How Women's Football Clubs Are Using Video Analysis to Build Professional Structures

Written by: Frederik Hvillum (Veo)

FC Viktoria Berlin video analyst Mario Nurtsch on why a picture says more than a thousand words, why most Second Division clubs still lack dedicated analysts, and how video is accelerating women's football's journey toward full professionalism.

Mario Nurtsch lives in Bavaria, roughly 500 kilometres from FC Viktoria Berlin's training ground. He works part-time for the club while holding down a full-time role in business analytics at an insurance company. And yet he is one of the people most responsible for how the team prepares for each match.

That arrangement says something important about where women's football is right now: serious enough to need a dedicated video analyst, not yet professional enough for that analyst to work full-time on-site. FC Viktoria Berlin is actively trying to close that gap.

The club was promoted to Germany's 2. Frauen-Bundesliga at the end of last season and has been building a coaching and support structure that most clubs at this level do not have. Video analysis sits at the centre of it.

What a women's football video analyst actually does

Mario's week runs on two parallel tracks. The first is backward-looking: after each match, he works through the recording to build a picture of what worked and what did not, measured against the team's match plan. The second is forward-looking: by Monday evening, he has to deliver a full opponent analysis to head coach Miren Ćatović and the training staff.

The Monday deadline is fixed. What it produces is a package that includes video clips, a written handout covering the opponent's offensive and defensive patterns and transitions, and a team vision document that explains the tactical approach for the week ahead. Set-piece analysis, covering corners and free kicks, is handled by co-trainer Anouk Dekker.

On Tuesday, Mario and Miren review the analysis together. The question they are trying to answer is whether the week's training should adapt to the upcoming opponent or stick closer to FC Viktoria Berlin's own principles. The answer is usually both.

"We have procedures that we want to play," Mario says. "We want to play our own game, but we have to be flexible depending on the opponent."

In the summer of 2023, Veo and FC Viktoria Berlin announced a partnership, which means the club will record all matches using Veo's AI cameras. We visited the club to learn more about the unique structure and how they’re paving the way for women’s football in Berlin.

Read Inside the game changers from FC Viktoria Berlin

The three-minute conversation that shapes halftime

When Mario attends a match in person, the most important moment of his work week happens in the three or four minutes after the final whistle of the first half. The team heads to the changing room. Mario and Miren talk.

Mario has been watching from the stands, tracking formation changes, substitution patterns, and anything that deviates from what he prepared for. He feeds that information to Miren, who listens, weighs it against his own experience of the first 45 minutes, and then goes in to address the team. The whole exchange takes less time than a typical tactical substitution.

When Mario is watching remotely from Bavaria, the process is more improvised. He monitors the live stream, takes screenshots, creates short clips, and writes a one-pager with his observations across offense, defense, and transitions. That document goes to Miren and the wider staff via a WhatsApp group during the first half.

The arrangement works because of accumulated trust. Mario and Miren worked together before joining FC Viktoria Berlin, and they share a common understanding of how the game should be played. "We have the same understanding of the game," Mario says. "That makes everything easier."

Why opponent analysis is still a manual job

For FC Viktoria Berlin's own matches, Mario uses Veo's recording system. The overhead camera angle gives him the tactical view he needs: he can see how the team moves collectively, where space opens up, and whether individual players are executing the match plan. He can skip to specific moments rather than watching 90 minutes in sequence, and then build the clips he needs for team sessions.

For opponent analysis, the situation is different. There is no shared video platform in the 2. Frauen-Bundesliga. Clubs receive footage only of their own matches. To understand how a future opponent plays, Mario relies on live streams, which are filmed from the standard broadcast angle, the perspective designed for fans rather than analysts.

"You can't see how they move. You can't see the space," he says. "That is the biggest challenge."

When a broadcast angle is not enough, Mario scouts in person. Before the cup match against Bochum early in the season, he travelled to watch a friendly match because no video was available. He does the same for player scouting, attending league games to assess potential signings.

The workaround is functional. But it points to a structural gap that exists across the division. Mario's hope is straightforward: that clubs eventually agree to share match footage through a shared cloud platform, giving analysts a proper tactical view of every opponent. That would allow preparation of the quality that is currently only possible when teams have already met earlier in the season and FC Viktoria Berlin has its own footage from that match.

How Veo gives FC Viktoria Berlin's analysts an edge

Veo's AI-powered camera mounts on a tripod at pitch-side and records the entire match autonomously, no camera operator required. Using computer vision, it tracks the ball and players across the full tactical frame, producing a wide overhead view that broadcast cameras never show. The footage is automatically uploaded to Veo's cloud platform within hours of the final whistle.

For Mario, sitting in Bavaria 500 kilometres from Berlin, that matters in a very direct way. The moment the match upload is ready, he can access the full recording, skip to specific phases of play, and start building the clip packages he needs for Monday's opponent analysis, all without waiting for anyone to physically deliver footage or export files.

Inside the platform, he works with Veo's tagging and clipping tools to isolate the moments that map directly onto FC Viktoria Berlin's match plan. A defensive transition that broke down. A pressing trigger the team executed well. An individual positioning error worth addressing one-on-one. What would previously have required scrubbing through 90 minutes of footage now takes a fraction of the time.

"I use the features because the perspective is really good," Mario says. "You can see how the team moves. You can see the space. That is what you need for real analysis."

That perspective is precisely what is missing when he switches to broadcast live streams for opponent analysis. The fan-facing camera angle follows the ball, cuts between wide and tight shots, and loses exactly the collective movement and spatial information that tactical preparation depends on. Veo's fixed wide angle captures all of it.

The gap between what Mario can do with Veo footage and what he can do with a live stream is the gap between preparation and guesswork. When Veo is available, analysis is precise. When it is not, he scouts in person. The 2. Frauen-Bundesliga still has no shared footage platform, so for opponent games, the live stream or a stadium seat is the only option.

His hope is straightforward. "I hope that all teams put their footage on a cloud so we can see all matches with the right view," he says. "Then I can give the right information to the coaching staff." Veo's platform already does that for FC Viktoria Berlin's own games. The rest of the league has not caught up.

Why video changes the conversation with players

Player feedback sessions at FC Viktoria Berlin run to around 20 minutes. That is a deliberate limit. Players want to be on the pitch, not in a video room, and Mario respects that. What matters is that the time is spent on material that connects directly to the match plan rather than general observations.

The video session is structured in thematic blocks: offense, defense, transitions. Players receive both the video clips and a printed handout, which they can take away and review on their own time.

The reason video matters in these conversations is that it eliminates a specific type of friction. A player's memory of a match is subjective. She felt she was in position. She thought the pass was on. Video provides objective evidence that either confirms or corrects that perception.

"A picture says more than a thousand words," Mario explains. "When you talk to players and show it on video, there is no argument about different perspectives. You can talk about it objectively. And there are no emotions."

The players have absorbed that logic. If the coaching staff were to announce they were stopping video sessions, Mario says the players would ask why. The sessions are now something the team expects as part of how a professional club operates.

Where FC Viktoria Berlin sits in the broader picture of women's football growth

FC Viktoria Berlin was established in 2022, when a six-woman founding team took over the women's section of FC Viktoria 1889 Berlin and spun it off as a fully independent company. There is no men's team above it, no historical hierarchy to navigate. The women's team is the whole point. That structure has allowed the club to build professional infrastructure quickly and on its own terms, and video analysis is one of the clearest expressions of that.

Women's football in Germany is growing, but full professionalism across the league remains a work in progress. More investment is arriving. More clubs are adding structured backroom roles. But dedicated video analysts are still rare at the second-division level.

Mario's role as video analyst is a small but visible part of what FC Viktoria Berlin is building. Most clubs at his level do not have a dedicated analyst. Head coaches handle analysis themselves, fitting it around their other responsibilities and without a separate perspective.

"Other teams don't have structures and don't have the time to do it the way we do," Mario says. "That is the next step for us, and it is really important."

Building the habits that professionalism requires

The logic of video analysis in women's football is straightforward. Players who watch themselves perform, who understand opponents before they face them, and who receive objective feedback on their decisions develop faster. The clubs that invest in that infrastructure gain an advantage over those that do not.

For FC Viktoria Berlin, those habits are already in place. The question now is whether the rest of the 2. Frauen-Bundesliga will follow.

Photos: Kai Heuser and Julia Haake