AsianFin— The world of robotics took a major step forward on Wednesday as Beijing's National Speed Skating Oval hosted the preliminaries for the World Humanoid Robot Games. The event featured the first-ever fully autonomous 5v5 soccer match for humanoid robots, expanding on previous 3v3 competitions.

Each team was composed of two forwards, two defenders, and a goalkeeper. The robots demonstrated their ability to play autonomously, taking their positions at kick-off, tackling, passing, and shooting. Despite some robots falling during collisions, they were largely able to recover and continue playing, to the delight of the crowd. The 40-minute matches, split into two 15-minute halves with a 10-minute halftime, drew cheers with every goal scored.