RoboCup Soccer wants to achieve the impossible. By 2050, RoboCup Soccer hopes to defeat the winners of the World Cup using a team of soccer-playing robots. That’s like setting a goal of defeating the Miami Heat of the future using a team of basketball-playing robots. Is this an achievable goal? Perhaps not, but what’s wrong with dreaming big?

To achieve this goal, RoboCup 2013 organizers invited robot specialists from around the world to Eindhoven for a week of friendly competition, collaboration and sports. Though RoboCup is about more than just soccer, soccer-playing robots are the main event. The competition, which started on Thursday and finished on Sunday, pits teams of soccer-playing robots against each other in six different competitions: 2D simulation, 3D simulation, small size, middle size, standard platform and humanoid.

The robots are far from being ready to compete with a team of six-year-old soccer stars and their cost reflects this fact. According to The Telegraph, a standard platform robots costs $5,000 when bought in bulk and an adult-size robot costs at least $35,000. Of course, fielding a team of soccer-playing robots that can compete with the likes of Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo or Xavi would require some serious cash for all of the necessary hardware. Check out the Guardian’s “World’s Best Footballers: The Top 100 List” and see what a robot team’s competition might be in 2050.

However, RoboCup organizers are convinced that this is an achievable goal. In fact, they say that soccer is the perfect sport for this type of competition because it has the support and attention of people in the poorest and richest countries in the world. They see this week’s competition as a chance for engineers to share their knowledge with other roboticists. In other words, the purpose of RoboCup 2013 is to foster competition that will lead to the advancement of robotic technology.

Though the matches move at a very slow pace, the soccer-playing robots really seem to be having fun. The Associated Press reports that the soccer-playing robots follow several very strict rules. During the match, their human handlers are not allowed to interfere unless a robot has malfunctioned and needs to be removed from the playing surface.

If RoboCup sends its best team of soccer-playing robots against the world champions in 2050, will the robots defeat the humans? What sort of advances in technology will be needed to help RoboCup achieve its goal by 2050? If not by 2050, is this goal achievable by 2100? Share your thoughts in the comments section.