The 2026 FIFA World Cup is becoming a test of how far artificial intelligence can reshape elite soccer. Teams are preparing for a tournament in which data is no longer just a record of what happened, but a tool for scouting, tactics, selection, and match planning.
FIFA will track around 150 million data points per match. Sensors inside the ball alone will record 500 movements per second through IMUs (Inertial Measurement Units), creating a detailed picture of the ball’s motion. The challenge is not simply collecting the information. It is turning it into something a coach or player can actually use.
The Scale Of Soccer Data Is Exploding
Patrick Lucey, chief scientist at Stats Perform, describes soccer as a sport with almost impossible complexity. His company’s data and AI work is used across the modern game, from player scouting and transfer decisions to tactics, lineups, set pieces, contract negotiations, and broadcast analysis.
Lucey puts the difficulty plainly: “The thing with soccer is that there are more permutations (in a game) than there are atoms in the universe,” he says. The movement of players, opponents, and the ball creates a constantly shifting problem that resembles trajectory analysis in autonomous vehicles.
That makes AI appealing. It can process huge volumes of fine-grain, multi-agent, adversarial data faster than humans can manage alone. At the World Cup, analysts will use both human judgment and AI tools to search for small advantages in a sport where a single moment can decide a match.
How Teams Are Using AI Before A Ball Is Kicked
The impact of AI begins before the tournament starts. National federations can use data tools to evaluate realistic squad options, compare managerial profiles, and decide which tactical strengths fit their available players. AI can also help shape squad composition with group-stage opponents in mind.
Curaçao shows how smaller nations can use technology creatively. The Dutch Caribbean island, with a population of roughly 159,000, became the smallest nation ever to qualify for a World Cup at this tournament. Its approach included “diaspora tracking”: mapping parentage, identifying eligible players, and using geospatial data to plan scouting trips and organise trials.
Alex Stewart, chief executive of Analytics FC, said the result was striking: “Only one player of the Curaçao 26 was actually born on the island of Curaçao,” he says. “The rest of them were born in the Netherlands.”
England are applying AI to penalty analysis. According to the source article, the Football Association’s head of performance insights and analysis told the BBC that work that once took five days, analysing every penalty taker for an opponent, can now likely be done in five hours. For a team that knows a penalty shoot-out can end a tournament, that compression of time matters.
From Long Dossiers To Useful Answers
AI does not remove the need for analysts. In some ways, it makes their role more important. The more information teams can access, the harder it becomes to decide what is worth showing a coach or player.
Marcelo Bielsa, now the Uruguay manager, once said when he was in charge at Premier League side Leeds United that his staff spent around 300 hours analysing an upcoming team. Lucey argues that some of that work can now be automated. Analysts can examine movements, ask how often a pattern led to shots or goals, and search through similar moments for context.
But more data can also create noise. Stewart warns against overwhelming players with huge reports. His point is that the skill lies in turning vast data into a small number of clear, actionable insights.
For teams, that means the winning edge may not come from having the biggest database. It may come from asking better questions and presenting answers in a form that can influence decisions under pressure.
FIFA Wants To Narrow The Technology Gap
The cost of advanced AI tools, software developers, data scientists, and specialist analysts creates an uneven field. Wealthier federations can build internal systems and add external AI platforms. Smaller nations may not have the same resources.
FIFA is responding with Football AI Pro, a bespoke AI agent powered by Lenovo. It is being made available to every nation at the World Cup for the first time during this tournament. The system resembles a ChatGPT-style interface, where coaches can type questions and access information about their next opponents.
Matches can also be recreated in 3D, allowing teams to study play from angles that were previously impossible. The system can quantify where players pass and run, how they attack and defend, and the shots and goals they produce.
Johannes Holzmüller, FIFA’s director of innovation, says the goal is access: “We see it as our goal, and even our task, to provide technology to all the teams, so that everyone has access and can use it in a simple way without having additional experts on the team, because not everyone can afford it,” he says.
Still, even FIFA acknowledges that this may only be a baseline. Holzmüller adds: “That’s the minimum we can do,” and points to a gap between teams using technology and data more heavily and those using less.
The Next Question Is Regulation
The future direction is forecasting. Lucey says the next step is long-term forecasting, including counterfactual analysis that could help recommend which players to rest in order to maximise the probability of success.
That possibility raises a bigger issue. If AI tools become central to preparation, FIFA may eventually have to decide whether nations should be restricted to FIFA-approved AI tools. For now, the answer is unsettled.
Holzmüller calls it “a big question” and says it is not for today to answer. What is clear from the World Cup’s data race is that AI will play a major role in soccer’s future, not just in how matches are reviewed, but in how teams prepare to win them.