Finding the next football star with artificial intelligence

In the era of eight-figure contracts, player recruitment is a high-stakes game. Scouts and coaches used observation, rudimentary data and intuition for decades, but savvy clubs are using advanced analytics to identify rising stars and undervalued players. "The SciSkill Index evaluates every professional football player in the world in one universal index," says SciSports founder and CEO Giels Brouwer. The company uses machine learning algorithms to calculate the quality, talent and value of more than 90,000 players. This helps clubs find talent, look for players that fit a certain profile and analyze their opponents.