The Mina Cup chooses Pixellot and GG8 Sports
April 7, 2022
Pixellot, a provider of AI-Automated sports video and analytics solutions, and GG8 Sports, a provider of AI that generates professional-level-data insights to assess youth athletes, announced that they will provide high-quality broadcasting, game breakdown, analytics, and rich player performance data, respectively, for international youth football tournament the Mina Cup.
Held in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the Mina Cup offers a unique blend of Arabic heritage, superb facilities, and European experience, creating a world-class football experience for all players, coaches, and families involved. The tournament comprises eight teams per age group – under 12, under 14, under 16, and under 18 – which are split into two groups of four. The top two in each group qualify to play in the trophy side of the draw and the third and fourth-placed teams enter a runners-up playoff. Elite club teams from all over the world travel to the UAE for the Mina Cup, including Wolverhampton Wanderers from England, Sturm Graz from Austria, and Pumas from Mexico. Local UAE-based teams join the tournament via a qualifying competition which was played last November.
“I’m very excited to represent the Mina Cup and to support this project in its goal of becoming a leading showcase tournament for youth football in the world,” said Teddy Sheringham, Mina Cup Ambassador, former England International, and Manchester United, Tottenham and West Ham legend. “The UAE is passionate about football and has a broad range of world-class facilities. The Mina Cup has a real opportunity to build the game in this part of the world and identify the next generation of talented footballers.”
Pixellot and its Dubai-based partner CAM Plus Sport will be producing the games for the Mina Cup via their fully-automated live streaming video solution for sports and goal.com will be the tournament’s media partner. Alongside filming and live streaming Mina Cup games, Pixellot will break down all the games for an in-depth match, player, and team analysis and will make the matches accessible to GG8 Sports, which, in turn, will provide their Pro Level services to create high-level performance data match reports to players after each game and a detailed Trend Report for the overall tournament, which will include the GG8 Player Performance Rating (PPR) scores, perfect for benchmarking all players in the tournament on multiple skill and performance levels. This rich set of data includes offensive success, defensive success, and overall game success, among other aspects. After the tournament players and coaches will have access to GG8’s Player Management Engine (PME) to view their game data and videos of the games recorded by Pixellot. Coaches can use this high-quality video to edit, create, download, and share highlights of the games to identify what plays are working for the team, and which areas require work on the training ground.
“We are thrilled to be working with CAM Plus Sports and GG8 to bring AI technology to the Mina Cup, to advance the development of football in this region,” commented Alon Werber, CEO of Pixellot. “Our solution will ensure that every tackle and pass is captured, and viewers can enjoy the full Mina Cup experience. Players will also find our video footage, as part of GG8’s insight reports, invaluable in improving their game and focusing on sealing their first professional contract.”
“We are honoured to be working with the Mina Cup and Pixellot to promote youth football in the UAE and to provide our advanced AI technology to transform youth sports, coaching and talent development with world-class data.” Said Michael Williams, CEO of GG8 for EMEA/APAC, “Now youth players in the Mina Cup will have the unique opportunity to enjoy, utilise, and learn from world-class data-driven insights on their performance to enhance their soccer skills and nurture their talent for the future”.
The Mina Cup opening ceremony takes place on April 8th, and the tournament is played over April 9th to April 11th, at the JA Sports Centre in Dubai.