One of the main debates left by the 2022 World Cup in Qatar has nothing to do with who was the best player in the tournament, which was the most competitive team or which team deserved more than what it got, but rather with the increasingly noticeable incidence of digital transformation in the world of sports. Although the semi-automatic VAR captured all eyes, due to its direct impact on many of the results, artificial intelligence (AI) and data analytics are being consolidated in the world of football also as planning, training and performance evaluation parameters. of the different teams.
In fact, among the novelties announced by FIFA, for this tournament it had been announced that for the first time athletes - and their coaching staff - would have access to advanced statistics generated by the official systems of the governing body of world football to verify their performance during the match. Every movement, under the magnifying glass FIFA itself put together a structure of 25 data analysts per match with the capacity to record up to 15 thousand data in the 90 minutes of play (which on average was more than 100 per match, considering the other great novelty that this World Cup had: the times). unusually extensive additions). Each team, for its part, was able to have up to nine video analysts located at the top of the stadiums, with the possibility of sending content in real time and even having GPS antennas next to the substitutes' bench.
This is a democratizing step so that all teams can somehow access a key element for the competition, which a few have already been doing for a long time. For example, it is known that the German team used video analysis in Russia 2018 to detect weaknesses in its opponents. Considering that since then the powerful German team - four times world champion, four times runner-up and four times third place - was eliminated in the first phase of both that championship and this one, it is understood that the great challenge is not to accumulate data, but in developing the ability to generate models capable of interpreting and achieving insights from them. Technological advances in the Internet of Things (IoT) today allow us to equip both athletes and game elements (balls, goals, side lines) with sensors that capture all types of data: from speed to how a striker runs to the force with which a defender hits the ball, from the kilometers traveled by the player with the best physical performance to the missed passes delivered by a midfielder or the direction chosen by the star kicker to take his penalties.
The end of intuition? The list has no limits and includes, in addition to specific issues regarding the performance of the players themselves, climatic aspects that could influence the game, behaviors and habits of the rivals, the state of the terrain or even the health of the athletes, this last item. essential for injury prevention.
AI and analytical tools help us convert all of this into strategy: assembling teams with those who are better physically and emotionally or developing exclusive strategies for each match based on our own strengths and the weaknesses of others. Until not long ago, coaches watched hundreds of videos of their team's and their rivals' matches and used their experience, knowledge and personal appreciation - including a strong dose of intuition - to create that “blackboard play” that would be capable of leading the team to victory. Has the time come when data, crossed by the correct AI algorithm and with that dose of infallibility that it provides, plays an essential role in scoring goals in the opponent's goal and avoiding them in one's own?
