Why are all football theories porbably wrong?
Updated: Dec 20, 2023
I will describe my dream to you.
An old-fashioned dim ballroom, a long meeting table of finely carved oak in the middle. The audience has gathered around the table to absorb the knowledge of the venerable guest speaker. The protagonist of the meeting is sitting across from me: the Expert. He is dressed in a very presentable suit, lightly shaven, a gentleman in his 60s, with a very rich sense of self-expression.
They mostly talk about football. Finally, the Expert outlines 3 main questions that need to be answered in order to improve the world of football (unfortunately, I have forgotten these 3 questions). When Mr. Expert had presented his questions and the room had become deafeningly quiet due to the audience's undivided attention, I decided to intervene.
"You didn't mention the fourth question" I say out loud. The rest of the audience together with the Expert drill me hard, there is great anticipation in the room. Could the Expert have really forgotten something? How is this possible? Only he knows the right questions and answers!
I confidently continue, "What IS a skill"? (emphasis on the word IS, referring to the skill as an object).
Everyone starts laughing around the table. I feel a slight discomfort, but to my surprise, I remain quite calm. One of the listeners shouts with tears of laughter: "Skill! Skill is not a THING!"
I wince and dream ends. Lying in bed, I go back and forth through the dream in my mind, trying to understand what it could all mean? What IS a skill?
In 2013, the well-known football educator Raymond Verheijen conducted his first course in Estonia. By that moment, I had already worked as a youth coach for a few years, but I was still quite "green" in terms of my knowledge and experience. Verheijen conducts his courses in a peculiar way, where the participants are like a team, his is the coach and the conference room is dressing room of this team. And as always in the team, each locker room has its own rules - some follow them with embarrassing precision, some don't.
Participating in Verheijen's courses, it quickly becomes clear that the bar set by him (as he likes to say) is quite high, and there are constantly situations where one or another coach drives it down or runs under it with great momentum. Every once in a while you will be shown a very critical mirror to find out how disciplined you are and how clear your understanding of your own theories is.
It is quite unexpected how vague the connections between our thoughts are and how little we really know about the things that are important to us. Since 2013, this unpleasant gap in consciousness and the sometimes accompanying feeling of embarrassment have motivated me to study and model football on a theoretical level, which would provide the most objective answers to various football questions.
Describing football through actions
There are various concepts in philosophy that deal with human activity. According to the action theory, "action" means purposeful action guided by a person's intention [1].
In 2004, Jan Tamboer published the book "Football Theory: An Action Theoretical Viewpoint on the Game of Football" in cooperation with Raymond Verhaijen and Bert Van Lingen, which describes football through the perspective of action theory. The same book was used as a basis for the creation of education content for the Dutch Football Association (KNVB) and has subsequently influenced the education systems of many football associations around the world.
According to the authors, the choice to conceptualize football through action theory was not accidental, because verbs help to clearly describe what is happening on the field, and this language of football actions facilitates well-structured and clear football-related conversations between coaches and players.
According to the football theory applied by Verheijen, what happens in the game should always be considered first at the team level and only then at the individual level. This is because, due to the characteristics and rules of the game, football is a team sport where the goal is to score at least one more goal than the opponents at the end of the game, i.e. "winning". And the game is won collectively.
Winning is the main intention of the game, which should guide the actions of all players playing the game. According to Verheijen, the statements that "winning is not important" and that "the main goal of the game in children's football is fun" can be misleading, because if the goal of the game is something other than winning, then football is not played, but football-like activities are engaged in.
At this point, it would not pay to confuse the will to win and the importance of victory. All players should want to win when playing. However, the importance of winning can vary according to the level of play, because the socio-economic benefits of winning and losing can vary greatly. In other words, similar to the game of chess, the main goal of football should not change regardless of the age and level of the player.
In order to achieve the main goal of the game, players have to perform various football actions such as "passing", "opening", "kicking", as well as "pressing", "defending", etc. All of these actions are divided by their primary team intent into attacking (scoring) and defending (preventing a goal).
Context matters
"Sprinting", i.e. running fast with all one's strength (ÕS, 2009), is possible on a running track, in the park, in the backyard or even on the roof of the house. "Sprinting" as a form of running is a basic action that, without context, has no major purpose other than to move forward faster [2].
Action | Environment | Action theory |
Opening | All the characteristic of football are present | Football action |
Sprinting | One or more football characteristics are missing | Basic action |
Lifting knee | Does not occur in interaction with its environment | Movement |
On the other hand, "opening" is a football action that can only be performed in the context of football and with the presence of certain characteristics (players, ball, pitch, goals/direction and football rules). For example, without football context, players do not train the opening, but the opening-like action or simply running faster. "Sprinting" can be a part of "opening" at the basic action level, but "sprinting" cannot be the same as "opening", because opening as a football action involves much more than just running fast.
Intermission
The transfer of skill from one environment to another is a long-standing debate in the sports world. At the heart of this discussion is the question of whether skills acquired in a particular context (for example athletics) can be effectively transferred and applied in another (for example football).
The transferability of skills is often classified into two categories: near transfer and far transfer [3]. Near transfer refers to the application of skills in a context that is very similar to the original setting in which the skill was acquired, while far transfer involves the application of skills in a situation that is significantly different.
Skills that are closely related to specific perceptual and motor processes in a given context may not transfer effectively. For example, the highly specific and closed movement skills of a sprinter may not find direct application in the multi-directional and multi-decision environment of football. However, with "sprinting" and "opening up", basic components such as explosiveness or reaction time may carry over to some extent.
It should be noted here that the transferability of a skill is not binary (yes/no) but significantly more complex. Although sprint training can be accompanied by football training and vice versa, the expectation that the transferability of the skill is high is not realistic due to contextual differences.
Characteristics of football action
According to Raymond Verheijen's theory, football action consists of three distinct but not separable components, which are chronologically arranged as follows:
I. Communicating (exchange of information)
II. Deciding (what & how)
III. Executing
Communication is how a player receives (perceives) and transmits information to other players and the environment. Coaches create a tactical framework for the team, which helps players playing in the same team perceive situations in a similar way and operate on a common "wavelength". The more there are different interpretations of game situations within the team, the greater the probability that each other's intentions are not understood and team actions are less effective.
Game insight of the player helps him to choose the appropriate action according to the information and intention, and from which position, moment, direction and speed to perform this action. Since in a football game one action chases the other, there is generally no time for longer reflection and the decision has to be made without much awareness.
"I don't plan or anticipate my play.
I do everything through instinct. "
- Lionel Messi
Finally, the player tries to execute his decision from the desired position, moment, direction and speed. In football, the player uses his football technique to do this, which can vary a lot depending on the player (I also discussed this in the post about football player's running technique).
Chaos becomes order
Verheijen is able to describe complex cognitive and physiological knowledge in the language of football, taking the characteristics of the game as a starting point. This approach increases the likelihood that the knowledge gained is applicable and practical for coaches and other football people.
His theories are generally science-based or based on conditional logics ("if this, then that"). His ideas create a clear and logical framework for conceptualizing and teaching football, and they allow analysis and evaluation of football actions with methodical consistency. In his own words, he tries to make football education as objective as possible.
But this assumption is problematic because football cannot be confined to a single theory or perspective. Football can be studied and analyzed from different perspectives such as psychology, sociology, anthropology, philosophy, etc. Each perspective highlights different aspects of football and creates its own objectivity.
Also, Verheijen's theories are often oversimplifications of a very complex reality, where the person himself is a very complex phenomenon and our science still does not have a consensus on how the human brain really works [4]. Humans are unspeakably complex and connected to systems that are in turn unspeakably complex. We are known to be one of the most complex phenomena in the entire universe, and we will most likely never know exactly what or who we are [5]. Therefore, studying a person (or football) is brave and interesting, but also an endless and hopeless endeavor.
Players deciding process (based on Raymond Verheijen's describtion)
And order becomes chaos again
In all likelihood, in a few decades, many of the facts we know today will either be outdated or disproven (thanks AI, quantum computing, and human intelligence). At the same time, these true and less true facts are still tools for functioning in the world, and even a bad tool can be a helper for its user. Since the world is full of chaos, according to Jean Piaget, the creator of the theory of cognitive development, it is wiser to play at least one game of life with clear rules than none of them (and there are a million different games to choose from). Any chosen model or theory helps to deal with the complexity of this world by bringing some order to the chaos.
Without a frame of mind, you are in an uncontrollable vortex of disorder. However, if you have a framework (order) that you stick to without any compromises or changes, it will eventually lead you to totalitarianism (the framework becomes your identity and ideology).
Taoism teaches that the world and life are always in a constant state of change, and understanding and going with this change is the main purpose of life. "Being" means to be constantly on a journey where chaos and order exist in harmony, and constant change is an important part of this journey. People create concepts, models, and worldviews for themselves—they are like the maps we use to navigate our way through life. However, it is important to remember that these maps are not identical to the real territory [6]. Life is constantly changing and open, so it is wise to be open and adaptable yourself, finding a balance between chaos and order.
This philosophical mindset can also be extremely valuable in teaching football, as it helps coaches understand the dynamics of the game and be open to different perspectives and the constant change that is the nature of football and life. "Being" always means being on a journey where people can learn and grow, realizing that the maps we use will never fully identify with reality.
So is skill a THING? From a scientific point of view, we treat the world objectively and objectifying, as if we live in a world of unchanging and separately observed and measured objects, but we do not act like that. Paradoxically, we attribute a value incomprehensible to science to various phenomena, behave incomprehensibly irrationally in various situations, and create a non-nihilistic meaning for our "being".
What IS a skill?
I honestly don't know, but let's find out!
References:
[1] Honderich, Ted (2005). "Action". The Oxford Companion to Philosophy. Oxford University Press
[2] Danto, A. C. (1979). Basic Actions and Basic Concepts. The Review of Metaphysics, 32(3), 471–485. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20127224
[3] Kassai, R., Futo, J., Demetrovics, Z., & Takacs, Z. K. (2019). A meta-analysis of the experimental evidence on the near- and far-transfer effects among children’s executive function skills.Psychological Bulletin, 145(2), 165–188. https://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000180
* The "Theories of Raymond Verheijen" described in the post are my interpretation of the information obtained from his various books and courses
** You can get more information about R. Verheijen's activities: https://www.fcevolution.com/
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