How Will A.I Affect Football: Introduction

Mulan

There aren't many films about football, perhaps the most famous are the "Goal!" trilogy starring Mexican actor Kuno Becker, "Bend it like Beckham" by British director Gurinder Chadha and "Fever Pitch" by Colin Firth, based on the memoirs of Nick Hornby, the journalist and one of the most famous Arsenal fans ever. But in most sports films, whether football is the subject or any other sport, you find the repeated scene where the hero is forced to make a fateful choice between a step in his professional career and one in his emotional or family life.

Most of the time, real life is not so dramatic that our destinies are determined by one decisive moment. Of course, we like to think that our lives would have changed based on one situation because it's easier to think this way, but in reality, recurring behavioural patterns, such as procrastination, selfishness, or failure to connect with our emotions, may have more control over our lives than one wrong statement or a few seconds or a chance encounter.

From And To Drama

Steve Price, one of the technology editors at Forbes magazine, summed up the impact of artificial intelligence on football by saying that we will not see that scene again in any movie or TV show. Price talks explicitly about the application "AiScout", whose name is enough to recognize its function, and it has begun to be widely used in European football. The application, which resembles social media platforms, allows clubs to access new talents from any corner of the world, at all times.

The idea itself is simple; clubs choose a set of specific exercises for each age group, and any child or teenager can film themselves while performing these exercises, and then upload the clip to the platform. By using techniques such as "Computer Vision", algorithms can recognize the player's joints and organs in addition to the ball itself, and therefore determine the speed and accuracy with which the exercises are performed, and give them an evaluation that helps clubs discover them.

This simplifies the process for clubs, saving them a lot of time, money, and effort in following up on players through live viewing. It helps them filter their choices and identify targets in advance. This way, the process becomes simpler, and most importantly drama-free.

Scouts have gotten rid of the quick, tense visits where they must evaluate a player in 24 hours before moving on to another country and another talent, and players have gotten rid of the psychological and mental pressure that accompanies these visits, and the fate-driven need to shine in that particular game to influence scouts' decisions.

Of course, since those clips can be recorded and viewed at any time, there is no need to choose between performance experiences and your emotional or family life.

In fact, the creators of "AiScout" didn't come up with a better advertising slogan than "AiScout.. Don't choose between your dreams and anything else," or "AiScout... Don't miss Christmas dinner or your sister's 10th birthday." I haven't heard of any club holding performance tests on New Year's Eve, but we believe they would have come up with a much better slogan than "a mobile phone is all you need" if they had appointed Price as the director of their advertising campaign.

Of course, all of this ease raises a lot of doubts about the ability of these children and teenagers to deal with real human trials on the field, especially with the increasing number of similar applications on the scene. It brings back to mind previous statements by Wenger and Bergkamp about the pampering that young players in Europe receive, the protective bubbles that surround them from all racism, bullying, and psychological pain, and creating weak personalities that cannot withstand pressure in the end.

There is validity in all of this despite its apparent ugliness, but the equation is not always this simple; bullies, racists, and cutthroat competition have produced stars with exceptional personalities and an unusual desire, such as Suarez, Zlatan, and Ronaldo, for example, but at the same time, they have crushed thousands in return, those who have lost their chance because they could not withstand the moral and psychological blackmail that accompanies competition at these levels, and the "cruelty" of coaches in the nineties and eighties in the youth stages.

Does the principle of survival of the fittest apply in football academies? Does the exposure of children and teenagers to the ugliness of life prepare them for it or poison them forever and create more bullies and blackmailers? Can the cycle be broken or is the best we can do to accept the harsh reality? Is there a "suitable" or "sufficient" level of difficulties and suffering that a person must go through to be ready for life? We will never know.

The important thing is that regardless of the philosophical dilemma here, the application addresses many problems at once, one of which has touched a sensitive chord among Chelsea scouts specifically, according to Richard Whelton, the CEO of "AiScout" and head of the Sports Science department. It is the fact that match recordings, which show a player dribbling past five opponents every game and scoring 70 goals in a season, do not tell them anything about the level of the opponents he is facing.

Now, using "Drills" exercises specifically designed for this purpose from the Academy's training, the player performs them himself before uploading the clip to the platform. They can compare themselves to their peers in the Cobham Center who have done the same exercises, and thus measure their level to a real and absolute reference point, not in relation to opponents who know nothing about them.

This is where a certain Daniel Finkelstein comes into the equation, but more on that in the next post.

Sources

"Goal!".. The 22 Best Football Movies - The Hollywood Reporter
"I wish the fans would find themselves in it." Why is Nick Hornby's memoir "Pitch Fever" the most popular? Goal
Artificial intelligence may be about to change football talent scouting - Forbes
How does artificial intelligence facilitate the detection of players in football? - Forbes
AiScout - Official Website
The app that hopes to revolutionize football! CNN
Arsene Wenger highlights the shortcomings of Europe's current academy system - ESPN
football remodeling; Why have transfers, scouts, and coaches steeped themselves in data science? - The Athletic
Henry Stott - Linked In
The Fink Tank
Can computers teach us how to build our counterattacks? - The Athletic
"Watson" .. the application of artificial intelligence that puts you directly on the field and was able to predict the transfer of Riyad Mahrez to Manchester City! - The Athletic
We present "Davies"... a work interface for identifying and evaluating talents around the world - American Soccer Analysis



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wow interesting read. AI is definitely going to play more into everyday life and be extremely useful for scouting. It'll come down to whoever knows how to interpret AI data or manipulate certain inputs to get more out of AI than other teams. Such a crazy future we're heading into

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Yeah, it would probably serve as a great alternative to overspending in the summer as per the progression your beloved Brentford made using data.

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You are right. There were quite several movies in Hollywood which showed exceedingly well and for the slight affiliations with real life and football with the added texture of motivation helped these movies to be a great success.

I think you missed a famous movie - Shaolin Soccer. It was also a great hit, David Beckhams piece was unique and what a free kick taker he was - thats incomparable to any English national.

Yet, AI, I think definitely affect the Sports and for Football,better chances of : VAR & New Tech might roll onto new futuristic versions. Thats probable.

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Football movies means movies that discuss and show an aspect of football that watchers learn something about the sport from it, that doesn't apply to Shaolin Soccer whatsoever.

AI does affect aspects of football already and there seems to be more to come.

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AI's are getting intense and might likely take over every activities now. Do you think this is a best idea?

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Best or worst depends on multiple things really, including, but not limited to, whether it would come in the form of a whole coaching staff. Too many variables to make a final decision.

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