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The silent revolution of the world begins to change the foundations of the world. What was once the exclusive domain of the intuition of coaches, scouts and managers, is now shared with algorithms capable of crossing millions of data in seconds and offering objective answers to complex questions: who to hire, how to train, what tactics to adopt, when to sell. Football is increasingly becoming a field of technological experimentation.
From scout to code
The era of paper reports and empirical observation is behind us. Platforms such as Plaier, in Germany, and Scout Advisor, developed by Sevilla in partnership with IBM, introduce a new way of thinking about sport. They process advanced statistics, physical performance, mental metrics and even behavioral patterns of athletes.
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In the case of Sevilla, the system based on the Watsonx platform and the Llama model, from Meta, works as a “digital advisor”, offering market analyzes and recommendations that guide the board in the search for reinforcements.
The movement also reached Liverpool, which works with the company DeepMind, from the Google group, in the development of TacticAI, a software that proposes tactical variations in dead ball plays. The research was published in the journal Nature Communications and showed that more than 90% of the AI’s suggestions were approved by human experts. This result signals a new paradigm: that of co-authorship between man and machine in sporting decisions.
The algorithm as a leader
Among clubs with smaller budgets, artificial intelligence has come to be seen as a strategic ally. Bochum, from Germany, relegated last season, is betting on AI as a tool for structural reconstruction. Plaier’s system will be used to define hiring, design casts and even select executives. The proposal is to reduce the margin of error and provide predictability to decisions that historically depended on subjective factors.
Technology also reaches the grassroots. Brazilian startups like Footbao and Cuju use AI to analyze videos sent by aspirants and cross-reference performance data, transforming virtual sieves into technical reports. The process promises to democratize access to the clubs’ views, but also raises debates about who controls and profits from athletes’ data, especially minors.
Between precision and the imponderable
Football is, by nature, a land of unpredictability. No algorithm can measure the nervousness of a decisive penalty or the improvised genius of a star player. But, in the view of executives and analysts, AI can help reduce the “noise” of decisions and allow emotion to remain the human differentiator. “The algorithm doesn’t make the decision, it just lights the way,” one of Plaier’s founders recently explained, when talking about the balance between technology and intuition.
Still, the increasing use of AI brings ethical and legal dilemmas. Experts in sports law warn of risks of algorithmic bias, which can reproduce historical inequalities, and of gaps in the protection of sensitive data.
The General Sports Law in Brazil and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe still do not clearly specify how to treat the use of algorithms in sports decisions, which creates a gray area between innovation and responsibility.
The frontier of the future
The advancement of artificial intelligence in football is irreversible, but still in the learning phase. Today, it does not replace the coach, the scout or the manager; it just expands your ability to see and interpret the game. In the near future, however, the boundaries are likely to blur. The question is no longer “if” technology will change football, but “how much” football will allow it to change.
Between spreadsheets, sensors and algorithms, the essence of the game still pulses on something that no machine is capable of predicting: the humanity of error, instinct and passion.
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