Seattle Reign head coach Laura Harvey has admitting using advice from ChatGPT to help decide her tactics for games this season.
Harvey, who has been in charge of the NWSL team since 2021 and has the most wins as a manager in the division’s history, said she started asking the AI chatbot questions about her team’s style and what ideas it might have.
The 45-year-old Englishwoman told the Soccerish podcast that she had never played with a back-five in her coaching career, thinking it was too negative, but admitted that the exchange with ChatGPT challenged her preconceptions.
“One day in the off season, I was writing things into ChatGPT like, ‘what is Seattle Reign’s identity?’ And it would spurt it out. And I was like ‘I don’t know if that’s true or not,’” Harvey said.
“And then I put in, ‘What formation should you play to beat NWSL teams?’ And it spurted out every team in the league and what formation you should play.
“And for two teams — I’m not going to say who they are because they’ll know — it went, ‘You should play a back five.’ So I did. No joke, that’s why I did it.”
Harvey said the formation switched “worked” and that Seattle Reign won one of the games in question.
According to FbRef, Seattle Reign have changed starting formation several times this season - and Harvey said the team’s tactics are now more “fluid”.
“When I hear coaches saying, ‘we don’t know what you’re going to do, you’re the hardest team to prepare for, you defend in multiple ways in games’. I’m just like, ‘yes!’” Harvey said while pumping her fist.
“I want everyone to not have a clue what we’re going to do. I think that is amazing.”
Seattle Reign finished 13th in the NWSL last season - second from bottom.
But they are fourth from top this campaign with just one regular season match to play, qualifying for the play-offs.
Harvey has more than two decades of coaching experience and has won three NWSL Shields with the Reign across her two spells with the club.
A three-time NWSL coach of the year, Harvey also led Arsenal to three consecutive Women’s Super League titles, two Continental Cups and one FA Women’s Cup before leaving the club in January 2013.
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