The sports data guru helping Manchester United and more stay ahead of the curve
“You spend £100million on a player you need to know everything about that player,” says Dave Hancock.
“You need to know what he’s saying on his Twitter account, what his family circumstances are, what’s his psychology, what’s his injury record, how many minutes has he played. What’s his ratio of playing X, Y and Z and can I have it on every page? On our system the answer is yes.”
As former head physio for Chelsea, Hancock was a key figure behind Jose Mourinho’s original all-conquering team at Stamford Bridge that dominated the Premier League with the power of Frank Lampard, Didier Drogba and John Terry.
He knows the importance of keeping elite athletes available and performing at the height of their powers.
His own talent in that department has seen him work with England under Fabio Capello before being head-hunted to become performance director at the New York Knicks in the NBA.
There he worked with the legendary Phil Jackson – star of Netflix series the Last Dance, and 11-time NBA championship-winning coach with Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls and Kobe Bryant’s LA Lakers.
Now he is at the forefront of ApolloV2, a company are revolutionising the use of data in sport, who count Manchester United as one of their clients.
His system allows clubs and athletes to use state of the art technology to track anything from sleep patterns to calorie-intake.
United – who are stepping up their preparations for the Premier League’s Project Restart – are among the first in this country to adopt the system.
Other clients include reigning baseball World Series champions the Washington Nationals, LSU football National College champions and athletes such as NFL star Odell Beckham Jr.
United’s involvement dates back to Sir Alex Ferguson’s reign when he embraced an earlier version of the system devised by Hancock.
At a time when data is king, athletes and sports teams use a dizzying array of software to track performance. Apollo allows all of that information to be fed into one system, which, crucially can be accessed on the phone.
Hancock says that is a vital way to break down barriers to coaches and players – aiming to mimic Apple’s success by making his product accessible to all.
“I’ve worked with Phil Jackson, Jose Mourinho, Capello, Terry Venables, I could go on and on,” he says. “I’ve worked with probably close to 30 different top-level managers in different sports. So I know what it’s like to influence those people who make the changes.
“It has to be visual because if it’s bland or complicated coaches aren’t going to look at it.
“The key is the phone. If I create a report, can I push it out to the coaches on the phone live? Yes.
“I remember when I was with England and Chelsea, things used to be drawn up on acetates and pinned up on the wall in the dressing room. Those days have gone. You can be looking at it on your phone while you are sitting in the dressing room or (watching) tactical videos and plays on the bus on the way to the stadium.
“The phone is the key.
“Players aren’t going to be logging on (to a computer) – but if you can deliver a report to a player or a manager from the game, from whatever you are looking at, also video (on the phone)… You can send highlight clips, tactically you can draw plays on the app and deliver that to the players.”
As United have found, it has been particularly helpful during the lockdown when players have been forced to maintain fitness levels while working in isolation.
“During Covid we can send out strength and conditioning programmes, rehabilitation programmes,” says Hancock. “We can automatically upload GPS data, heartrate monitors - it goes into our system. The athlete doesn’t need to do anything. He just needs to look into his phone.
“You can take his sleep data from his watch. You can take the calories he’s burning when he’s not at the training ground. You can take his dietary intake, his movement. How often does he have a massage, how often is he stretched?
“We can measure anything that the team wants to and literally it automatically syncs with our system.”
Hancock left Leeds to join up with Mourinho in the Special One’s first spell at Chelsea when he dominated English football.
And before the days of smart phones, he describes Mourinho as his own personal computer.
“For me he was a genius,” he says. “He didn’t like data at that time – I don’t know what he’s like now. He was so methodical in the way that he prepared his training. He was almost like, he’s got the data in his head about what these guys need to do.
“He was a real winner. At the expense of a lot of things, but it was about winning. It was a winning, siege mentality and it worked. Look at the guy’s career. He’s had one of the best football manager’s careers in the world. Genius.
“They (Chelsea) had the talent and they had strong personalities. Above all that, they had a leader who was all about winning. He installed winning into that team and it just clicked because the personalities met the challenge of the winning.
“They drove the dressing room. Very strong individual characters – John, Didier, Frank. Three great, world class players, great people in their own right and just an outright hunger to win - and then a manager that wouldn’t let the little things slip.
“I remember a player who missed the bus. We were playing Everton away and I remember sitting on the bus and we had to leave. It was an evening game on Sky and the player was late for the bus. Jose went: ‘Go.’
“This was a world class player. We were waiting at the hotel to go to the stadium and he was late. I’m talking a minute and he said ‘Go.’
“The coaches were arguing about wether to wait for him and the boss left him at the hotel. He had to get a taxi and he benched him.
“That message he sent to all of us was don’t ever be late for this bus again.
“He didn't care who it was.
“Those tiny, tiny, tiny margins can be difference between winning.”
With or without Hancock’s software, Premier League players will be expected to get back up to speed in double-quick time to complete the season.
Kevin de Bruyne has already voiced his concerns about the possibility of injury after a lay off that dates back to early March.
Hancock adds: “Three months off you’d need at least six to eight weeks (training).
“The problem is this is not about worrying about the players, this is about money and TV rights. These are businesses that are losing hundreds of millions.
“This is not necessarily about thinking about the health of a player. They are an asset - they are a pawn. But from a manager’s point of view and the operational point of view of the team, that’s very important about the longevity and when you are trying to win (trophies) or survive.
“This time period and the longer it goes on it’s very important for all of those involved. If I was in the bottom six or the top three, top four trying to get in the Champions league, win the league or avoid relegation, then what you are doing now is vital to that success whenever that door opens. You need to be ready, prepared.
“Riding a bike and running on a treadmill, if you are monitoring, it is going to help in terms of knowing how much intensity they’ve worked at. But it’s not the same as playing 11v11 or 7v7. It’s not the same as having to react to where the ball moves. You can’t do that on a bike or treadmill. It’s a very different environment. Thus the time they have to train prior to playing is so important for injury prevention and Teams getting players back to top level performances."
