One such exercise was the Footbonaut, which fires balls at different speeds and trajectories at players, who must control and pass the ball into a highlighted square until it becomes second nature. Mario Götze (pictured) used the machine for years at his club. In the 2014 World Cup final, he controlled a cross with his chest and volleyed the ball into the net, winning the championship with an exact replica of the training the machine provided. It was “one fluid, instant motion”, a successfully fulfilled plan to defeat randomness.

The futbonaut?

Can two entrepreneurs turn neuroscience into moneyball?

Mental analytics may be the next frontier in sports, and any number of companies has already set out exploring new ways to conquer it. Sherwin, 32, and Muraskin, 30, are younger and joined the party later than most of them. Neither had any background in business or baseball. Sherwin, who has floppy auburn hair and a scruffy beard, is the son of a conservative Chicago rabbi. Muraskin, more boyish-looking, with dark features and prominent eyebrows, is a skilled computer programmer. When they met, in the biomedical engineering department at Columbia University, Sherwin was studying the neural composition of cellists. Muraskin stumbled into neuroscience by researching Alzheimer’s and aging, and had been analyzing the efficiency of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).