For the first time, two teams of eleven humanoid robots, meaning with a human form, faced off on a football pitch during the RoboCup 2026. The match pitted team B-Human, from Bremen (Germany), against HTWK Robots, from Leipzig (Germany). Both teams used machines designed by Booster Robotics.
- Two teams of eleven humanoid robots played a football match at RoboCup 2026.
- B-Human from Bremen faced HTWK Robots from Leipzig, and both teams used Booster Robotics machines.
- RoboCup aims to build a robot team that can beat human World Cup champions by 2050.
- Ubbo Visser says new hardware and AI take humanoid robot football to another level.
The RoboCup, an international robotics competition, was founded in 1997 by researchers who set an ambitious goal: to develop a team of autonomous robots capable of beating the human world champions of the Football World Cup by 2050. Since the first editions, progress has been significant, and this match constitutes a new step towards that goal.
A new step towards 2050
Ubbo Visser, President of the RoboCup Federation, highlighted the advances in the field. “This match shows how much humanoid robotics has progressed,” he said. “We have already seen increased cooperation and more advanced skills over the years, but the new humanoid hardware, combined with the new level of intelligence brought by The AI / news, places humanoid robot football on another level.”
On the same day, RoboCup released excerpts from the match, which are available on the organization’s website. The match thus illustrates the combination of hardware, with humanoids as the central element, and artificial intelligence, which allows the robots to play autonomously.
