Former Spain manager Robert Moreno was sacked due to his heavy reliance on ChatGPT for decision-making.
The 48-year-old left Sochi last September, with the team picking up just one point from seven games during his tenure. Orlov revealed that Moreno is a devout user of ChatGPT and relied on the tool to make a number of unconventional decisions.
During the team’s away trip to Khabarovsk, Moreno strictly arranged the itinerary according to the suggestions of the AI model, instructing the entire squad to train at 7 a.m. two days before the match and requiring the players to stay awake for 28 consecutive hours.
Orlov recalled: “When we were preparing to travel to Khabarovsk, Moreno claimed, ‘Everything is arranged. I have entered all the itinerary parameters into ChatGPT.’ I looked at the plan he demonstrated, which stated that the players should not sleep for 28 hours. I retorted, ‘These arrangements look good, but when will the players rest?’”
“The players could not understand why they had to get up at 5 a.m. and train at 7 a.m. Oleg Kozhemyakin in the team—who had played for Khabarovsk for a year before joining Sochi—was not even consulted.”
“In the end, we still implemented the schedule generated by ChatGPT.”
Moreno also used ChatGPT to decide on summer striker signings. Orlov said: “Last summer, we needed to choose among three strikers: Vladimir Pisarsky, Pavel Meleshenko and Artur Shushenachev. Moreno input the data of these three players on the Wyscout platform into ChatGPT, and based on the generated results, Shushenachev was identified as the best candidate.”
Sochi then signed Shushenachev, who failed to score a single goal in 10 games.
During Moreno’s tenure, Sochi were relegated from the Russian Premier League to the First Division. His tactics were severely criticized by fans for overemphasizing ineffective possession-based play and ignoring set-piece drills in training.
Moreno temporarily took charge of the Spain national team for three games in June 2019 after Luis Enrique resigned due to his daughter’s illness, before being officially appointed as the head coach. After leading the team in nine matches (recording seven wins and two draws), he resigned ahead of UEFA Euro 2020, with the manager’s position taken over by Enrique once again. Earlier, Enrique had removed Moreno from his coaching staff on the grounds that Moreno was “lacking loyalty” and “overly ambitious”—the latter was accused of being eager to manage Spain at the European Championship.
