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Soccer’s great analytical revolution means teams now have access to unprecedented levels of information about player performance. More matches than ever are being captured, while a greater volume and variety of data is being extracted from the pitch.
Yet, despite this exponential increase in statistical oversight, the sport has been slow to understand how artificial intelligence (AI) can make sense of this information and transform it into meaningful, actionable insights.
Despite analytics now common at most levels of the game, coaching and tactics are still disproportionately influenced by first-hand observations and beliefs held by coaches who rely heavily on their own tactical philosophies.
Alexander Bodo, Paceteq founder and chief executive, believes there is significant untapped potential – on and off the field of play.
“All sports are games of small steps,” Bodo explains. “You need to have all the pieces. Currently, the pieces are a bit cluttered, and teams mainly focus on formations and players.”
“But then there’s all the other pieces such as the team atmosphere and quality of training. Does training need to have a certain value, and does a key performance indicator (KPI) have to be defined, to be most productive and efficient for the players?
“There are all these soft elements that we can now make measurable, that will add to performance. They’re not the single key differentiator, but these are the tiny margins which can make a difference in the end.”
Data insights unlocked with AI technology can deliver performance gains (Image credit: Getty Images)
‘Nobody is merging everything into one piece’
Data at most clubs is collected independently by multiple departments, leading to duplication and fragmentation. For example, marketing teams might capture training footage to use in social content, but the same clip could be used by performance analysts in match preparation.
Bodo believes 70 per cent of data within soccer is underutilised, while data silos prevent clubs from achieving the scalability required for AI adoption.
“AI needs a rich data lake to function very well,” Bodo says. “If your data is not usable or if your data is not sufficient to provide enough context for LLMs to pick up, the output and the advantage that you can get out of AI is poor.”
“The three core data sources in soccer – audio, player positional data and video – are more or less being used independently. No one is merging everything together.”
By aggregating disparate data sources and training large language models (LLMs) to further contextualise information collected, Paceteq’s platform gives coaches, analysts, and medical teams greater visibility over what’s happening on the pitch. This means more informed pre-match and in-game decisions and more effective post-match analysis.
Video footage from training can be used together with audio and player positional data for better analysis (Image credit: Getty Images)
‘They must accept change’
To date, Paceteq has mostly worked within the motorsport industry, which was an early adopter of data analytics and where engineers are open-minded to any innovation that can achieve even just a minor improvement in on-track performance – including AI.
Soccer has a much more recent tradition of analytics and although attitudes are changing, it can be difficult to change the attitudes of sceptical coaches who are less inclined to make wholesale changes to tried and tested processes.
“Any organisation on this planet has to go and accept the change process to adopt AI” Bodo says. “But most soccer organisations have a long history. A lot of people have been in the ecosystem for ages, and they do the things they have always done.”
“They must accept change, and this is a slower process than in motorsport. Once you prove the competitive advantage of tech and AI, the adoption rate is pretty quick. It’s more like you must convince through results that you can actually get an advantage.”
Adopting AI technologies can help coaches make better decisions on the field (Image credit: Getty Images)
‘We are helping the whole ecosystem become richer’
Many within soccer believe AI will help coaches understand and prepare for different in-game scenarios and help coaches adjust to opposition tactics in real time.
Paceteq has been selected to be part of the 2026 Uefa Champions Innovate programme and believes its platform will have a transformative impact on the quality of coaching at all levels of the game.
“Currently, coaches are judged by their knowledge about tactics, technical details and player skill sets, but they’re not measured by their ability to coach effectively” Bodo says.
“In the Uefa Champions Innovate programme, we are coaching the coaches, and, by doing so, we are helping the whole ecosystem to become richer, to have better players and a greater pipeline of players, and greater engagement from people in the ecosystem from the early to later stages.”
“We help the coaches down to the amateur level and under 9s to get better, and at some point, you will have a noticeable impact on the upper leagues as well because you have a greater talent pool.”
Paceteq believes it can do more than just aid performance. It says it’s looking to partner with “literally anyone” in soccer, whether it’s a federation, a club or a broadcaster that could benefit from data aggregation and intelligent algorithms. Indeed, the more departments that make use of this technology, the better it is for everyone.
“Imagine having one data lake, which combines every piece of data captured on the pitch, and then enriching these datasets by employing computer vision and any form of AI or machine learning technology,” Bodo says.
“You would have such a potent data pool that you can then use to feed marketing and communications, management or venue operation teams, not just the coaching and analytics departments. You can feed every stakeholder from the same source, and by having them all use this rich pool of data, they will then add more context and more meta data to make more informed decisions.”
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