The Playmaker Project

by Daniel Peterson

  "Bring it in!" barked Stuart after two short chirps on his whistle.

  The team hustled over to their coach, most of them seeing him for the first time.

  "Take a knee," said Stuart, placing himself in the center of the circle. Since retiring as a player, he had kept his fitness with square shoulders, bulging biceps, and a broad chest filling out his sweatshirt. His forearms were the size of his recruits' calves, and his hands could palm a soccer. There was no sign of a gut, and his legs were taut muscles and veins. As one Liverpool commentator had labeled him, he was "a six-foot four-inch brick chimney" that could still step into the lineup of any team.

  "Welcome to FC Kotka Academy. I am Coach Pennington. First rule, when I speak, you listen. Second rule, when I am done speaking, you may raise your hand if you have a question. Wait until I call on you to speak."

  Benny raised his hand.

  "I am not done speaking, lad. Put your hand down," said Stuart with a burning stare.

  "Before we begin every training session, we will greet each other with a handshake. This is a mutual sign of respect. After a training session, you will do the same before you leave the field. This includes all of your teammates. You are all equal, so you will treat each other with equal respect. Each player here has a unique skill set, which is why you are here. It is my responsibility to blend your skills into a team so that the team can win. The team is not here for your personal development needs. However, the team requires your personal development to achieve our goals."

  Stuart scanned the group, meeting the eyes of every player as he rotated in a full circle.

  "Look around at this place. This is all for us. Mr. Niemi, our owner, is not interested in developing individuals then selling them to other clubs. He demands trophies. He insists FC Kotka become world-class, spoken in the same sentence as Real Madrid, Milan, Bayern, Barcelona, and Liverpool."

  "What about Manchester United?" said Benny, before he could stop himself.

  The other players winced with his breach of protocol.

  "Mr. Gilbert, what is rule #1?" said Stuart, without looking at Benny.

  "When you speak, we listen," said Benny, with his head lowered.

  "And rule #2?"

  "We should raise our hand for questions."

  "Excellent. You've earned double sprints for your teammates at the end of training today," said Stuart.

  A collective groan murmured through the circle.

  "And let me help you answer your own question," said Stuart. "How many European championships have Manchester United won in their history?"

  "Three," answered Benny, proud of his knowledge of his favorite team.

  "Correct. When they have won five or more like the teams I listed, then we will emulate them," said Stuart.

  The boys smirked as Benny rolled his eyes.

  "Don't worry, I'm a Red Devils fan myself," said Victor Niemi.

  The team owner strode into the center of the circle next to Stuart, who looked surprised by his sudden appearance.

  "Gentlemen, may I introduce you to Mr. Niemi. Mr. Niemi, these are our new recruits," said Stuart stepping to the side.

  Next to each other, Victor was as tall as Stuart but with a bit more girth. His leather jacket hid some extra pounds, but the boys could see how Niemi had also been a player back in the day, although not to the same level as Stuart. Still, they looked at him in awe, having never met a billionaire before.

  "Thank you, Coach Pennington. Boys, I am thrilled to have each of you starting your journey here today. We have exciting things planned for you as you build your soccer career," said Victor, as he shook each boy's hand, some of them wincing from his iron grip.

  When he finished, he turned his outstretched hand towards Anna.

  "And I would like to introduce Dr. Anna Lehtinen, our Director of Cognitive Performance. She will help us understand and improve the most important tool you have, your brain," said Victor pointing his index finger to the side of his head.

  Benny raised his hand again.

  "Yes, Mr. Gilbert, what is your question," said Stuart with a look imploring him to ask something intelligent.

  "So, Dr. Lehtinen, are you like a shrink?" asked Benny.

  Peter squirmed.

  "Actually, I'm a neuroscientist. I study how your brain works so we can help it perform better," said Anna.

  "Good luck with his brain," joked Charlie as he patted Benny on the head.

  Peter turned to the side but couldn't suppress a grin.

  "Well, I'm sure we can help each of you in your own special way," said Anna. "We'll get started tomorrow morning right after your medical tests."

  9

  The next morning, on the walk from the dorm to the atrium building, Peter and Benny got an initial glimpse of their other academy teammates. Even with twenty-two players, Peter liked his odds of getting playing time. Listening to the small talk around him, he could tell this was not their first encounter with pre-season training or the tests they were about to begin.

  "So, you guys have done this before?" asked Peter dropping back to the unfamiliar group trailing behind him.

  "Twice," replied a towering blond-haired player carrying a pair of goalkeeper gloves.

  "Typical doctor's visit stuff?" said Peter.

  "Yeah, kinda."

  "Do we have to pee in a cup?" asked Benny to no one in particular. "Cuz, that would be a problem. I already went this morning and got nothing left."

  "Dude, really?" said Toshi with a disgusted grimace.

  "I'm just sayin', we could be there a while," said Benny.

  "No, you could be there a while," said Harry.

  "Is he always like this?" said the keeper.

  "Pretty much. You get used to it," said Peter smiling. "I'm Peter, that's Benny."

  "Miko," he said with a fist bump.

  "Keeper?"

  Miko nodded, holding out his gloves.

  Inside the cathedral, as the boys had labeled it, an older gentleman, wearing a Kotka polo shirt, blue dress pants, and a green security badge, escorted them through two locked doors. He held each door as all the boys went through, counting heads to himself then thumbing keys on his phone once they passed. Inside a windowless meeting room, Anna was waiting for them. She wore black-framed glasses with her dark brown hair up in a bun. Also, donning a security badge, she tapped on a tablet computer as the team assembled. Standing behind her were two more players ready for training.

  "Good morning, gentlemen, and thank you for being on time," Anna said, smiling. "Again, I'm Dr. Lehtinen, and I'll be helping you with the mental side of your game. As Mr. Niemi said yesterday, here at FC Kotka, we believe the brain is the next frontier for improving your performance on the field. Today, we will run a few simple tests of your attention, reaction time, memory, and decision-making to establish a baseline for each of you. That helps me to get to know you better and gives us a place to start."

  Peter eyed the two extra boys and glanced back at Anna.

  "Oh yes, I'm sorry, I should introduce you to two more of your teammates. They arrived late last night."

  Anna stepped between them and turned to her right.

  "This is Pavel Umanov from Moscow, and this is Aleksandr Ruchkin from St. Petersburg."

  Each boy nodded but said nothing.

  "Russians," whispered Benny to Peter.

  "I can hear you, and yes, we are Russian and speak English," said Pavel, looking at Benny.

  "Oh, yeah, cool," said Benny, stealing a side glance at Peter.

  "OK, let's get started," said Anna as she motioned to the older gentleman standing by the door. "Franz here will help us today. If you need to leave the group for any reason, please be sure to see Franz. We all must stay together."

  "So, like if we need to go the bathroom?" asked Benny.

  "Yes, that's one scenario," said Anna with a gleam in her eye.

  "Like, in a cup?" said Benny.

  "No, that won't be necessary today," said Anna. "We're focus
ing on your brain only."

  "That's terrific news, Dr. K," said Benny, wiping away imaginary sweat from his brow.

  Peter caught Aleks' eye, and they shook their heads.

  Down the hall from the meeting room, Franz ushered the boys into a large, open area with twenty yellow circles painted on the soft flooring, each one about three meters in diameter. Above the circles, about waist high, was a round, plastic ring with a small opening. Anna asked the boys to stand inside one of the rings and handed each a wireless, virtual reality headset similar to the ones they had all used for playing video games.

  "OK, gentlemen, all of our cognitive tests today use these VR helmets," said Anna. "First, we will try them on to get them calibrated properly."

  Benny was already inside his helmet and was clutching the air with his extended hands.

  "Whoa, crazy!" said Benny spinning in circles. "I'm on the field."

  Peter looked at his helmet before placing it on his head. A mesh of electrodes with circular suction cups lined the inside. As he pulled it over his eyes and ears, he felt the electrodes attach to his short hair and scalp. The visual scene was the center circle of Haukka Stadium, ready to kick-off a game, with his teammates on one side of the field and opponents on the other. Cheering fans packed the stands on a sunny, blue-sky day.

  "If you can hear me, please raise your right hand," said Anna through the headset. In their virtual vision, each one could look around and see their teammates with their hands raised. It didn't take long for them to realize other hand gestures were visible to each other.

  "Yes, Benny, we can all see that," said Anna.

  "Now, each of your headsets and, therefore, your brains are connected to each other and to our master processor. It is recording a constant stream of data about the electrical activity of the neurons that make up your brain. We want to understand more about your cognitive skills, just like we understand your physical skills. Peter, at your feet, you will now see a ball. Please pass it to Tristan."

  Peter looked down to see a virtual, blue striped soccer ball in front of him. He found Tristan, who was, according to his computer-generated vision, about four meters away from him. With a side-footed kicking motion, Peter propelled the ball across the field. To his excitement, he felt the touch of his ball on his foot, or at least his brain said it was his foot, as it skidded across the grass towards Tristan. Instinctively, Tristan put his real foot out and stopped the virtual ball. Peter smiled.

  "Dude, are you really smiling right now?" asked Benny.

  "Yeah, why?" said Peter.

  "I can see it on your face!" said Benny.

  "Yes, that's right," said Anna. "That's our emotion engine reading the electrical activity of your brain. When you send the signal from your brain to your mouth to smile or to your foot to kick the ball, our system reads that signal and creates it on the avatars you see."

  "Tristan, pass me the ball," said Harry waving his real and virtual hand at him.

  Tristan slotted a pass ten meters to his left, where Harry stuck out his foot only to have the virtual ball pass between his legs.

  "Dude, you got virtually megged!" said Charlie, laughing.

  Harry gave Charlie a virtual, one-finger response.

  "That's OK, Harry," said Anna. "That's part of the learning algorithm to adjust to your brain activity."

  Next, Anna signaled to her assistant in the other room.

  "Now, we will put you in small groups of four to play a game of rondo with one of you in the middle," said Anna. "We'll give one ball to each group. You know the rules, intercept the ball in the middle, and the player who passed it replaces you. If the ball gets outside the circle, a new one will appear."

  Anna walked around the room, observing the real players learn their movements inside this new virtual world, giving encouragement to each group. From her tablet, she could jump inside each foursome's environment to look on from just outside their ring. With a few taps, she could then drill down to each player's dashboard, showing a live data feed of electrical activity from each of the thirty-six electrodes inside the helmet. The longer each group played together, the more cohesive their play became. While their legs made the kicking motions, it was the brain activity that initiated those movements that the system recorded. Communication patterns emerged within each player's brain but also between players. They were becoming a team, teasing out the back-and-forth anticipation of motion. The defender in the middle, trying to steal the ball, also honed in on these patterns trying to guess correctly just in time. Teamwork was now predictable rather than just hopeful.

  Over the next hour, Anna shuffled the players and the drills to get the most data. Finally, Anna called a halt to the games and asked them to remove their headsets.

  "Be careful," she warned. "You've been a virtual world for a while, so you may feel a little disoriented coming back to reality. Hold on to the rings to give your eyes and brain a chance to readjust."

  Peter removed his headset and stumbled back a step before catching himself.

  "That was intense," he said. "So, is this stuff new?"

  "Very new, in fact. My lab at the university has been working on this for over three years. You are the first group to try it live."

  "Are we doing this every day?" asked Benny, still with his headset on.

  "No, I don't believe Coach Pennington would like that," said Anna. "This was just to give us some data."

  "Data on what?" asked Peter.

  "Just research," said Anna smiling. "Thank you all. Franz will see you out."

  10

  Anna did not enjoy living in the dubious world of secrets, juggling the truths and half-truths depending on whom she was speaking with. Her reply to Peter was honest. All of this collected data was going towards her study, specifically on brain-to-brain interfaces. Up until then, her research peers around the world had focused on brain-to-computer interfaces. But her first undergrad psychology professor at Helsinki said something she never forgot: "humans, not computers, are the preferred teachers of other humans." So far, humans had taught computers to do rote tasks, some better than they could do themselves, but never with the same grace. Like how an airplane flies but not with the elegance of a bird soaring.

  Anna's life mission was not to teach a computer to play the cello but to teach her mother how to reawaken the connections in her injured brain that had taken years to create. A master musician can instruct a student how to play the notes and listen for errors with a subtlety unmatched by a computer. Only the musical mastery of the great Yo-Yo Ma or perhaps Pablo Casals should be the goal for every ambitious young cellist. Anna dreamed of transferring expertise from one human to another with no computer in-between.

  That's why Victor's offer of a living lab at FC Kotka intrigued her. Young, healthy minds trying to grow a specific skills arsenal in a well-defined game was better than bored, undergrad volunteers. She knew the science better than any of them and had no intention of harming her subjects. While the release clause that the players signed was not entirely transparent, they had agreed to take part in "experimental methods and technology" to improve their game. She convinced herself that the potential risks to her reputation were worth the advance in science. And his grant of millions of euros surely did not hurt.

  Her CBTC team developed their own analysis software that allowed a researcher to step back from the trees to see the whole forest of data collected from the study volunteers. As part of the system, Anna used a holographic, heads-up display, which showed the neural connections and their interrelationships in their native three-dimensional state. Spinning the structure with a flick of her finger, she examined each node from all sides. She was not interested in so-called artificial intelligence but, instead, the organization of real, human knowledge. According to Anna, there was a reason they call it artificial. Its output gave the appearance of rational thought but was computed by 0s and 1s.

  From just the brief training session with the boys, she collected a treasure trove of i
nformation through their headsets. The movement of their pupils as they tracked motion, combined with their instantaneous decision-making, painted a picture for Anna to evaluate not only each player but also the unspoken, cognitive communication between them. Identifying and pairing these players together on the field would provide the best chance to win.

  After an afternoon spent with the data, Anna had seen enough to call Victor with her early thoughts. She paused before picking up her phone, thinking through the chess game of anticipating Victor's questions and misinterpretations of the results. He was prone to bolting forward with only preliminary data, and Anna wanted to protect the long-term potential of her research. She would recommend additional testing in other group tasks, including outside of soccer. There were just too many unknowns and unresolved variables.

  "Niemi," said Victor, answering his phone.

  "Victor, its Anna. I have some initial data on the boys from their training session yesterday."

  "Excellent. What do you have?" asked Victor.

  "First, I'll caution that this is just our early assessment, and we must conduct several more data collection --"

  "Uh-huh," interrupted Victor. "Just tell me what you got."

  "The Kognitio software discovered two players who have strong peer-to-peer communications with consistent anticipation and decision links," said Anna, trying to maintain the academic rigor of her explanation.

  "Get to it, Anna, who are they?" said Victor.

  "Based on this raw data, I would recommend that Toshi and Peter be part of phase one. But our next step is more testing."

  "We don't have time for that," said Victor. "We'll go right into prototype implementation."

  "Sir, I would advise against rushing into that," said Anna. "We need to be sure that these are the optimal candidates."

  "It sounds like you already identified them. We move forward," said Victor. "And replace Toshi with Aleks."

  "But Aleks did not exceed our target threshold," said Anna looking at the holographic graphs hanging in the air next to her.