Football is no longer just about feeling and skill on the pitch. With AI as a tool, match analysis has become more accurate – and our way of consuming football is changing rapidly.
TEXT HENRIK LENNGREN PICTURE AI

Football has always been a sport where emotion and intuition have played an important role. Coaches have long relied on their experience and gut feeling when selecting their line-ups, and supporters have interpreted matches based on what they see and feel. In recent years, data analysis using artificial intelligence has become an increasingly important part of football. One example of this development is PlaymakerAI, founded by Joakim
Plogell and Ola Lidmark Eriksson.

– When we started this nearly ten years ago, few people understood how data could be used to analyse football. We saw the potential and began building a tool that football clubs and coaches can truly use to make better decisions, says Joakim Plogell.
PlaymakerAI collects and analyses thousands of data points during every match – everything from passes and shots to player positions and movements on the pitch. However, the important thing is that the data is not just collected, but also made understandable and useful for those who will be using it. As Joakim Plogell explains:
– It's perhaps not something we can reveal in detail, but broadly speaking, it's about making football data, which is becoming an increasingly central part of football analysis, understandable and usable. We've learned to build models around football data that are genuinely practical – no hocus pocus or flashy complex solutions that nobody in football understands or benefits from. In broad terms, you could say that for the end-user today, it's a BI platform tailored to their requirements, using a large number of widgets to visualise data. Under the bonnet, many different models are at work, some with AI and Machine Learning, others not, and together they create a whole of usable data. A large part of PlaymakerAI's platform is the analysis of so-called expected goals (xG), a measure of the probability that a shot will lead to a goal. It's a type of objective statistic that can be of great help in understanding how a team performs, and which AI can analyse without being coloured by human biases.
– A scout can always be influenced by their own biases or past experiences, but an AI model will yield the same results every time. It is precisely that objectivity that is so valuable, says Joakim Plogell.
How does this affect how we as spectators experience football? At first glance, it might seem like AI and data analysis take away some of the passion and emotion that make the sport special. However, Joakim Plogell believes it is precisely the opposite.
– It's not about replacing the feeling in football, but about complementing it. We help to make football more understandable, and that can actually increase the passion among supporters. And it's not just coaches and sporting directors who benefit from AI technology. In TV broadcasts, data analyses are increasingly used to give viewers a deeper understanding of the game. From penalty heatmaps and spider diagrams to advanced analyses of
xG – these insights have become a natural part of the matchday experience.
– When we started with television broadcasts, many people were sceptical. We were told it was nonsense, that it didn't fit into football. But now it's an obvious part of almost all big matches, says Ola Lidmark Eriksson. As data analysis has become increasingly common, our way of consuming football has also changed. Supporters now have access to enormous amounts of statistics that help them understand the game in a whole new way. For those interested in numbers and analysis, football has become much more than just a battle for the ball. However, it is important to find a balance.
– We don't want to bombard people with numbers. It needs to be relevant and easy to understand. But used correctly, statistics can provide a deeper understanding of the match and make it even more exciting, says Joakim Plogell.
One of the advantages of AI platforms like PlaymakerAI is that they streamline the scouting process. Where a scout could previously follow a limited number of players, AI enables clubs to analyse thousands of players globally.

– It's about using technology to get a head start. With our platform, clubs can keep track of tens of thousands of players, something that would have been impossible for a human scout, says Joakim Plogell.
The future of AI in football looks bright, but it is a development that is still in its
sin linda. Joakim and Ola are convinced that AI's role will only grow, both when
This concerns how we analyse matches and how we consume football. Even though technology is changing the game, it is still the people behind the screens who decide how it is used.
– AI cannot replace the feel for the game, but it can definitely make it even more exciting, concludes Ola Lidmark Eriksson.