Followers of European football will best remember Parma Calcio for their golden era between 1992 and 2002, where the club won eight trophies playing attractive football with all-time leading goalscorer Hernan Crespo leading the line and master tacticians such as Nevio Scala, Carlo Ancelotti and Alberto Malesani on the touchlines. This team captured silverware both domestically and continentally.
The 2002 Coppa Italia winning team featured international caliber players to the level of Fabio Cannavaro, Claudio Taffarel and Hidetoshi Nakata, but it would take fourteen years for the club to lift another trophy - this being the Serie D championship of the Italian fourth tier in 2016.
After again reaching Serie A in the latter part of the decade, Parma fell to Serie B in 2021 and since then it has been a grind for The Gialloblu to earn the right to compete again at the top table of Italian football. But with this process has come a new way of thinking.
Driven by the vision of new ownership and a scientific committee, Parma have, in recent years, begun an aspiration to be among one of the most innovative clubs in Europe. This challenge would be realized through the integration of analytics and sports science to improve on-field performance.
A key example is in preparing their players for the higher physical demands required to compete in higher levels of competition. To achieve this, and their aspirations to play in Serie A and beyond, Parma have implemented a scientific combination of software and hardware using WIMU Pro. This process has been overseen by their Head of Sports Science Mauro Mandorino.
"To date, many decisions we make are based on the data we extract from WIMU, which allows us to organize the structure of the weekly load,” said Mandorino. “As a performance area, we are available to the athletic coach and guide him in managing the weekly loads.
How do we monitor the aspects we want to train from a physical point of view? Obviously, by using WIMU, which we have been working with for 3 years now and with which we are very satisfied."
Head of Sports Science Mauro Mandorino speaking at the Hudl Masterclass Conference in Italy earlier this year.
What kind of data does the WIMU Pro system provide for Parma Calcio?
The WIMU Pro system provides a high range of performance metrics for Mandorino and his team. This complements an outstanding performance management approach connecting players and staff in a time-efficient way, which allows sense to be easily made from the large amount of data available.
"So which parameters do we monitor? In reality, the availability of data is really high, there are perhaps more than 150 metrics extracted from WIMU,” explained Mandorino. “However, in communication with the staff, we need to be simple and quick. To keep the management simple and avoid the risk of data overload which can confuse the staff, we select a few metrics that we organize into kinematic parameters.
These include all parameters related to distances at various thresholds, maintaining the standard thresholds recommended at the UEFA level. Then we have more neuromuscular parameters that describe the neuromuscular load, including accelerations, decelerations, and mechanical load."
Watch our free webinar series to discover how to manage the workload of your players, prevent injury and optimize performance using WIMU Pro.
The WIMU Pro ecosystem: Combining wearable hardware with live and post-session software analysis
Combining WIMU Pro data with education to enhance player performance
To harness this data-driven approach to improving player performance and ensuring the physical readiness of their players, Parma have a multi-faceted approach which combines data with an educational approach.
"This year we have also focused a lot on the part of player education and awareness,” said Mandorino. “We have started to see that players are paying more attention to details. We have screens where we show the best recovery strategies and tips. They are also becoming more attentive to their individual performances and want to understand.
Using WIMU data stored into our database, our analytics department can automatically process this data and quickly turn it around into custom-based reports for our players. The player receives this visualization in his own language where we customize the advice every day: 'remember that you worked hard today, you can do cryotherapy,' 'if you want to maximize recovery, do ten minutes of cold water immersion.' The advice covers psychological, physical, and nutritional aspects, including all the various elements of the department."
On May 10, 2024, Parma sealed promotion back to Serie A with two games to spare.
