The FIFA World Cup 2026 kicks off at a stadium in Mexico City today in what could be the most high-tech edition of the tournament yet. Every team will have access to an artificial-intelligence tool that can analyse its players' movements, and digital avatars of the players, created from scans of their bodies, will help referees to model match action and spot illegal moves. To understand the role science will have in football's biggest tournament and where the field is heading, Nature spoke to the editor-in-chief of the journal Science and Medicine in Football, which publishes research on various forms of football, including association football ' also known as soccer ' American football and rugby. Franco Impellizzeri, also a sports scientist at the University of Technology Sydney in Australia, once competed for Italy's national taekwondo team. But he admires football ' 'I'm Italian, so football is part of our culture' ' and has since collaborated on studies with football...
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