Evidence map›Paper›PMID 38503774›Full record

ArticleNature communications2024

TacticAI: an AI assistant for football tactics.

Zhe Wang, Petar Veličković, Daniel Hennes, Nenad Tomašev, Laurel Prince, Michael Kaisers, Yoram Bachrach, Romuald Elie, Li Kevin Wenliang, Federico Piccinini and 13 more

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Nature communications, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
12citing papers in PubMed, 1 pooled it
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

12 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.

  1. Pooled it
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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

23 authors.

Zhe Wang *Google DeepMind, 6-8 Handyside Street, London, N1C 4UZ, UK. zhewang@google.com.ORCID 0000-0002-0748-5376
Petar Veličković *Google DeepMind, 6-8 Handyside Street, London, N1C 4UZ, UK. petarv@google.com.ORCID 0000-0002-2820-4692
Daniel Hennes *Google DeepMind, 6-8 Handyside Street, London, N1C 4UZ, UK.ORCID 0000-0002-3646-5286
Nenad TomaševGoogle DeepMind, 6-8 Handyside Street, London, N1C 4UZ, UK.ORCID 0000-0003-1624-0220
Laurel PrinceGoogle DeepMind, 6-8 Handyside Street, London, N1C 4UZ, UK.
Michael KaisersGoogle DeepMind, 6-8 Handyside Street, London, N1C 4UZ, UK.
Yoram BachrachGoogle DeepMind, 6-8 Handyside Street, London, N1C 4UZ, UK.
Romuald ElieGoogle DeepMind, 6-8 Handyside Street, London, N1C 4UZ, UK.
Li Kevin WenliangGoogle DeepMind, 6-8 Handyside Street, London, N1C 4UZ, UK.
Federico PiccininiGoogle DeepMind, 6-8 Handyside Street, London, N1C 4UZ, UK.
William SpearmanLiverpool FC, AXA Training Centre, Simonswood Lane, Kirkby, Liverpool, L33 5XB, UK.
Ian GrahamLiverpool FC, Kirkby, UK.
Jerome ConnorGoogle DeepMind, 6-8 Handyside Street, London, N1C 4UZ, UK.
Yi YangGoogle DeepMind, 6-8 Handyside Street, London, N1C 4UZ, UK.
Adrià RecasensGoogle DeepMind, 6-8 Handyside Street, London, N1C 4UZ, UK.
Mina KhanGoogle DeepMind, 6-8 Handyside Street, London, N1C 4UZ, UK.
Nathalie BeauguerlangeGoogle DeepMind, 6-8 Handyside Street, London, N1C 4UZ, UK.
Pablo SprechmannGoogle DeepMind, 6-8 Handyside Street, London, N1C 4UZ, UK.
Pol MorenoGoogle DeepMind, 6-8 Handyside Street, London, N1C 4UZ, UK.
Nicolas HeessGoogle DeepMind, 6-8 Handyside Street, London, N1C 4UZ, UK.ORCID 0000-0001-7876-9256
Michael BowlingUniversity of Alberta, Amii, Edmonton, AB, T6G 2E8, Canada.ORCID 0000-0003-2960-8418
Demis HassabisGoogle DeepMind, 6-8 Handyside Street, London, N1C 4UZ, UK.
Karl TuylsGoogle DeepMind, London, UK. ktuyls@gmail.com.ORCID 0000-0001-7929-1944

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Identifying key patterns of tactics implemented by rival teams, and developing effective responses, lies at the heart of modern football. However, doing so algorithmically remains an open research challenge. To address this unmet need, we propose TacticAI, an AI football tactics assistant developed and evaluated in close collaboration with domain experts from Liverpool FC. We focus on analysing corner kicks, as they offer coaches the most direct opportunities for interventions and improvements. TacticAI incorporates both a predictive and a generative component, allowing the coaches to effectively sample and explore alternative player setups for each corner kick routine and to select those with the highest predicted likelihood of success. We validate TacticAI on a number of relevant benchmark tasks: predicting receivers and shot attempts and recommending player position adjustments. The utility of TacticAI is validated by a qualitative study conducted with football domain experts at Liverpool FC. We show that TacticAI's model suggestions are not only indistinguishable from real tactics, but also favoured over existing tactics 90% of the time, and that TacticAI offers an effective corner kick retrieval system. TacticAI achieves these results despite the limited availability of gold-standard data, achieving data efficiency through geometric deep learning.

Indexed as

Athletic PerformanceQualitative ResearchSoccer

Identifiers

PMID38503774
PMCPMC10951310

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.