Wednesday morning featured an optometric visual training for the Werder players just hours after their test match against Olympiacos Piraeus to test their entire visual capabilities. The football boots were temporarily replaced with plasma glasses with a vision test taking the place of shooting practice.
"The goal here was to improve things. With our training we want to utilise all areas that are important in football and that could achieve an improved performance," said head coach Thomas Schaaf about the measure, which was not instituted for the first time. "We have worked with some individual players in this area for years. After long considerations we wanted to do it with the entire team."
Essentially seven areas are tested: static and dynamic acuteness of vision; the eyes' motor and functionary capabilities; quickness and flexibility of acuteness of vision at varying distances; spatial depth perception; visual spatial adaptability; reaction quickness; and peripheral perception. The coach hopes that there could be improvements achieved, especially in the area of spatial vision and reaction quickness. "Time is an important factor in football. If you can win extra seconds with better reactions then you should capitalise on that," said Schaaf. "Success can be measured by the individual players who could win more assurance."
