“Our mission is to make soccer the predominant sport in the United States. We know we are just a few steps away and we have a favorable environment. With the vision that Europe always dominates, but with the idea that with new methods which would be unthinkable in Europe, we can be better”.

Jose Maria Oliva Lozano, Director of Research and Innovation at U.S. Soccer, is at the helm of an ambitious project that aims to push soccer to unprecedented heights in the land of opportunity.

The Almeria native accepted a unique opportunity in 2022 that is impossible to turn down and complicated to execute, but he is not setting any limits.

From the spectacular office of U.S. Soccer in downtown Chicago, located in front of the Chicago River and Lake Michigan, Jose Maria talks to MARCA to explain what is being developed to achieve the definitive leap, one that aims to dethrone basketball, American football and baseball as the top sports in the country

A department made from scratch

“The objective of this department is to generate knowledge, share knowledge, give support to our staff and teams,” he explains.

“We spend a lot of money on recovery methods, but we don’t really know how effective these methods are. We often see them on television: ‘Look how cool this technology is,’ but then the reality is that we often don’t know whether or not it has a positive effect on performance,” he confesses about studies that seek to find the most appropriate recovery strategy.

A fear in society

The day that American football, the most popular sport in the United States, changed, society changed its way of seeing things. It would continue to be played, but from that moment on, it would be played knowing that even the NFL admitted that the game poses a health risk.

The largest professional football league accepted, after years of denying the obvious, that there was a link between concussions suffered by football players and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), which represents the cumulative, long-term neurological consequences of repetitive blows to the brain.

Something similar happened with soccer after results presented at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) shed new light on this controversial topic and suggested that repetitive head strikes may have consequences on brain function.

U.S. Soccer stepped up to the plate, looking to find the healthiest possible environment, and in 2016 they banned headers for children under the age of 10.

“We know there may be some concern in the country because of what has been seen in other sports with the issue of concussions,” he tells MARCA of the federation’s drastic decision.

“From a certain age, 11 or 12 years old, you can introduce pitching in training, but no more than 30 minutes a week and no more than 15-20 actions a week,” he says.

Controlling growth… so as not to discard talent because of their physique

“Every player may have a different path. What we realize is that when we go to spot talent, that talent can have different physical, technical, cognitive and emotional conditions. There is something very visible which is the issue of maturity,” he explains about the real problems that coaches face every day as they encounter age groups with players who vary in terms of physicality.

In this way, Jose Maria explains the ultrasound technology with which they are conducting studies to detect the skeletal age and height estimates of each soccer player.

“It is an innovative method that we believe can objectively provide data on the projection of that player. And when we value talent, we don’t just value his performance because with that age group the one who is mature (physically) can dominate the one who is more immature, who can also develop other types of skills because he has to defend himself in that context,” he explains.

Watching soccer through glasses?

“The Business Ventures department recently announced a collaboration with a company that allows you to enjoy soccer as a fan from another point of view. Not being at home in front of the TV, but putting on a pair of glasses and being able to enter the pitch,” he explained.

“It will be a mix of the real and the virtual that is starting to attract attention… and allows you to stand near the coach or near the referee, or if you want to change position and watch the game behind the goal seconds away where the cameras are positioned.”