Brazilian teenager Leo Veiga had all but given up on his dreams of becoming a professional soccer player when artificial intelligence (AI) helped him earn a place in the Italian club’s youth ranks.
A tech company promising to “democratize” soccer is launching an app that allows young players to upload mobile phone videos of themselves demonstrating their ball skills.
AI is then used to analyze and score the performance and send it to scouts and clubs.
Veiga, 18, discovered one of the apps from Swiss company Footbao when he was no longer able to play for his small club in his hometown of Santa Catarina in southern Brazil.
In the YouTube video, users with the highest scores were offered a few days of training with Italian club Lecce.
Veiga was selected and caught the eye of a scout who decided to give him a chance.
“AI has opened new doors,” he told AFP from Italy. He is currently under contract with Spezia club in Italy’s second division.
“I said, ‘I’m going to download the app and give it a try. If nothing happens, that’s fine because nothing else works. But what if something happens?'”
Footbao uses videos of matches and training sessions, while Germany’s CUJU, another technology company in this space, uses videos of drills suggested to users through its app.
untapped potential
Approximately 120,000 players use the Footbao app, most of them from Brazil, the world’s largest exporter of soccer talent.
“There are probably 14,000 to 15,000 players who could potentially join clubs or academies,” CEO Nick Laporte told AFP.
Founded in 2023, the company also has operations in Colombia and Argentina, and plans to expand to other South American countries.
Laporte said AI could “democratize” football by helping to identify talent that is not visible to major development centres.
Meanwhile, CUJU’s app was released last year and has been downloaded about 160,000 times.
“Professional clubs have huge databases, but most of them include players who have already been scouted. There is no reliable data on early-stage talent,” CUJU marketing director Sven Muller told AFP.
The goal, he said, is to turn “a simple video recorded on a cell phone” into “reliable performance data.”
Enliven women’s soccer
In Sao Paulo, Marcela Jemias de Lima repeatedly practices kicking the ball against a wall. This is one of the exercises proposed by CUJU, which focuses on technical skills such as ball control and speed.
After using the app, Marcela was invited to a youth tournament organized by the company in front of scouts.
She eventually earned a spot on the Under-15 team of South American women’s soccer powerhouse Corinthians, who have won six Copa Libertadores.
She said the practice “helps you get better” and means you “get noticed from everywhere in the world.”
Brazil will host the 2027 Women’s World Cup, a tournament that could help boost recruitment of young female players.
In December, Santos, the Brazilian club whose stars include Pele and Neymar, announced a deal with Futto Bao to help discover young talent.
Club president Marcelo Teixeira said this was a way to “expand the discovery of athletes”.
João Paulo Sampaio, head of youth development at Palmeiras, said top players are usually scouted from a very young age, but artificial intelligence could give a boost to players who otherwise would have gone unnoticed. Palmeiras has produced international talent such as Endrick and Estevao.
“We receive 30 to 40 videos every day,” Sampaio told AFP, adding that the São Paulo club is not currently working with these companies, but the technology company conducting the “first round of pre-selection” is a “new tool”.
