May 15, 2020 by Oli Perkins

Kent FA and Veo partner up

Veo are pleased to announce that we have partnered with the Kent Football Association for next season and beyond, continuing our mission to democratise video throughout the footballing pyramid.

May 20, 2020 by Magnus Holt

Questions and answers from Sam Rafique

Last week, Veo hosted a webinar titled “Video analysis using AI Technology”. The participants had a lot of questions to coach Sam Rafique (U19s coach in Hellerup IK, Denmark) about his work with analysing football matches. Unfortunately, there wasn’t time to answer all of them, so we piled the questions and asked Sam to give them an answer.

Last week, Veo hosted a webinar titled “Video analysis using AI Technology”.

The participants had a lot of questions to coach Sam Rafique (U19s coach in Hellerup IK, Denmark) about his work with analysing football matches. Unfortunately, there wasn’t time to answer all of them, so we piled the questions and asked Sam to give them an answer.

How often do you do video analysis with players and how often do you watch games? Are you watching every game that you record or only select games?

“We record every game we play and we analyse every game we record! It gives us a better understanding. We can also see if our players are acting upon the things we share and learning is taking place.”

What is live coding?

“In sports, this is most commonly known as a technique used by coaches or analysts to record events that happen in a game or training while they happen. The data can be used to compile reports”

How many clips or times do you tag a player for their highlights?

“It really depends on what I want that player to take on. I do not have a number clips I tag a player in. I usually focus on which clip can give the player the best understanding. So most of the time, it will be between 1 and 3.”

Can the coach give players, individually, assignments on where to improve their game from the video footage?

“Yes, this is a fantastic way to get the players to take responsibility for their own learning. The assignment does not have to be so formal either. It can be an open question at the beginning of the week and reflection at the end of the week.”

In a professional setting, is the focus reduced to just those few areas given a game can be won and lost in an array of ways?

“I think you have to distinguish between a professional setting and possibly a senior setting here. If we look at professional clubs, in my experience, amongst the younger age groups, striving to win is always important but only makes up part of the young players overall development. If we move up the age groups, to u19,u21,u23 and the first team, then yes this may change to the areas where the game is won and lost. A Lot will also depend on the head coaches’ philosophy.”

Too many footages could be troublesome, how would Veo’s app support coaches/analysts?

“Focusing on your goals and the reason you are analysing, will go a big way to narrowing down your time. There is no issue with having too many recordings. Veo will always support its users with tutorial videos, education and more webinars that will go into more detail with how to best use all the recordings you have!”

May 13, 2020 by Lee Hudson

College Fit Finder and Veo team up and everybody wins

We are proud to announce that we have teamed up with the leading online College recruitment company, College Fit Finder.

College Fit Finder is the nation’s most comprehensive online college recruitment platform that empowers a player to take ownership of their future by equipping them with tools necessary to find a home at the college level. The system not only provides individuals with branded player profiles, college filtering, messaging, video editing, amongst dozens of other features, but also provides uniformity to the club’s recruiting efforts by allowing its coaching staff to take a much more personal approach in helping their athletes throughout the process. This club collaboration in turn makes the lives of College Coaches much easier as they can filter through over 100,000 quality student-athletes from around the country who are all looking for roster spots at the next level.

The general recruiting process is broken and the answer to “How do I get seen by College Coaches” always seems to be “go to more showcases and you’ll get recruited”. Unfortunately, that’s just not the way it works. College coaches simply don’t have the bandwidth to attend every game and if a player doesn’t have updated videos on their profile, chances are they will be overlooked.

With the power of Veo’s recording ability, players can capture footage of their games, clip the highlights, and upload them with ease to their CFF profile. College coaches can in turn evaluate athletes remotely over time without needing to do each assessment in person. It saves time, it saves money, and it may be the difference between playing in college or being a spectator.

“We couldn’t be more excited to partner with Veo. Their technology is not only the most streamlined and cost effective video solution we’ve ever seen, but they are the perfect complement to the College Fit Finder platform. Video has become such a huge part of recruiting, and we are quite surprised that in the year 2020, how many student-athletes struggle with the process because they don’t have documented proof of their abilities to show College Coaches. Simply put, Veo solves the problem. Finally, clubs can provide everything their players need in the recruiting process … and their families and their commits will thank them.”
Greg Allen, CEO at College Fit Finder

Greg Allen, CEO at College Fit Finder

“Veo is very excited to partner with College Fit Finder, an incredible online recruiting platform that helps players achieve their goal of playing at the college level. Originally from England, I was not aware of how important playing at the college level was for athletes here in the states. Now, 12 years later I not only understand the value of the recruitment process, but the benefits socially, mentally and physically that playing at the college level offers. I know that college coaches across the country are inundated with players reaching out, all hoping for a place on the roster. With a college coach only having so much time to travel to games, their ability to view potential recruits using an online platform like CFF is key to the whole process. Players being able to capture their games with Veo and build an online profile with CFF is why we see this partnership as not one for the companies but one for our customers”
Lee Hudson, US Marketing Manager for Veo

Lee Hudson

Veo is a portable and affordable video solution that helps football teams record and analyse matches and training sessions without the need for a camera operator. The camera has two 4K lenses to capture the entire field and AI powered software automatically detects the ball and creates a broadcast experience of your matches.

Coaches, players and parents can organize recordings and mark, download and share highlights or export your entire match or training session.

In today’s new world, budgets surrounding college programs across the US are being heavily reviewed and in some extreme cases, whole programs are being shut down indefinitely. Coaches may no longer have the ability or freedom to travel across the country scouting potential players for their program. Player highlights, capturing the full game and the ability to house them in the same place for coaches to easily access will be the new recruitment process. Now more than ever the combination of consistent video and a platform to display them in are vital for the future collegiate athlete.

Everybody wins …

The college recruiting process has already changed dramatically over the past decade, but it is quite clear that it will look even more different after the COVID-19 pandemic is over. Events will be different, leagues will be different, the overall youth soccer experience will be different … and College Coaches will need a more creative way to recruit players. The strategic partnership between College Fit Finder and Veo will provide the solution College Coaches need as they will finally be able to access a huge recruiting base of qualified student-athletes, all of who should now have Veo-filmed videos on their profiles to help validate their abilities.

It’s simple … everybody wins.

May 6, 2020 by Oli Perkins

Forza Sporting Club de Mundial!

Community driven football club is going places armed with a passion for football and a desire to grow. Sporting Club de Mundial is not like other clubs.

After winning The BT Sport Pub cup with “The Gun” in 2018 and then a domestic treble in 2019, Alan Bond was offered the position as Head of Football of Sporting Club de Mundial, an opportunity which allowed him to take The Gun’s community driven, pub team ethos and begin a personal ambition of moulding the club into something long-term for an area which is a real hotbed for football in London.

Hackney Marshes. The epicenter of grassroots football in London featuring 88 full sized pitches packed into the characterful London Borough. Mundial Magazine. A quarterly digest reminding football fanatics why this is so much more than “just a game”. The Gun. A new wave local pub serving craft beer and Korean food.

These three culture-laden catalysts gave birth to one of London’s most pioneering football clubs – Sporting Club de Mundial.

You will not meet a more football centric man than Alan Bond – his vision for SCdM is well thought out and ambitious. Expense has also not been spared by Mundial – the Creative Agency and Magazine backers of the SCdM revolution. Investment in Veo’s match filming product, enabling them to capture every moment of the season was a necessity. On top of this – beautiful merchandise, striking kit and regular training pitch hire – no one can argue they aren’t putting their money where their mouth is.

In their inaugural season, SCdM Men’s team went unbeaten, and were sitting pretty in 3rd place 2 points behind the leaders with 4 games in hand until lockdown put an end to what surely would have been a title winning campaign.

Take a look at some of the action from the 19/20 season:

You get a feeling this popular community driven football club is going places armed with a passion for football and a desire to grow. In just 10 months of existence, SCdM have set up a women’s 5 a side team and community drop in sessions for absolutely anybody looking to get into football (and go for a few beers after training).

Stories that you will discuss for years
Veo are extremely proud to be part of this journey and can’t wait to see what happens when we can return to the marshes. Equally, Alan Bond had this to say about how Veo is helping drive his club in the right direction.

“At Sunday League level, you create stories that you will discuss for years. When you are playing with your mates every week, to have the opportunity to film your games with such an easy set-up is a no-brainer of an investment.

For us, we were fortunate enough to win quite a few games last season and there’s nothing better than putting the video link into the group chat on Sunday night. It’s good to have those moments to look back on. Not only that, I’ve enjoyed going back over the highlights specifically with one of the young forwards and passing on a few bits of information that will help him progress his game.”

“This group of talented players have come together to represent Hackney so it’s a special story. Veo gives the younger generation who play grassroots football the chance to learn off our team. There’s a lot of value to the footage. As the club grows, they can always look back at the players who have represented the club”

We wish Bondy and everyone involved in SCdM best of luck for next season and can’t wait to see how the club develops.

Forza Sporting Club de Mundial!

April 21, 2020 by Magnus Holt

How to coach football during a lockdown

Two football coaches tell how they use the time in lockdown to prepare for when football returns. Veo plays a little role in their work.

For the football and sports community, these times aren’t easy. Social distancing is the norm and team sports all over the world are closed down and government restrictions have made it impossible to play games or train in teams. Highest priority for everybody is of course to stay safe and follow guidelines from health authorities.

However, we miss football like crazy!

Coaching football on a distance
As we’ve described before, Veo’s Copenhagen office is closed down at the moment and has been since the beginning of March. All football clubs’ training activities in Denmark were closed down by the government at roughly the same time.

So how can coaches use their time during the lockdown? I have had a conversation – on distance of course – with Sam Rafique and Kienn Jensen. Both are employees at Veo and, perhaps more relevant for this blog post, both are football coaches in the renowned youth academies of Hellerup Idrætsklub and Lyngby Boldklub respectively. And of course, both use Veo a lot in their work with the young players.

So, how do Sam and Kienn use the time to prepare for the return of football?

“We are already looking forward to when we can play again. It is important to review our matches this season and plan accordingly to next season. We need to be able to see where we were technically, physically and tactically. We need to be able to reach those standards again. For us, studying the older recordings has been specifically helpful. Especially since our players have improved so much from last September till now. We want them to see how far they have come. By comparing games from September and our last match we played before the break, they can see how much they have improved,” says Sam Rafique.

And Kienn Jensen continues:

“We communicate with the players almost daily, and some of the players are meeting up themselves doing training sessions, where I am talking to them both before and after to give them some ideas of what to do. I have also been doing some individual coaching with single players. I have been watching a lot of our earlier recordings to prepare for when we are back to normal, and to give myself new ideas. Besides I’ve used recordings to do individual clips, to show and talk to the players about,” says Kienn Jensen

Analyse football for homeworks
When you normally train four to five times a week and spend the most of your Saturdays playing football, a total lockdown of football frees a lot of time. The spring months are normally a hectic period as the Danish football season normally draws to an end in May or June.

The spring of 2020 turned out a little different, but that doesn’t mean that the players are not occupied with football.

“We have been giving them physical training for homework; running and so on. And then we have told the players to watch some old footage, and to make clips that we could go through together,” says Kienn Jensen.

The educational perspective of players analysing their own matches is also an important part of the preparation in HIK:

“The players have a program from our fitness coach, to try and keep them in some basic shape. Mentally also, but this has less structure. Instead it’s more about discovery. For example we might ask players to find some highlights where they create overloads well. By doing this we are able to not only check they are learning, but actively encourage them to watch their games, while giving them challenges,” says Sam Rafique.

New features on the Veo platform
In the last couple of months, Veo has introduced several new features on the Veo analysis platform. Features like Player profiles, Draw-on-screen and the newest feature Directed highlights have made the time in isolation a little less boring for the coaches.

“I have found the draw on screen feature fantastic. Before I was doing this manually by downloading the videos, clipping them and then using another program to draw lines and boxes. This feature saves so much time and it is really easy to use,” says Sam Rafique.

And his colleague goes on:

“I have used the draw-on-screen which is really cool, and the user directed highlights for my individual clips – they are absolutely amazing! I already spent hours making highlights for players to help them self study when we can’t train together on the pitch,” says Kienn Jensen.

Hopefully, we can soon return to football. But until then, the pause has provided a unique opportunity to get deeply into analysis.

Stay safe.

April 8, 2020 by Magnus Holt

New feature: Direct your own highlights

Here in Veo, we’re still working at full throttle to make our camera and platform the preferred choice for sports teams all over the world for recording and analysing their game. This week, we’ve introduced a highly desired new feature: Directed highlights.

Direct your own highlights
Veo is a 180 degree camera system. When you record with Veo, every piece of action on the pitch is recorded and saved for reviewing and analysing. After the game is uploaded to our system, AI detects the ball and creates a broadcast view of your recording.

But what if something happens on the other end of the pitch? Or you want to highlight the players’ position when they are away from the action?

The new feature Directed Highlights allows you to focus on any actions of your choice.

Check an example and instructions:
Video: Directed highlight.

“With directed highlights, every single player on the pitch can be focused on”

We have talked with Sam Rafique and Kienn Jensen who are both youth coaches in reputable football clubs in Denmark:

“The ability to create highlights where we can control the camera is the best feature in the camera right now. It gives us the freedom to direct clips ourselves and create both an overall tactical picture and great attention to individual technical details in the same clip. With directed highlights, every single player on the pitch can be focused on. With player profiling and draw on screen, the user directed highlights feature fits perfectly into our existing player analysis tools.”
Sam Rafique, U19s Coach, Hellerup Idrætsklub

“Directed highlights is an amazing tool where you are able to fokus exactly what you would like to see. Great for individual coaching, to zoom in on specific situations and create highlights even though the ball is not even in the area or simply just to get specific what you would like as a coach to show to the player to improve him individually! this is useful in both match situations and training sessions.”
Kienn Jensen, U17s Individual coach, Lyngby Boldklub.

How to do it
You can find a written walk-through made by our customer success people here: Directed highlights in interactive mode.

If you want more info about how your club can benefit from this new feature, you should book a demo call with one of our Veo experts!

Book a call here.

March 27, 2020 by Magnus Holt

2020 Q1: A most eventful chapter in Veo’s history

The beginning of 2020 has probably been the most hectic and eventful period in Veo’s lifetime. In this blog post, we look back on 90 days that felt like a decade.

In 2020’s first quarter, we sold sports camera systems to more than 60 countries on all continents. We introduced Veo to seven new sports. And we launched a total redesign of our platform and several new features.

But still, we’re arguably going to remember the first quarter of 2020 for something that, in fact, didn’t really have much to do with Veo. In March, team sports all over the world were locked down and so was Veo’s headquarter in Copenhagen to avoid the spread of the coronavirus. More on that later.

Veo’s going to the US
It feels like a decade ago today, but back in January, Veo sent a full team of sales and marketing people to Baltimore in the US, to participate in the world’s largest soccer summit – United Soccer Coaches Convention.

More than 1,000 people visited our booth during the three days and it was amazing to experience the drive and ambition of american soccer. There’s definitely a bright future for our friends in the US. While most of our sales is done remotely via e-commerce or phone, it’s always a pleasure to get to meet people head-to-head and discuss what’s on people’s minds. We’re looking forward to meeting you all at conferences and summits when the world of team sports opens again!

Veo’s booth at United Soccer Coaches Convention in Baltimore, January 2020

New platform and features for everybody
On Veo’s platform, coaches, analysts and players can rewatch and analyse their matches and share highlights with teammates, friends and family. The platform had a total makeover in the beginning of the new year after a design progress that involved a lot of feedback from our users.

“The new design is the first major redesign of the Veo universe that we’ve made. The former design has served us well, but it was time for something new“, says Kawus Nouri, Head of Product at Veo.

Player Profile:
Showcase your best moments

Here at Veo, we want to give you the possibility to show your great skills in your own customisable profile page. Every player on every team can create their own profile and select the highlights they want to showcase to the world. See how in this blog post.

Showcase your favourite highlights with our new player profile feature.

With your own personal player profile, you can easily share your best moments with friends, family, scouts and even college or university recruiters.

Here is a step-by-step guide to setting up your own player profile with your highlights.

How to set up your player profile

1. Log in to your Veo account at app.veo.co

2. Click the menu in the upper right corner

3. Click “Profile Settings”:

4. Profile settings page will open. This is where you write information about yourself, which will show on your page. Add bio, birthday, nationality, preferred foot, preferred jersey number, favourite position, and the username:

5. Click Save when you’re done:

6. Once you save the profile, your URL is generated as well as a direct link to your profile:

You can also access your profile from the menu, by clicking on “My profile”:

7. At first, the profile will be empty. How to showcase your favourite highlights to it?

On your home page at app.veo.co, there’s tab “Mentions”, where all of your highlights (the ones you are tagged in) appear:

8. When you find one you’d like to show on your profile, click the three dots next to it and click on “Add to my showcase”:

9. That’s it! It has now been added to your profile:

You can always add more highlights to your profile or edit your initial settings.

We hope you’ll enjoy this feature, and feel free to reach out to support@veo.co with questions and feedback.

March 6, 2020 by Oli Perkins

Extraordinary Talent needs Extraordinary Technology

In Veo, we are happy and proud of all of our users. Sometimes, the use cases are quite extraordinary. The England Amputee Football Association are preparing for the Euro 2020 in Cracow. Read their story here as told by Oli Perkins, our UK Market Manager.

Like everyone else, I am overjoyed to see the back of the winter months in the UK. Three storms, cold, wet, windy and dark — it’s been a pretty abysmal start to the year.

However, as a football fan, there is certainly light at the end of the tunnel in the shape of the crescendoing Premier League season and the bi-yearly excitement of England at another major tournament. As the England players prepare for warm up games against Denmark, Austria and Romania, there is another National England team with high hopes at this year’s European championships.

Owen Coyle Jr., Head Coach of the England Amputee Football Team, is preparing his players for the Cracow based European Amputee Football Championship 2020. However, the EAFA’s success at major tournaments in recent years (Runners up Euro 2016) has been built on more humble foundations when compared with other England national teams across sport.

Pre-tournament, each player is set an individual fundraising target of £1500, so that they may compete at this year’s competition. It’s all hands on deck to not only make sure these players are physically and mentally ready to compete in a high performance environment, but also financially able to support European and World Cup entries.

With a smaller budget there are always challenges, but Owen and his team are hellbent on providing the very best experience for their players at First Team level all the way through to the EAFA junior leagues. Camera operators and full time analysts were out of reach, but the Veo solution that allows for automated match filming and goal recognition was not.

One year on from purchase, I caught up with Owen to see how everything was going with Veo and I was delighted in his positive review, citing the affordable and portable solution as a reason behind improved player performance. He is excited for the European Championships in September and firmly believes England have a chance of going all the way and knocking the formidable (and fully professional) Turkey team, off top spot.

We’d like to wish everyone at the EAFA the best of luck this summer and who knows, we may have two footballing sides from England celebrating international success!

March 2, 2020 by Adam von Haffner

Veo partners with Sports Recruiting USA

Veo Technologies is proud to announce that we have entered into a formal partnership with Sports Recruiting USA (SRUSA), the world's leading U.S. college soccer recruiting agency.

Veo Technologies is proud to announce that we have entered into a formal partnership with Sports Recruiting USA (SRUSA), the world’s leading U.S. college soccer recruiting agency.

In the past decade, since the agency’s creation, the SRUSA has helped more than 2,000 athletes and worked with over 3,000+ coaches, making it a great partner for Veo in our efforts to – first and foremost – make sure that soccer games are recorded, so that players can significantly increase their chances of being recruited though high-quality video footage of their skills.

For the SRUSA, the partnership will provide a new opportunity to film at all events to help their clients be reviewed easier by prospective colleges in the USA, and founder Chris Cousins says about the partnership:

“I’ve followed Veo since they came into the market and I’m very excited they have decided to partner with us. Having this technology at all our events, and on hand for other client based games, gives our staff the freedom to know the game is being filmed automatically, but also after the game, we are able to review the footage in many different formats and angles.”

Lee Hudson, Veo’s U.S. Market Manager, says:

“At Veo, we are very excited to partner with SRUSA, one of the USA’s leading college recruitment agencies. Our company’s mission is to ensure that games are recorded so players can analyze their performance using the power of video technology. And now Veo and SRUSA can combine both film and player recruitment to make this possible.

With so many athletes not having enough video footage of themselves for college recruiters to view, we believe this partnership bridges the gap between what you hear about a player and what you see in the player.

With Veo’s technology and the SRUSA’s ability to recruit future college athletes, we’re excited for the players of tomorrow to be able to be recognized by a larger audience.”

We look forward to seeing our new partnership unfold!

February 18, 2020 by Magnus Holt

New feature:
Draw on screen

We hereby present our newest feature that allows you to draw on the screen. This blog post is about how to make the most out of the draw on screen feature in the Veo platform.

We hereby present our newest feature that allows you to draw on the screen. This blog post is about how to make the most out of the draw on screen feature in the Veo platform.

Draw on screen has been at the top of most requested features among our customers and we’re very excited to introduce it. Read on for full instructions on how to use it and how can you enhance the analysis with this useful tool.

Basics

You can use three shapes: arrow, rectangle and line.
Draw on screen is a part of highlight creation. The option for drawing on screen will appear, when marking highlights.
Highlights are (for now) only possible to be created in the follow-cam (broadcast) view, and the same goes for draw on screen.
Drawings do not appear on the download version of the highlight.

Let’s get into it

Let’s go through the steps for creating a highlight that involves drawing on screen.

1. Click “Mark highlight”:

2. The highlight editor will open. The “Draw on screen” icon appears in the bottom right corner. Click on it:

3. The draw on screen editor will appear as well as an additional pointer in the highlight timeline:

4. Adjust the pointer as it fits you and you’re ready to go. Choose the shape and the colour you want to apply (arrow is chosen by default) and then click and drag (use the mouse or trackpad) to or around the object:

5. Click the checkmark in the draw on screen editor to complete the action and save the drawing:

6. The drawing gets saved and the pointer will change the colour:

You can continue adding drawings within the same highlight and then save the highlight when you’re done.

The highlight containing drawing(s) will appear in the highlight thread on the right side of the video player with the drawing icon next to it:

When you play the highlight in the follow-cam view, the video will stop when there’s drawing and you can press space or the play button to continue watching:

I hope you’ll enjoy this new addition and we will be happy to hear your feedback at support@veo.co.

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