Hate to break it to you, but football's not coming home if this AI pundit is to be believed

The Czech Republic footie team is set to be crowned champions next month, beating fellow underdogs Denmark 3-2 in the Euros in what pundits claim will prove to be a "thrilling final". At least that's what boffins at sports data provider Sportradar reckon after scraping together results from the last 20 years, feeding them into …

[Chris G]

At last

Something for an AI to do that is right up it's street, predicting football match outcomes and, if it likes, doing the commentary, the pre match yak, the post match autopsy and with luck even play the match virtually.

It wouldn't matter how inaccurate it was or how many false positives/negatives it produced because someone always moans about a match result anyway and the result in the real world doesn't matter.

[Pen-y-gors]

Re: At last

Great idea, would save a fortune on wages for the pundits.

Could then extend it to filling in for 'interviewers' (like Marr) and politicians on TV

[Len]

Re: At last

It will never finally be decided who has won the football.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: At last

you've pretty much nailed hattrick.org there.

[John Riddoch]

"England will be knocked out in the semi-finals"

...but did the AI confirm it would be after a penalty shoot out again?

[Dr. G. Freeman]

Can we just cut out all the hassle and just have the AI predict the whole season, and take its answers as the results ?

Might mean my team (Forres Mechanics FC) win a game for a change.

[Philippe]

I miss Paul too.

Paul the Octopus was an Oracle, championships aren't the same without him.

We need a link to place a few bets on the pool games and see how accurate this is. If it works well, we probably can put some more cash on the finals.

A similar AI was used at the beginning of the premier league season back in August last year. It got the top 8 almost totally right. Not so good for the rest of the tables.

[IGotOut]

I don't know a lot about football.

But basing current results on games from 20 years ago is about as accurate as putting lots in a hat and drawing them out.

However, I do think Daley Thompson will win the Decathlon this year.

[Danny 2]

Yes Sir, I Can Boogie

Basing the prediction on 20 years of data ignores the fact Scotland haven't qualified in 20 years. I expect Scotland will beat Czechia on Monday, before drawing with England then losing to Croatia.

Steve Clarke is quite the manager, he took lowly Kilmarnock to third only for them to be relegated when he left. Alex Ferguson won the European Cup with Aberdeen. Shankly, Stein, Busby - machines will never be able to account for those individual contributions. Plus we have the best tournament song.

I only talk football because it lubricated access back when I was a field service engineer.

[Aristotles slow and dimwitted horse]

Jumpers for goal posts...

Like most things credited with being "AI" I'll just put my jumper down for a goalpost and call this another pile of old bollocks.

I'm assuming we'll all be able to go back to this company after the Euros and laugh at them and their seemingly lacking grasp of what AI actually is, and that what they are doing... isn't.

And yes, bring back the Octopus albeit that I assume he ended up in a pasta salad a long time ago.