Among the many fascinating objects in our new special exhibition Innovation in Action, visitors can explore a rediscovered set of fitness test documents from Brazil’s 1970 World Cup squad, offering a glimpse into early data-driven approaches to football.

A lot of football’s advancements are driven by data that is collected around the game, such as player performance, on-ball actions, and positioning on the pitch. Today we use cutting edge innovation in video, GPS and wearable tech to collect, distribute and utilise this data, but even before these inventions, the concept was still a crucial building block for the sport.

Innovation in Action not only walks you through modern-day technologies but takes you to the beginning of the journey that led us to where we are today, identifying the moments in football history that pointed to the need for advancement.

One of the objects on display is a remarkable set of documents from 1970, which have now been rediscovered from a historical perspective. The papers are the results of a fitness test conducted on the players of the Brazil squad, just months before the FIFA World Cup in Mexico.

The data includes the players results from the “Cooper Test” in which a participant’s fitness is calculated by recording the distance covered during a set time of 12 minutes. Visitors may be surprised to see Brazil icon Pelé ranking merely “good” as opposed to “Muito Bom”, but we do need to remember he was preparing for his fourth consecutive FIFA World Cup tournament at the age of almost 30.

The Seleçao went on to win a then-unprecedented third FIFA World Cup title (with Pelé remarkably playing his part in all three) with a fluid and dynamic attacking style, that relied heavily on the speed and fitness of the players.

The data we collect today looks very different from these typewritten pages, but they mark a moment where sport started looking towards science to enhance performance and guide play on the pitch, making them an important historical artefact in our exhibition. The distances and speeds you see here offer insights into aerobic ability, but the accuracy would be limited to reliance on stopwatches and human observation.

Over time innovation has responded to these limitations with inventions that measure player performance data with the utmost precision, from heart monitors, through to GPS tracking, eventually evolving into the EPTS (Electronic Performance and Tracking Systems) that are used in the modern game.

Innovation in Action takes visitors on a journey through not only the technology of the game, but the necessity that inspired their invention. Visitors have a unique opportunity to examine the growth of the game through the lens of innovations, and watch how football has adapted to the culture and demands of the world it is played in.

Don’t miss out, any tickets for the FIFA Museum before March 31, 2026, will include access to this very special exhibition, where you can explore the inner mechanisms of the game, we all love so much.