TacticAI: Revolutionising the way coaches analyse corner kicks

Avatar
Image via Google DeepMind website

TacticAI is an artificial intelligence (AI) system that can provide experts with tactical insights, particularly on corner kicks, through predictive and generative AI.

Importantly, it is a full AI system that could give coaches instant, extensive, and accurate tactical insights – that are also practical on the field.

As part of Google’s partnership with Liverpool FC, their DeepMind team have worked on this innovate project for a couple of years in an attempt to revolutionise the way elite football clubs are analysing corner kicks in the sport.

TacticAI demonstrates the potential of assistive AI techniques to revolutionize sports for players, coaches, and fans. Sports like football are also a dynamic domain for developing AI, as they feature real-world, multi-agent interactions, with multimodal data.

TacticAI is built to address three core questions:

  1. For a given corner kick tactical setup, what will happen? e.g., who is most likely to receive the ball, and will there be a shot attempt?
  2. Once a setup has been played, can we understand what happened? e.g., have similar tactics worked well in the past?
  3. How can we adjust the tactics to make a particular outcome happen? e.g., how should the defending players be repositioned to decrease the probability of shot attempts?

TacticAI’s main use is to assist current coaches by finding similar corner kicks and testing different tactics to influence a decision.

Instead of analysts reviewing the footage of previous games over and over again to discover a specific team’s corner routine, the technology computes the numerical representations of players to easily look up past routines.

The AI technology’s generative model allows human coaches to redesign corner kick tactics to optimise probabilities of certain outcomes, such as reducing the probability of a shot attempt for a defensive setup.

TacticAI provides tactical recommendations which adjust positions of all the players on a particular team. From these proposed adjustments, coaches can identify important patterns, as well as key players for a tactic’s success or failure, more quickly.

In Google’s quantitative analysis, it showed that TacticAI was accurate at predicting corner kick receivers and shot situations, and that player repositioning was similar to how real plays unfolded.

Human football experts from Liverpool FC found that the tech’s suggestions cannot be distinguished from real corners and were favoured over their original situations 90% of the time. The data is demonstrating its efficiency and usefulness at the top level.

Google are trying to find new ways to utilise AI in football because the sport is a very dynamic and challenging game to analyse. The company is using this technology to try and blend human expertise (Football coaches and analysts) with the AI’s analysis suggestions to help make coaching at the very top level more efficient.

Previous ArticleNext Article

Western Strikers Nominated FSA Club of the Month for Equity Outcomes

Avatar
Image Credit: Football SA

Western Strikers SC has been nominated for Club of the Month after a period of deliberate structural investment in its female program that is already producing measurable outcomes, and offering a model for how community clubs can drive participation growth through equity-focused planning rather than passive goodwill.

The nomination recognises a program that has moved beyond surface-level commitment to women’s football and into the kind of structural change that determines whether female players actually stay. Improved lighting across training and match pitches, equitable scheduling, extended training hours and dedicated pitch allocation have addressed the practical barriers that clubs often overlook. It’s conditions that tell players, implicitly or otherwise, whether the game was built for them.

 

Leadership as Infrastructure

Central to Western Strikers’ approach is a leadership structure that takes female football seriously as a technical and administrative priority. Women’s Coordinator Michelle Loprete and Technical Director Georgia Iannella, a former Matilda, provide the program with both organisational direction and the kind of visible role modelling that shapes whether younger players can picture themselves progressing through the game.

The presence of a former international player in a technical leadership role at a community level isn’t incidental. It signals to junior players that the pathway from their Friday night training session to elite football is real and navigable, and it gives the club’s coaching staff access to experience and credibility that most community programs cannot offer.

That pipeline is already functioning. Western Strikers’ Under-13 to Under-16 girls teams all qualified for finals in the Youth Premier League this season. Under-15 goalkeeper Sian Schopfer made her debut in the Women’s State League team which is a direct product of a club environment designed to move players upward.

 

The Friday-night model

One of the more quietly significant initiatives at Western Strikers is the scheduling of Friday night women’s matches, with junior girls training beforehand encouraged to stay and watch senior football. The structure is straightforward but its implications are meaningful. Aspiration in sport is not abstract. It’s built through proximity, through watching players a few years older doing what you want to do, in the same kit, at the same club.

The absence of that experience is one of the more consistent reasons girls disengage from football in their mid-teens. When junior female players cannot see where the game goes after their age group, the logical conclusion is that it goes nowhere. Western Strikers’ scheduling decision addresses that directly, at minimal cost, and whose effects are starting to manifest.

 

The Club Changer framework

The club’s participation in Football South Australia’s Club Changer Program has provided a structured framework for identifying and addressing barriers that might otherwise go unexamined. Pitch allocation, training structures and safety conditions are the kinds of issues that accumulate quietly in club environments; not because of deliberate exclusion but because the default systems were built around male participation and have never been comprehensively reviewed.

The Club Changer Program creates accountability for that review. Western Strikers’ ability to project an additional 146 female players over the next three years is a product of planning rather than optimism.

 

Industry implications

Western Strikers’ model matters beyond its own membership. At a time when women’s football in Australia is navigating the challenge of converting a participation surge into sustainable long-term growth, the question of what community clubs actually do with increased interest is among the most consequential in the sport.

Record crowds at the AFC Women’s Asian Cup and sustained national visibility have opened the door. Whether players walk through it and stay depends on whether the club on the other side looks anything like Western Strikers

Melbourne City expand youth program with Hallam Secondary College

Avatar
Image credit: Melbourne City FC

The school will join the City Futures Program in its mission to consolidate pathways and community bonds for students.

From pupils to players

Hallam is the latest school in Melbourne’s South-East to join the City Futures Program. Also backing the program’s ambitions are Narre Warren South P-12 College, Gleneagles Secondary College and Timbarra P-9 School.

Partnerships between professional clubs like Melbourne City and local schools help to promote community connection, as well as providing pathways from the classroom to the stadium.

“City Futures is about creating genuine opportunities for young people to stay engaged in their education while feeling connected to something bigger,” said Head of Community, Sunil Melon, via press release.

“By bringing the Club into schools and providing access to our environment, we’re helping students build confidence, explore future pathways and see what’s possible both within football and beyond.”

Gone are the days when young players must choose between football and education. Through the City Futures Program, they can enjoy both worlds and still have the opportunities to develop.

 

What City Futures provides

Hallam sudents will be at the centre of the benefits provided by the connection to Melbourne City.

For example, high-quality coaching sessions delivered twice a week will instill confidence and teamwork skills into young participants. And as Melbourne City coaches are set to deliver the sessions, the students will truly learn from the best in Australia’s footbal landscape.

Furthermore, participants can visit Casey Fields, home to the City Football Academy, where they can experience the ins and outs of how an A-League club operates and trains.

“We’re proud to be part of the City Futures Program,” outlined Acting Principal at Hallam Secondary College, Shelly Haughey.

“Seeing our students come together and commit to their training is setting them up for success both on and off the pitch, and we look forward to building a strong and lasting partnership with Melbourne City FC.”

 

The future of football pathways

This isn’t the first – nor will it be the last – partnership to connect football and education in Australia.

Earlier this year, Queensland-based John Paul College embarked on an exciting journey with Spanish outfit, RCD Espanyol, to provide unique coaching support, player education, and pathway opportunities.

But these partnerships aren’t merely about giving young talents a place in the starting XI.

They are designed to ensure all participants develop into confident young people – whether their future lies on the pitch, in the dugout or in the boardroom.

Most Popular Topics

Editor Picks

Send this to a friend