Artificial intelligence is no longer just a part of football; it has infiltrated every aspect of our lives. Simply put, when you search for shoes on internet search engines, you will see shoe advertisements on your social media for at least three days. AI produces life-easing solutions based on user preferences. You now see AI in weather forecasting. The most important enemy detection methods of unmanned aerial vehicles protect and enhance themselves with such technologies.
As of 20th of July, the young Comparisonator team celebrated 4th anniversary. With 48 months of meticulous work and a marvel of software engineering, the team have revolutionized football transfers by minimizing error rates through the combination of machine learning and artificial intelligence.
Now, players from any league in the world can be virtually transferred to another league using the AI operating system of the Comparisonator platform, built entirely with Comparisonator ingenuity. The platform can list which teams in the target league are most suitable for the player in just one second. Additionally, when you virtually transfer a player to any team, it provides an instant comparison with the players in the target team, presenting a report with a single click. This platform, developed entirely inhouse by Comparisonator software engineers, is set to herald a new era in global football transfers.
Comparisonator’s creator and CEO, Tarkan Batgün, has been a teacher involved in international football for years. As a lecturer in “Performance Analysis” at Haliç University’s School of Physical Education and Sports, lecturing in various federations and confederations; Batgün trained scouts and analysts in the industry. During his tenure as the scouting director at Bursaspor, he, along with Christophe Daum and his team, created the “Eye of the Crocodile Scouting Laboratory,” which won the “Scouting Concept of the Year” award in London. This initiative brought players like Fernandao, Cedric Bakambu, Enes Ünal, Mehmet Zeki Çelik, Ozan Tufan, Okan Koçuk, and Mert Hakan Yandaş to Turkish and global football.
We asked him about the story of this revolution and Comparisonator. Tarkan Batgün said:
“During my time at Bursaspor, we perhaps developed the first iteration of the Comparisonator player and team comparison software with Christophe Daum and his assistant Rudi Verkempinck. They greatly contributed to my personal development. At that time, in our scouting laboratory that included Bursaspor fans, we built a player selection program upon the request of the technical team, with industrial engineer Serdar Kuruçay and scout Deniz Özlem. Subsequent years were spent pondering how to develop this system further. Until fate introduced me to Furkan Yağız and Umut Baran Zorlu, who were still in their preparatory year at Boğaziçi University. Our first meeting with these two young minds dates back to 2017. We decided to establish Comparisonator Inc. together on July 20, 2020. The team, including my mother Aysel Batgün, Orkun Alev, Tarık Berk Gürsel, Orhun Pouralizadeh, Didem Dilmen, Tugay and Oğuzhan Arslan, Dr. Eren Ünlü, and Dehan Ögetbil, combined artificial intelligence with machine learning technologies from the outset, turning into a global company with over 100 football teams, including Rangers and FC Tokyo, famous player representation companies like Stellar, World in Motion, and Proeleven, and international media giants like Fox, Marca, and Tutto Mercato.
When discussing the AI revolution, one must consider that we are now living in a completely new world. Our expertise is football, and our team has successfully created significant experiences with our own strength, allowing us to say that we are developing the technologies we lead at an extraordinary speed. Of course, this is a team effort. Every expert in the team has become an expert in AI, especially in the last four years.
In a global context where money is crucial, accuracy in transfers is imperative. However, creating what we call AI is not an easy task. You need to plan the system from the beginning and predict the course as a human to set the direction. The most important part of this direction was figuring out how to prevent the millions of dollars lost due to wrong transfers. That’s why we started by analyzing all world transfers with 371 parameters in our first year using machine learning. Over the years, the levels of every league, team, player, and coach were determined. Subsequently, AI models were applied to predict future transfers. Imagine receiving information from 317 world leagues every week, with all players being leveled and compared match by match based on their actions. Each week brings a new level, each season new players. Game plans change with new coaches. Level weights change accordingly. Humans can’t do this. Even a machine is essentially a programmed computer. But now the brain is in a mechanism that can be directed and controlled by humans. It can think and give recommendations to the user. Soon, it will even be able to converse with users.
As Comparisonator software developers, we have perhaps led a revolution by steering the new world in this way. For instance, Barış Alper Yılmaz’s transfer to the English Premier League is being discussed. We virtually transferred Barış to the Premier League using AI-supported “Virtual Transfer.” The system now shows us all the teams and their wingers that Barış could play for. If we assume he goes to any team, it can instantly compare him with the wingers in that team and present a report.
As seen in the attached example, the list of teams where Barış Alper Yılmaz can succeed is as follows:
- West Ham
- Manchester United
- Everton
- Crystal Palace
- Fulham
When we virtually transfer Barış Alper Yılmaz to Liverpool, we see that he would have to compete fiercely with Mohamed Salah. Salah’s AI suitability score is 385.05, while Barış Alper’s score is 281.9. Liverpool’s game plan is usually 4-3-3, while Galatasaray’s typical game plan is 4-2-3-1. This is a factor affecting the player’s AI probability and an important system value to consider.”
Check this on our Comparisonator YouTube account: https://youtu.be/CRFpRxBf3Fc?feature=shared
