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AI has infiltrated every layer of society and every sport, including football, has felt the impact of the rapid technological advancements in Artificial Intelligence.
With AI the driving force, the beautiful game is on the cusp of entering a new era, one where high-tech innovations are reshaping how football is analysed, played and experienced both on training pitches and in stadiums.
This article shines a spotlight on how AI is transforming training in football, from the empowerment of coaches and enhanced player development tools to better injury prevention and performance analysis.
Precision Player Analysis and Personalised Training
Improvements to player performance through sharper analysis is at the core of AI’s growing influence in football. The use of wearable sensors, GPS tracking and high-definition cameras can collect metrics on every action, sprint, dribble and touch on the training pitch.
All of those metrics can be fed into custom AI-built models for analysis, with real actionable insights squeezed out the other end.
Devices like Catapult and StatsSports generate hundreds and even thousands of data points per second, which allow tailored training programs to be built for each player, focusing on their individual strengths and weaknesses as well as their overall workloads.
Coaches have never had more data to work with. AI in football training is also behind the use of drones, which fly above training sessions to provide feedback on patterns of play, structures, formation and player positioning.
With more efficiency and actionable data, training sessions should be more effective with AI, and really, we’re still at the very tip of the iceberg.
Current Premier League champions Liverpool are considered “data masters” and one of the leading exponents of statistics, analytics and AI modelling in football.
Injury Prevention and Workload Management
Whether you’re a title-chasing juggernaut or dogged underdog battling bravely against relegation, injuries can completely scupper any team’s chances of achieving their targets for the season.
Injuries in the game also have a discernible impact on UK football betting habits with today’s punters regularly using the latest injury and player selection news to inform their bets.
As a consequence, injury prevention has become one of the most crucial aspects of elite-level football. AI is also delivering substantial benefits in this area, through the evaluation of physiological data, fatigue markers, historical injury records and training loads when players are in the dreaded “red zone”.
AI systems can flag earning warning signs and propose adjustments to training regimens when players are sailing too close to the wind.
Useful injury prevention tools like Kitman Labs and Zone7 help to manage the whole process intelligently, with the aim of reducing downtime in the short term and prolonging careers in the long term.
Tactical Mastery and Real-Time Data Support
Beyond individual player development and injury prevention, AI systems are also empowering teams and coaches to make tactical improvements.
Advances in opposition analysis tools can help to decode an opposing team’s patterns and tendencies while also having the potential to expose weaknesses.
Coaches can take this information back to the training ground, where ways to combat and exploit an opponent’s tactical framework can be worked on.
Applications like TacticAI already allow many top clubs, like Liverpool, to analyse set-piece patterns like corner and free-kick routines across thousands of matches, allowing the coaching staff to come up with their own evidence-based strategies and routines for both offensive and defensive set plays.
In a world where marginal gains are making big impacts, the importance of set-pieces continues to grow in football and AI has the power to sharpen a team’s edge in that department.
AI: Ethical Considerations and the Human Element
AI offers numerous technical advantages, that much is undeniable, but alongside the positives, its growing influence also raises some important ethical questions about its use.
Privacy concerns immediately jump to mind, especially with AI models using so much sensitive player data. We know that in other industries, data can be harvested and used for other, more nefarious means, than intended, particularly with AI-led applications.
There is also a major risk that the human element of football coaching will start to diminish. Can AI really replace the emotional intelligence of a human coach or the value of human-to-human interaction? We’re not so sure.
The human element of coaching is just as important as the utilisation of data. From leadership and mentoring to resilience and character building, the human side of coaching has its own intrinsic value, which AI will always struggle to replicate.
Indeed, experts agree that AI should serve as a complement to human coaching and not a replacement for it. Its real value is in its power to augment human judgement, to empower coaches rather than overshadow them.
From here on in, it’s likely to be a delicate balancing act, where technological precision and human instinct work in tandem to improve training standards, player development and analysis.
