel Sabitzer, who is now 28 years old, was hunted by Europe’s top clubs until his steps led to the Bundesliga giants, FC Bayern.
He, who was once famous with RB Leipzig, won his first German League title with FC Bayern in the 2021/22 season. Still from the players who are currently appearing for Bayern, Dayot Upamecano is also one of the reasons why RB Salzburg is an untouchable giant in Austria. He had donated two league titles before fate finally brought him to the German competition.
Apart from these well-known names, players such as Konrad Laimer, Martin Hinteregger, to Maximilian Wber and Cican Stankovic are also the reasons why we deserve a round of applause for the performance done by Red Bull in providing the best training facilities, in order to create quality talent.
ASL
