The World Cup has seen superstars, pitch invaders, heartbreak and joy across its 96 years — and, on Sunday, it got a robot.
Atlas, an advanced humanoid robot, stepped pitchside to deliver the match ball to the referee at halftime at New York New Jersey Stadium, where Brazil were playing Norway in the round of 16. Its moves include imitating a few uncanny goal celebrations — including Norwegian striker Erling Haaland’s meditation pose.
“We always looked at human skill as a way to like motivate us and challenge us to push forward what robots can do,” said Alberto Rodriguez, director of robot behavior at Boston Dynamics.
The robot has previously danced and engaged in parkour. But to deliver the match ball — and pull off a few sweet moves — Atlas had to navigate challenges unique to the World Cup.
Standard Wi-Fi communications with Atlas were out of the question, with tens of thousands of fans surrounding the pitch with cellphones, so a new communications channel was established with a radio device attached to the robot’s back.
“And grass has its own peculiarity,” said Rodriguez. “We had to change the way that Atlas learns to walk and learns to jump and run so that it’s more robust.” Hyundai has been aggressively pursuing mass production of the robots, announcing this year that it plans to deploy them at its U.S. manufacturing plant in Georgia starting in 2028, in an effort to automate high-risk and repetitive tasks.
Norway’s Haaland struck both goals in a sensational 2-1 win to dump the Brazilians out of the tournament, and the selfless running of every player in red and the outstanding goalkeeping of out-of-contract Orjan Nyland set the scene for Norway’s greatest win in football.
With the job done, the fans and team did their rowing celebration, echoing the scenes of joy back home as tens of thousands of fans flooded the streets to celebrate.
Norway coach Stale Solbakken paid tribute to his squad after an energy-sapping, nerve-jangling win that sent them into the World Cup quarter-finals for the first time where they will face co-hosts Mexico or England.
Norway’s rowing celebration has become ubiquitous during the tournament, but they had to navigate shark-infested waters against the Brazilians, as well as survive a late penalty from Neymar deep into stoppage time that could have capsized them.
“This is a great group, they love being together, they train well, they help each other and protect each other. We have a strong culture and we give the opportunity to let people to be themselves and say whatever they want, and that’s a very important part of the whole thing, when things go well and when things go not so well,” Solbakken told reporters.
