MatchTV: Robert Moreno Responds on ChatGPT and Football
The ChatGPT controversy: the truth told in the first person
Full interview on the program «Gromko» of MatchTV (Russia)
Complete transcript
Translated from Russian to English · Program «Gromko», MatchTV
We continue our “noisy” conversation about football. Here, program after program, we desperately and persistently discuss coaching appointments, decisions, and next steps. But perhaps all of this is a relic of the past. Maybe football, and us with it, have hopelessly fallen behind.
How soon will artificial intelligence manage a football team? How soon will it dictate player selection, their formations, and actions? It seems we won’t get there. But fears come alive when headlines like «ChatGPT coached Russian footballers» appear. And they appeared last week.
It turns out that the former head coach of «Sochi», Robert Moreno, actively used, perhaps too actively, the help of a chatbot in his work. On one hand, there is an inspiring element to this story, considering where the neural network led «Sochi». We come to the conclusion: the Russian mind for football is still incomprehensible, even for an artificial mind.
And on the flip side, there is an important lesson about how football thinking progresses. Robert Moreno gave important and very timely explanations to our program. Evgeny Zagitov will continue the topic.
In the world of professional football, every decision by a coach is worth its weight in gold. Tactical schemes, player regimens, squad selection: all this affects the final result. But what if key decisions were entrusted to artificial intelligence?
This is exactly the experiment conducted by the former head coach of FC Sochi, Robert Moreno. And it had ambiguous consequences. According to the former deputy general director and sporting director of the club, Spaniard Robert Moreno actively used neural networks in his work with the team.
This part of the text was written and voiced by a neural network following a simple prompt: «I am a journalist, I need a text about Robert Moreno and his use of neural networks». It turned out decent, fast, and convenient. That’s why it’s hard to blame anyone for overusing artificial intelligence.
It can perform something specific based on certain mathematical tasks. Surgical operations, launching carrier rockets into orbit. That is, where precision and mathematics are needed.
And yet, the news that the team’s head coach makes important decisions based on consultations with AI caused a huge resonance. A former FC Sochi employee revealed the mentor’s unusual cybernetic approach.
«When we were preparing for the trip to Khabarovsk, Robert said: ‘I have everything figured out. I entered all the trip parameters into ChatGPT. We need to arrive on the day of the match. We will train in Sochi an hour earlier, and two days before the flight we will start training at seven in the morning.’ I reviewed the presentation: it turned out the players weren’t supposed to sleep for 28 hours.»
I think all this noise is due to a misunderstanding of modern methods. Listen, my career started precisely with technology: data analysis, video analysis. That’s how I got into professional football. Of course, I use professional tools, like all coaches. But for ChatGPT to determine the tactics or the plan — it’s absurd. The irony is that we won that same match in Khabarovsk 1-0. And the team was very satisfied with the game plan.
According to the former sporting director, Moreno also selected players using AI. But the big downside of neural networks is that they are trained by humans, with all that entails. A clear example is Albania, where a neural network was appointed minister of public procurement, but a few months later was suspected of taking bribes.
GPT is not aware of the meaning of words. It operates with statistics and probabilities. This means it doesn’t draw logical conclusions like a human. Not at all. For it, morals and ethics are completely empty values.
What I definitely did not use it for was making sporting decisions. Not for that. Maybe for everyday issues. Well, to translate from Russian to Spanish. Although yes, we used it to develop an app for the gym. The players logged their physical state there daily, and we gave them exercises. But in the end, sporting decisions, planning, who will take the field, the lineup, are made by people. And I have always done this together with my coaching staff.
You can probably predict or create a more or less plausible game flow with 50-60 percent accuracy.
Any technology that helps improve and speed up processes with such a huge flow of information is welcome. Whether it’s GPS, Wyscout, or simply computers. Obviously, when there is a lot of information, it helps. But in the end, decisions are always made by a person. It is he who gathers all the information, considers the context, and makes the final decision.
For me, any attempt to replace a human… Artificial intelligence has no emotions. It cannot hug, it cannot look into your eyes. And no matter how far technology goes, it will always remain just an assistant that speeds up processes, but it will never be a replacement for a living person who can be there, understand, and support. It will never be capable of that.
In the end, using a neural network in football can be useful, and certainly many coaches do it. But for now, it’s better not to talk too loudly about such innovations. You can’t fire an AI, unlike a coach. Evgeny Zagitov, «Gromko».
