On June 21 in Riyadh, we brought the FIFA World Cup 2026™ to life with Journey to the Cup: The Tech Behind the Game, an exclusive VIP experience where live football, real-time analytics, and hands-on tech collided all in one place.
Timed around the Saudi Arabia vs Spain match, the event turned a major tournament into a live showcase of how Sportian, Globant’s division for sports products, is reshaping the way the game is prepared, coached, and experienced.
Turning a Global Sponsorship into a Local Experience
As FIFA’s tech partner for 2026, we set out to turn a global sponsorship into a locally relevant experience for the Saudi football ecosystem. For one night, Riyadh became the stage where business conversations, football passion, and technology converged around a single match.
The evening was built around a Sportian Performance workshop, a live discussion, and a match viewing, anchored by one central question: what happens when football has intelligence built in from the start?
Let’s take a deep dive into Sportian Performance’s role in the era of football analytics.
1. A connected intelligence layer for modern teams
Sportian Performance is designed to be more than a set of tools; it serves as a connected intelligence layer that brings clarity and structure to everything a team does.
Centralizing competition event data, tracking data, and match video in a single environment aligns workflows across coaching, analysis, and performance staff. This reduces fragmentation and allows teams to move from raw data to informed decisions with greater speed and confidence.
2. From data capture to real decisions
Every World Cup match generates millions of data points and hundreds of metrics linked to positioning, speed, accelerations, and tactical behaviors.
Sportian Performance transforms that volume into automated reports, tagged video clips, dashboards, and data-driven alerts that are easy to interpret in the pressure of a tournament environment.
This helps staff move quickly from “what happened” to “what we do next,” whether they are preparing for an opponent, making in-game adjustments, or reviewing patterns across multiple matches.
3. Elevating coaching through real-time and post-match insights
For coaching staff, Sportian Performance turns a high volume of complex tracking and event data into accessible, football‑first insights.
During preparation, it supports pre‑match analysis, tactical layouts, and game-plan development. During games, real‑time analysis and visual overlays help staff read momentum, structure, and intensity in ways that go beyond what the naked eye can see.
The same environment supports post‑match reviews, player reports, and competition‑level dashboards, so insights from each game are easy to carry into the next one.
4. Aligning people, processes, and technology
Ultimately, the value of Sportian Performance lies in how it aligns people, processes, and technology around a single performance structure.
Instead of having coaches, analysts, and performance staff jumping between separate tools, it gives them a shared space where they can see the same information, speak the same language, and act on the same insights.
The platform breaks this shared performance layer into focused modules, each designed for a specific moment in the workflow:
- Performance Portal – central access hub for matches, dashboards, and reports
- Desktop – video and tactical workspace for deeper analysis and clipping
- Mobile – tactical data and key insights on the move
- LivePRO – live match intelligence for faster, in‑game decisions
- Analysis – views that turn raw data into clear trends and indicators
- Reports – ready‑to‑use outputs for players, units, and competitions
Supporting Federations on Football’s Biggest Stage
Federations competing at the highest level need performance systems that can keep pace with the speed, scale, and pressure of tournament football. Through Sportian, our sports-product division, we help them integrate data, video, and decision-making into a single coherent performance layer.
As a long-term FIFA technology partner and Tournament Supporter for the FIFA World Cup 2026™ and the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2027™, we work behind the scenes to strengthen the game’s digital backbone.
If your federation, league, or club is looking to modernize its performance setup, our team would be happy to connect and explore how Sportian Performance can support your goals.
