Football

by Stephen Mumford

  Football tactics can thus be understood as following a Hegelian structure. Philosopher G. W. F. Hegel proposed that progress in history was driven by a rational ‘dialectical’ process in which a thesis is countered by an antithesis before a synthesis emerges that accepts what is good in each of the thesis and synthesis and rejects what is of no use. This seems applicable to football tactics. Some thesis is proposed: a new system or style of play that produces success. Other teams have to respond to it and make changes in their own style of play. They seek to provide the antithesis that neutralizes the existing style. From these two we settle on a synthesis, taking the best of both competing systems. The synthesis might reign for a while, but it effectively constitutes a new thesis, which coaches will be trying to counter. Tactics evolve, therefore, motivated by the overriding goal of success. Formations get found out, neutralized and changed. This is how football develops.

  Two pre-Socratic philosophers gave us opposite views of the world. Parmenides said that change was impossible, including motion, since that was a change in position. The antithesis to that was provided by Heraclitus, who said that everything was in motion constantly. The world was always in flux. The Parmenidean position may have had philosophical arguments on its side, but it had no confirmation in experience. We see changes all the time. Football needs a Heraclitean interpretation. In football matches, immediately, but also when one looks at the evolution in football tactics, we find a Heraclitean flux in which there is ceaseless movement, battling for space.

  Football is the opposite of motionless in a very obvious sense. Players, and the ball, have to move constantly. When we look at formations, we should not think of them as indicative of fixed positions where the players stand. At best, the representations of formations show us relative areas in which the players move, sometimes operating as a unit, as a defence must do for offside purposes. Mostly, however, football requires mobility and fluidity, often with rotation of positions. These are essentially spatial matters, since movement can only occur within a space. Successful footballing philosophies will thus have to adopt at least some stance towards space and movement.

  Goals and the unoccupied place

  Empty space has to be understood in terms of absence, since an empty space in football is a place where there is no one present. This might seem like an unnecessarily obscure and metaphysical way of describing such a simple game as football but we can see that emptiness and absence take us to the heart of the matter, including of the most vital part of the game, goal scoring. As I said above, a striker needs space in which to score. The best strikers don’t need much of it – that’s what makes them the best – but they still need some.

  Gary Lineker once explained some of his goal-scoring success in these terms. When he judged that a ball was about to be played into the penalty area, he would look for and ‘attack’ an empty space: where the defenders were absent. The priority was to lose his marker rather than know the ball was coming to him. Indeed, when a ball is played into the danger area at speed, if you are not already in the rough vicinity of its destination, then you have little chance of getting to it. It is pointless, in most cases, to watch the crosser of the ball if it is whipped in, since by the time it leaves their foot, it is already too late. (There are, of course, exceptions, such as if the ball is hung up in the air, or if you are the only attacker in the area, in which case the ball might be played deliberately to you.) The Lineker solution, then, was to lose his marker and go to the empty space just a few moments before the cross was launched. In most cases, his run came to nothing as the ball didn’t reach him. But he was playing the odds. He knew that on some occasions he would get lucky and the ball would come his way. Given that he was then in empty space, he would have the time to get away a decent attempt on goal. The statistics prove the efficacy of his approach. Look for absences. Look for where the defenders are not.

  If you want a perfect demonstration of this philosophy, consider Thomas Müller’s opening goal in that 2014 World Cup Semi-Final against Brazil. It came from a corner kick aimed roughly at the space between the six-yard line and the penalty spot. Defenders and attackers jostled for position, moving around and looking for space before the kick was even taken. While three German attackers moved to the near post, Müller dropped further back, away from everyone else, and he got lucky. The corner came just right for him. He had so much empty space that he was able to simply side-foot the ball home from seven yards. He didn’t even need to win a header due to the absence of any defender. The ball was in the air for less than a second and he had so much space that no defender had a hope of reaching him and challenging for the ball. Of course, the defence failed badly on this occasion. Someone should have followed Müller when he went into the vacant space. But the Brazilians might also have been played. Notice how those three German attackers, in moving to the near post, took almost the whole of the Brazilian defence with them. Did the Germans fool the defence with a prearranged routine, designed to create a pocket of empty space right in front of goal? It seems possible and, in the game, it was the breakthrough strike that opened the floodgates.

  An absence is where something isn’t, and there are different absences, some of which can be in the same place. A striker might see that the space around the penalty spot is unoccupied, meaning that they see an absence of every other player there. Absences are peculiar things, though, because the penalty spot also has an absence of an elephant and the absence of Freddie Mercury. These latter two absences are irrelevant, though, and we seem able to discern the relevant absences of an empty space. The penalty spot is a place where there could plausibly, in normal circumstances, be a defender, which is what the striker knows to look for. There could be contexts in which one sees an absent elephant there instead, such as if a herd of elephants has escaped near the stadium and everyone is assisting rounding them up. But in the context of a football match, empty spaces mean places in which other players are not.

  It might seem that I am labouring this point, but on reflection we see that such empty spaces play an even more vital role in goal scoring. It is not just that the striker needs to find space in which to shoot, but that the ball’s actual crossing of the line depends essentially on it too. When a striker places a shot, they are looking for a place between the posts and under the bar where the goalkeeper or a defender is not. Every goal depends upon the absence of someone in the place where the ball goes, since had the goalkeeper been there, the shot could have been stopped. One sort of goal that is particularly pleasing to see is a shot or header back across goal where, when it was made, it was directed at the goalkeeper; but the keeper is already moving away and by the time the ball reaches the line, the space is no longer occupied.

  One can generalize such an understanding of goal scoring to football in general. Just as a goal depends on the absence of anyone who could stop it, all successful acts in the game depend on similar absences. A cross is a good one because of the absence of anyone who blocks it; a run is possible only because of the absence of someone in the way; a pass is poor because of the absence of anyone receiving it. More crucially, three goals win the game only because the opposition didn’t score four. What is, then, seems also partly constituted by what isn’t, and glory rests upon the exploitation of these little patches of absence.

  This idea might make more sense to defenders. Midfielders and attackers have to be creative since their job is to make things happen. If you are playing defensively, however, your job is the opposite. You are trying to stop things happening, namely goals and serious chances of goals. An attacker has a good game if things happen; a defender has a good game if nothing happens. The defence wants a clean sheet, and with good reason. One of the many beauties of football is that a good defence is just as important for success as a good attack since the win depends not just on how many you score. The aim is to concede fewer.

  Space and place

  Football exhibits flux inside its space. But we need not accept that there is no fix
ed place within this space. Places are important too. Positions might be occupied only fleetingly, but they are still there and significant. Not every place on the field is unoccupied during the game, of course. Each player always has a position, even if it constantly changes. Everyone has to be somewhere, and that counts when you look to play a pass or are seeking to penetrate a massed defence. The empty spaces, too, have a position.

  When I say that places on a football pitch are significant, I am thinking of the areas and locations that seem to have special powers. Take the penalty area. A defensive foul committed here leads to a penalty kick and a high chance of a goal. The penalty spot itself has a particular significance since it is the scene of so much excitement, heartbreak and joy, not least at a penalty shoot-out. The centre circle excludes opponents at kick-off. The half-way line marks a boundary at which the offside rule applies, since no one can be offside in their own half. The corner quadrants mark a limit for the placement of balls at corners. The penalty arc excludes defenders at penalty kicks, allowing the taker an unimpeded run-up. Places count, and they count tactically too. Marcelo Bielsa emphasized winning the ball ‘high up the field’. It is more valuable to do so there than deeper into one’s own territory since the latter presents a risk of conceding, the former a chance of scoring.

  The most special place of all is the goal and its vicinity. Immediately in front, the ‘face’ of the goal, is the area of greatest crisis or opportunity, depending on your perspective. The defence protects it at all costs, sometimes employing a zonal marking system. In the extreme case, witness those occasions on which an indirect free kick is awarded in the penalty area and the whole defensive team occupies the line. See, too, the lengths to which any defensive player or keeper will go: throwing ‘their body on the line’ in order to keep out the ball. Though it is not strictly within the field of play, the space within the goal, between the line, posts and netting, becomes the most precious location on the whole field. It’s the sacred place the attack wants to penetrate; it’s the place regarded as a home base for the defence, even though it is but another empty space. Except for the usual goalkeeper’s towel, spare gloves and water bottle, one would think there is very little worth protecting in this enclosure, yet in the game situation it is everything. Many fans gather right behind the goal, even though such a vantage point provides a terrible view of the rest of the match. For some, it is worth the risk of missing almost everything else in return for the closest view of the ball hitting the net; and before the days of all-seater stadiums, it was common for fans to change ends at half time to be always close to the action that counts.

  Football pitches are themselves located in a space. The stadium contains a pitch but is much more than that, including the stands, the walkways, the turnstiles and exterior walls, towards which supporters feel an attachment. I confess to a feeling that Bramall Lane, my own stadium, has a boundary that creeps out beyond its own confines. When I walk along Shoreham Street, Baron Street or Bramall Lane itself, I am already in a special place. The thrills have already begun. I’ve sometimes been passing by when there was not a match on and still felt excited. It is not just that there is an advantage for Sheffield United when it plays at Bramall Lane. It is demonstrable statistically that the away side tends to do worse. Primarily, the place is special for the team and fans because it is a home from home.

  5

  Chance

  The ball is round

  Anything can happen in football. No one ever knows the result in advance as long as it is a fair game. There might very occasionally be some fixed games, but these seem the only cases where the score is pre-determined. In all other matches, the win is up for grabs. Even when the weakest team in a competition plays the strongest, we know that they still have a chance. This is sometimes considered the beauty of football. It can deliver surprises. The German coach Sepp Herberger said, ‘The ball is round, the game lasts 90 minutes … everything else is pure theory.’ Only a pedant would point out that, technically, the ball is spherical, since ‘round’ is more poetic here. Nor is this merely a claim about the shape of the ball, since the bounce of a round ball is easier to predict than that of an egg-shaped rugby ball. Herberger was saying that all we know in advance is the shape of the ball and the length of the game. After that, no one can predict anything with certainty since anything can happen.

  Why, though, think that unpredictability is desirable? One thing it means is that everyone has a chance. When the game kicks off, players and fans alike know that, no matter the circumstance, regardless of how out of form or in form their team might be, irrespective of how many star players are lining up against you, the result is still there to be fought over. Of course, a very weak side will have only a small chance of winning against a very strong side. But a small chance is still a chance. Crucially, the result depends only on what happens over the 90 minutes. Past records count for nothing. Unless a team performs well during that match, it can lose.

  There have been some great shock results in football, and these undoubtedly are part of the sport’s attraction. These historical results become part of the game’s mythos because they demonstrate that the unpredictability of the game is a fact. They act as a warning against complacency to any team taking its success for granted. From the other side, historical shocks serve as an inspiration for any underdog about to face a mighty team of stars.

  There are different kinds of shock results. We usually think of individual games, such as Mexico beating Germany in the 2018 World Cup. There can be bigger surprises than that, however, since Mexico were a very good side prior to that match. A bigger World Cup shock was the USA beating England in the 1950 World Cup, which no one saw coming. The English FA Cup randomly sets entrants against each other and any team can enter as long as its ground has floodlights. Each season there are cases of lowly ranked teams beating better adversaries. In 1987 the competition threw up one of the biggest shocks possible when the FA Cup holders, Coventry City, were beaten by amateur side Sutton United.

  More remarkable, however, are the surprise results we get of whole competitions, such as when Denmark (1992) and Greece (2004) became European champions. Of near-miraculous proportions was Leicester City’s Premier League win of 2016. At the start of the season, they were favourites to be relegated and odds of 5,000–1 were being offered for them to be champions. The Premier League was seen as increasingly about the wealth of the clubs and it was becoming uncompetitive. The ‘big six’ were dominating, since they could afford to buy the top players and were scooping up all the TV and Champions League money. Leicester’s triumph gave fresh hope to all other teams, in any level of any contest. It is a subjective judgement, but it was probably the most exciting Premier League season to that date. ‘Neutral’ supporters of other clubs got behind Leicester’s efforts, with the few exceptions of their immediate rivals in the closing weeks of the campaign.

  I can think of only one competition result that rivals Leicester’s win for shock value, which was ‘the Miracle of Bern’: West Germany’s first World Cup win in 1954. Outside of Germany, the passage of time has erased the extent of the surprise of this win. Germany had been reduced to rubble at the end of the war, just nine years before this tournament. In places, it still was little more than ruins and many Germans continued to struggle for basic nutrition. Reportedly, bookmakers were not even offering odds on West Germany winning the World Cup since they were clearly there just to make up the numbers. The world’s best team, everyone agreed, were Hungary, who got through to the Final against the Germans with relative ease. Even at this stage, no one expected a German win since Hungary had beaten them 8–3 in the group stage 14 days earlier. A foregone conclusion? In the Final itself, Hungary took a 2–0 lead after eight minutes. What chance a German victory at that point? That Germany won the game 3–2 is seen by many as the moment their post-war recovery really began. The team took the train back from Switzerland and when they crossed the border saw the new West German flag flying with pride
for the first time since the end of the Nazi era. The revival in spirit became an industrial recovery. This is still the greatest story in the history of football. The reason for that, at least in part, is that it is also the greatest surprise.

  Is unpredictability a flaw?

  The sense that football seems particularly susceptible to surprise results has some statistical backing. In 2009, the MIT Technology Review reported on a statistical analysis that seemed to bear this out. Work by Gerald Skinner and Guy Freeman had aimed to find how often the best teams won. They discovered an alarmingly high number of inconsistent triplets. Where team A beats team B, and team B then beats team C, you would expect team A to beat team C. Of the games they considered between three such opponents, however, they found that 17% of such triplets were inconsistent. Here is a real such example. In the closing weeks of the Premier League campaign of 2017–18, Manchester United won 3–2 away at Manchester City. It was an important game because City would have won the title with a victory (and they were 2–0 up at half time). The following week, Manchester United, second in the league, were at home to bottom-placed West Bromwich Albion. Now, a few weeks before, West Bromwich had lost 3–0 at Manchester City. Without much experience of football, someone might reason that Manchester United beats Manchester City, Manchester City beats West Bromwich, therefore Manchester United beats West Bromwich. However, this became a conspicuous inconsistent triplet as Albion beat United 1–0 and City won the title without even playing that day. Skinner and Freeman report this as a flaw of the sport. If results occurred as a matter of pure chance, 25% of such triplets would exhibit the inconsistent feature described. If, in reality, 17% of triplets are inconsistent, it suggests that the outcomes in football are little better than chance. There has been other work by Scott Kretchmar in the Journal of the Philosophy of Sport pointing to similar ‘game flaws’, with some suggestions as to how they could be rectified to give the best teams a better chance of winning.