Brain-Based Talent Identification Enters Primera Division

Real Sociedad & BrainsFirst Sign a 3-Year Agreement

The Spanish club, currently in the top ranks, and the Amsterdam-based Sports-tech company BrainsFirst start their collaboration this month with a focus on the identification and selection of the most promising football talents.

The common goal is to make the process of talent identification & evaluation more fact-based, data-driven, and scalable. Especially in times of Corona, remote testing is of great value. BrainsFirst offers an online validated assessment games platform, by combining gamification and its neuroscience-based technology.

BrainsFirst enables Real Sociedad to assess the football brain potential – or game intelligence – of a player. This kind of data is seen as a crucial piece of the overall talent puzzle. According to previous experience i.e. The Netherlands, applying BrainsFirst as an early-funnel recruitment step leads to more justified admissions & rejections and consequently a higher efficiency in the overall process. Roberto Olabe Aranzabal, Director of Football for Real Sociedad explains: “We constantly look for relevant innovation and see cognitive data in respect to a very specific profile of a future professional football player as an added value for us. We want to have a holistic view and understand as early as possible the probability of the talents to meet those high requirements of elite football. BrainsFirst has proven to be an experienced and reliable partner for this aspect.”

BrainsFirst has had its initial experiences in Spain with Celta de Vigo and Numancia. “Real Sociedad decides to choose this approach of talent identification & evaluation for the long term. They prove to have a clear vision and want to use the tools of today to succeed in the future. We are very pleased to work with this club,” says Jens Urlbauer, Director Business Development of BrainsFirst.

About BrainsFirst

BrainsFirst BV was founded in 2012 to define the context-specific required cognitive functions of elite football players. Since 2014, the data collection, analysis & interpretation leads to a considerably higher number of justified admissions & rejections in talent academies. Dutch clubs like PSV Eindhoven, AZ Alkmaar, Feyenoord, and association KNVB are long-term partners. Clubs in Germany, Belgium, England and now Spain are kicking off.

Interested in implementing brain-based talent identification into your academy process? Contact us today or read more about our sports solutions here!