It is a portal, named ‘StepOut’. What does the app do? How has ‘StepOut’ stepped out in the world of football with an ultimate innovation that has already brought a revolutionary change in the coaching system across the world?
The portal helps the coaches to enhance their coaching system. Any match or training session must be uploaded to the portal, and respective coaches will receive detailed AI-generated data on each footballer participating in the match or training session. The respective coaches in the football schools and the academies across the world, even at the iconic institutions like La Masia, AFC Ajax, prepare the progress reports manually and as the task is not easy, the coaches can take days to complete preparing progressive reports of their trainees’ basic abilities.
But now, with the help of ‘Step-Out’ these coaches are being able to prepare the progress reports of potential kids at their respective football schools faster. It is helping them to make the assessment whether a particular boy, even if has good basic skill, can be developed into a star of future.
Step-Out was founded officially in 2023, but, Jeet Karmakar and Sayak Ghosh, the founders who are also B-Tech from NIT Durgapur, started applying their vision in 2020-21. Mohammedan Sporting was the first club. The Black-and-White brigade earned qualification for the elite I-League from second division. Yan Law was the team’s coach. Step-Out had silent, but a major contribution in helping the coach to bring best of his footballers on the pitch and qualify for the elite I-League.
While speaking to Parallel Sports, Jeet said, “Our vision is to transform today’s prodigies into tomorrow’s icons. After thorough research, we have observed the football clubs across the world, even the top clubs are not habituated to using the technology in their youth development program. That is why we have chosen the youth level. Our portal has not only reduced the coaches’ manual labor, but also helping them in talent identification program. If an experienced coach gets exact data on a young footballer’s basic skill, then it must help him to design the talent identification, nurturing process.”
Step-Out has already worked the clubs and academies in 19 countries across the world. In Indian football, the company has been working Bengaluru FC last one-and-half years. The company, expanding their activities out of the country, is presently associated with legendary Dutch club AFC Ajax for last three years and La Liga’s premier club Rayo Vallecano for last two years. Interestingly, Chelsea has shown interest on associating with Step-Out in its youth development program in the future.
Jeet thanked Nithin Kamath adding, “We are thankful to Kamath for leading our Seed and now our Pre-Series A investment round. He came forward with financial assistance. We are also obliged to Koushik Roy and Amit Singh for their support. I can say they are the examples. If football can be commercialized properly, then you can get financial support.”
But Step-Out had the most significant and memorable moment when Dutch World Cupper and legendary defender of Manchester United Jaap Stam was highly impressed by the functioning of Step-Out and started using it on his academy kids.
“Stam has an organization and after being highly satisfied with our technology, he has joined us as a business partner. We feel it is a great achievement for us. Former Portuguese World Cupper Paolo Futre is also working with us as a business partner. We also have former vice-president of Major League Soccer as an advisor.”
Step-Out has earned another laurel. The company has been selected in a forthcoming international competition with the star-ups across the world. The event, organised by KPMG is named Global Tech Innovation Challenge which will be held in Web Summit, Lisbon next month.
