On the morning of July 19th Beijing time, the third-place playoff for the 2026 FIFA World Cup concluded at Miami Stadium. The England team defeated the French team 6-4 to secure third place in this World Cup, also delivering a classic goal-fest for the tournament.
The match was full of twists and turns. England was in rampant form in the first half, with goals from Saka (a brace), Rice, and Konsa giving them a 4-0 lead at one point. After the restart, France launched a fierce comeback. Mbappé scored twice, with Barcola and Dembélé also finding the net, bringing the score to 4-5. At the crucial moment, Saka converted a penalty to complete his first World Cup hat-trick, and Bellingham added another goal to seal the victory. England ultimately triumphed 6-4 over France, putting a perfect end to their World Cup campaign.
With the third-place winner decided, only the final championship match remains in this World Cup. Argentina will face Spain in the final, with both traditional powerhouses making their final push for the trophy. As the tournament enters its decisive final stage, this event hailed as the "first AI World Cup" is also approaching its climax, where AI technology will undergo a comprehensive test.
Whether for team preparation, event operations, or match broadcasting and fan engagement, AI technology will continue to play a vital role in the World Cup's final match.
As FIFA's Official Technology Partner, Lenovo Group (LENOVO GROUP), leveraging over 350 engineers and 25,000 deployed devices, has used its end-to-end, full-stack AI capabilities to build a complete technical system for this World Cup. This system covers team preparation, event operations, officiating explanations, match broadcasting, and fan experience, with all AI solutions running stably and continuously.
Supporting Team Preparation
In terms of team preparation, the FIFA AI Pro World Cup Football AI Super Agent developed by Lenovo continues to provide tactical support for participating teams. The platform can call upon millions of data points in real-time, analyzing over 2,000 match metrics. It compresses post-match analysis that previously took two days into under two hours, with the system's output achieving over 95% accuracy and professionalism. This helps coaching staff quickly complete match reviews, opponent analysis, and tactical planning. As the tournament enters the final championship stage, FIFA AI Pro will continue to serve the finalist teams, providing decision support for the ultimate title match.
Enhancing Broadcasts and Officiating Explanations
For match broadcasting and officiating explanations, the 3D digital human visualization technology created by Lenovo has been deployed across all matches of this World Cup. It has created digital models for all 1,263 participating players, using 3D animations to intuitively recreate key officiating scenarios such as player positioning, physical contact, and offside situations, making complex decisions more transparent and understandable. During matches, the system captures the real-time movements of all 22 players on the pitch, recording their positions 50 times per second and generating approximately 95,700 three-dimensional coordinate values per second. This provides global fans with a more intuitive and transparent view of officiating decisions, making critical calls clearer and more credible.
Simultaneously, Lenovo's self-developed Referee Perspective AI Video Enhancement System continues to record key moments on the World Cup pitch. Through AI-powered real-time stabilization and image enhancement, the first-person perspective footage, which was originally severely shaky due to the referee's high-speed running, becomes more stable and clear. This allows global fans to experience high-speed attacks, penalty box confrontations, and pivotal moments that decide the match's outcome up close.
It is understood that this system has applied for two core patents. It can reduce the industry-common video processing latency of 6 to 15 seconds to under 2 seconds, achieving an average stabilization effect of 50% and a peak of 70%. It also controls the proportion of cropped shaky footage to under 11%, enabling the referee's first-person perspective to truly meet the requirements for global World Cup live broadcasts.
Managing Event Operations
At the event operations level, the Intelligent Command Centre supported by Lenovo continues to serve FIFA's core business. Data shows the Command Centre's peak concurrent users in a single day reached 225. The system uses AI to generate operational daily reports that include predictive planning and, combined with capabilities like venue digital twins, conducts real-time monitoring of event operations. This helps the operations team complete data analysis, match scheduling, and management decisions more efficiently.
Elevating the Fan Experience
Furthermore, Lenovo AI continues to enhance the fan viewing experience. To date, the Hologram interactive feature has completed over 6,800 selfie interactions, consistently providing global fans with a more immersive and engaging event experience. Smart Wayfinding continues to serve fans, media, and event staff, with cumulative usage reaching 1.5 million times, covering over 1 million unique users. This ensures the World Cup is not just 90 minutes on the pitch but a comprehensive digital experience covering travel, viewing, interaction, and services. Additionally, at official fan events like the FIFA Fan Fest, fans have created over 44,000 AI digital avatars, further expanding the boundaries of event interaction.
As the championship match is about to kick off, the 2026 World Cup will also witness its final showdown. As FIFA's Official Technology Partner, Lenovo Group will continue to rely on its end-to-end, full-stack AI capabilities to consistently support team preparation, event operations, match broadcasting, and the fan experience. It will provide stable, efficient, and intelligent technical support for this globally-watched pinnacle clash, jointly witnessing the crowning of this World Cup's champion.
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