Football may be unpredictable, but its injuries aren’t. Artificial intelligence can work out when players are likely to get hurt so that coaches can let them rest.

A machine learning algorithm developed by data scientists at the University of Pisa, Italy, and FC Barcelona recently predicted 9 out of 14 injuries sustained by an elite Italian football team during a single season.

The researchers fitted the team’s 26 players with GPS sensors during their training sessions to measure how far …