From Potential to Performance: How AI, Ball & Player Tracking Are Transforming Talent Identification in Youth Football

Football has always been a game of opportunity. But for many young players, opportunity depends on visibility: being part of the right academy, playing for the right club, or being discovered by the right scout at the right moment. The next evolution of talent identification aims to change that. 

Together, Skillers Academy, SAP, and KINEXON Sports are combining social reach, artificial intelligence, and real-time performance data to create a new approach to youth football scouting, one where players can demonstrate their potential through objective performance insights, regardless of their background or current playing environment. The initiative brings together emerging talents from Germany and the United States, with the ultimate reward: an opportunity to earn a place at the renowned FC Bayern Munich Elite Camp in Munich or San Diego. 

But beyond identifying individual players, the project demonstrates what the future of scouting can look like when technology, data, and human expertise work together. 

For decades, talent identification has relied on the experienced eye of scouts and coaches. Their ability to recognize technical ability, decision-making, personality, mentality, and potential remains essential. However, traditional scouting also comes with challenges. Geographic limitations, limited visibility, and subjective first impressions can mean that talented players never receive the opportunity to showcase their abilities. Technology can help address this challenge. By capturing live player and ball movement data, KINEXON Sports provides objective insights into how athletes move, compete, and interact within the game. The goal is not to replace scouts, but to empower them with additional information to make better-informed decisions. 

As KINEXON Sports Managing Director and Co-Founder Maximilian Schmidt explains: 

“The future of talent identification is about empowering scouts and coaches with better information. Every athlete deserves the opportunity to be evaluated through the lens of objective performance data. By capturing live movement and performance metrics on the pitch, we can help uncover talent that might otherwise go unnoticed. Together with Skillers and SAP, we are demonstrating how data, AI, and human expertise can work hand in hand to create a more transparent, equitable, and effective approach to scouting.” 

For Skillers Academy, the partnership represents an opportunity to make talent identification more accessible and create new pathways for young players. 

Skillers Academy Co-Founder Matthias Strohmaier adresses the initiative as one of the biggest challenges in football: ensuring that talent is not overlooked simply because it lacks visibility. 

“For years, football has overlooked an incredible amount of talent because access and visibility were missing. That’s exactly where we come in. We want to give young players the same opportunities, whether they play for a Bundesliga club or in a small village. The future of football is data-driven. That’s why we’re proud to now build this bridge into youth football as well. AI is not meant to replace scouts, but to help them make fairer and better decisions.” 

Skillers Founder Kevin von Anhalt adds that the combination of data and expertise can help address one of the biggest challenges in traditional scouting: identifying potential beyond first impressions. 

“Far too many talents slip through the cracks because scouts often decide based on first impressions. That’s exactly what we want to change. Data and AI allow us to make potential objectively visible, regardless of where a player comes from or which club they play for. Data can reveal potential that might previously have been overlooked. But in the end, no AI can replace the human eye for talent, mentality, and personality. This combination of technology and experience is what makes the project so exciting.” 

At the center of the initiative is KINEXON’s Local Positioning System (LPS), a high-precision tracking technology that captures player and ball movements in real time. For the New York scouting event, KINEXON deployed a temporary LPS setup at Metropolitan Oval in Queens, creating a professional tracking environment where young athletes could be evaluated through the same type of technology used by elite teams around the world. Using ultra-wideband (UWB) technology, KINEXON tracks player and ball positions with centimeter-level accuracy in real time, allowing coaches and scouts to understand not only where players are moving, but how they move and interact with the game. 

Unlike traditional physical testing environments, live tracking captures performance in football-specific situations: 

• How quickly does a player accelerate into space? 
• How effectively does a player cover ground during transitions? 
• How does a player influence the game when in possession? 
• How does physical output translate into football actions? 

The combination of player and ball tracking creates a more complete picture of performance, connecting movement data with the actual context of the game. 

Throughout the competition, KINEXON performance data was transferred in real time through API integration into SAP Sports One. SAP Sports One combined tracking information with player profiles and additional athlete information, including anthropometric data, creating a centralized view to support the evaluation process. The platform enabled jury members to access objective performance insights alongside their own football expertise, helping them make more informed decisions throughout the competition. By connecting performance data, athlete information, and AI-powered analysis within a single ecosystem, SAP Sports One demonstrates how digital platforms can help sports organizations transform complex data into actionable insights. 

“The future of scouting is not about replacing human intuition with artificial intelligence, it is about amplifying it. By connecting player tracking, ball tracking, athlete profiles, and Al within SAP Sports One, we create a complete picture of every player’s potential. When technology and human expertise work hand in hand, talent identification becomes more objective, more transparent, and ultimately more accessible for young athletes around the world.” Fadi Naoum, Senior Vice President Sports & Entertainment, SAP SE 

The evaluation included a selection of key performance indicators, including: 

• Distance covered 
• Max speed 
• Accelerations 
• Ball distance covered 
• Shot speed 
• Ball possession metrics 

These metrics provide valuable context around each player’s physical and technical contribution. However, the true value comes from combining multiple data points rather than focusing on a single number. A fast player is not automatically a talented player. A high workload does not automatically equal effectiveness. Data creates additional context, helping scouts understand the full performance profile. 

The initiative brought together emerging football talent from Germany and the United States across two preliminary rounds, supported by KINEXON’s player and ball tracking technology, before culminating in a final competition in New York. 

The first preliminary round took place in Munich, Germany, where twelve selected players showcased their abilities through competitive matches and individual challenges. A second group of twelve players competed in New York City, where the same combination of football competition, expert evaluation, and objective performance insights helped identify the strongest candidates from each group. 

Across all stages of the competition, KINEXON’s tracking technology captured live player and ball movement data, creating individual performance profiles based on metrics such as distance covered, speed, accelerations, ball movement, and football-specific actions. Following the preliminary rounds, a jury of four experts selected the top players from both groups to advance to the final stage in New York. 

The finalists from both preliminary rounds came together in New York for the final competition, creating a unique international showcase of emerging talent. Players competed in a tournament format, facing each other in a series of matches before completing additional individual challenges designed to highlight different aspects of their abilities. 

By combining: 

• Real-time performance data 
• AI-supported analysis 
• Competitive football situations 
• Expert evaluation 

the initiative created a new approach to talent identification, bringing together objective insights and human expertise to help uncover the next generation of football players. 

Artificial intelligence can help identify patterns, compare performance profiles, and transform complex data into meaningful insights. However, football remains a human game. Creativity, personality, tactical understanding, mentality, and the ability to perform under pressure cannot be fully captured by numbers alone. The future of scouting is not AI replacing scouts. It is AI supporting scouts. Technology can highlight potential. Experienced coaches and scouts provide the context. Together, they create a more complete evaluation of a player’s ability and future potential. 

The partnership between Skillers Academy, SAP, and KINEXON Sports demonstrates how connected technology can create new opportunities for young athletes. Advanced tracking technology was historically available primarily to professional organizations with significant resources. Today, flexible solutions allow these capabilities to be brought into new environments, helping make performance insights more accessible. 
The vision is simple: Talent should not be limited by geography, club affiliation, or visibility. By combining real-time tracking, artificial intelligence, and human expertise, the future of scouting can become more transparent, objective, and inclusive. Because every player deserves the opportunity to be discovered. 

Skillers Academy 
Skillers Academy combines football development, community, and digital reach to create new opportunities for young players. Through its scouting formats, training programs, and social media presence, Skillers provides emerging talents with a platform to showcase their abilities and connect with the football ecosystem. 

SAP 
SAP is a global leader in enterprise applications and business AI, helping organizations operate more effectively through connected data and intelligent technologies. Within sports, SAP Sports One provides clubs and organizations with a centralized platform to manage performance, scouting, medical information, and team operations, helping decision-makers access relevant insights when they need them. 

KINEXON Sports 
KINEXON Sports bridges the gap between data and decision-making through live player and ball tracking technology. By capturing high-precision movement data in real time, KINEXON enables teams, leagues, federations, officials, and athletes to gain deeper insights into performance, improve decision-making, and unlock new opportunities through connected sports data.