Liverpool staff 'preferred AI tactics 90 per cent of time' by the end of Google collaboration

Liverpool and Google have teamed up for the past three years to create a DeepMind AI tactics model. Focusing on corners, its results have been very impressive.

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Liverpool FC News

James MartinLiverpool Writer

16:59, 19 MAR 2024

Joe Gomez of Liverpool in action during the Premier League match between Liverpool FC and Manchester City at Anfield on March 10, 2024 in Liverpool, England. — A Google billboard can be seen in the background as Liverpool and Manchester City play out a draw at Anfield. (Image: Nick Taylor/Liverpool FC/Liverpool FC via Getty Images)

After a three-year 'research collaboration' with Liverpool, tech giant Google is launching TacticAI. The Artificial Intelligence model is designed to assist with football tactics.

Beginning its press release with ''Corner taken quickly… Origi!', Google sets the tone for the initial focus of its AI tool. The DeepMind team has zeroed in on corner kicks, producing software to help coaches devise plans for offensive and defensive set piece scenarios.

This iconic Liverpool corner came before the collaboration with Google got underway, so that glorious moment against Barcelona gets solely chalked up to the genius of Trent Alexander-Arnold. And while the Reds have been partners in this project, there's no indication of whether or not Jürgen Klopp and his team of staff have actually been embedding the AI suggestions into training.

What has been made public, however, is that 'Liverpool experts' were unable to tell the difference between AI-generated tactics and human tactics in blind studies using TacticAI. Moreover, 90 per cent of the time, the AI tactic was preferred.

The model was trained on more than 7000 corner kicks from the 2020/21 Premier League season. It combines predictive powers — assessing who is likely to be able to play the ball from any given delivery — with generative functionality, suggesting how to make desired outcomes happen and avoid unwanted ones.

This is far from the first time Klopp's Liverpool has shown a willingness to work with those on the cutting edge of football technology. It has previously worked with Neuro11, another business with a focus on set pieces, which has wired up members of the squad to assess their mental state before free kicks and penalties.

The very fact that so much innovation is trained on set pieces says a lot about the realities of what current technology can and cannot achieve. There is an infinite number of things that can happen in a football match, with set pieces being one of the rare moments of repeatability in among the chaos. Between Liverpool and Google, there seems to be a tentative conclusion that AI can help make the very most of those moments.

Google is also one of Liverpool's blue-chip sponsors. The Pixel range of phones is one of the club's major partners, as FSG continue to find ways to maximize the club's commercial revenue.

Liverpool.com says: Good luck wading through all the technicalities of the press release, but there are certainly some stand-out lines. The fact that Liverpool experts so clearly preferred the AI tactics is striking.

Again, it's not clear whether Liverpool has been using this new product on the training ground, but it's no surprise to see the club collaborating with Google in this fashion. Klopp, FSG and just about everyone in a position of power at Anfield share an open mind on ways to improve.