English footballers win on penalties to progress in RoboCup 2014

The robot football team from Plymouth University have won through to the second round of the 2014 RoboCup competition in Brazil.

After losing the first match in the group stages and drawing the second, the team needed a win against last year’s silver medal winners – AUTman from Iran – to qualify for the second round.

But after drawing 0-0 in normal time, the Plymouth Humanoids triumphed 1-0 in a tense penalty shootout, with star player ‘Mustachio’ scoring the vital goal which allowed them to progress to the next stage.

Much like their human counterparts in the World Cup, the robot footballers are having to contend with stifling heat and humidity in the Brazilian city of Joao Pessao.

Dr Phil Culverhouse, from the University’s Centre for Robotics & Neural Systems, said: “All the teams are struggling to keep the robots operational in the heat, and we have lost a couple of players at key moments due to power supply issues. So far the games have been fairly close, and the penalty shootout was particularly nail-biting as we scored early and then had to wait and see whether our opponents could do the same. But we are delighted to get through and are now focussed on the second round.”

The second series of round robin games begins later today, with four groups of four teams playing each other and the top two from each moving forward to the quarter finals.