There is definitely an alternative way

Analytic philosophy vs Continental philosophy

Colonization — Industrialization — Machine

Between 1492 and 1914, Europeans conquered 84% of the Earth’s territory. Some theories say that Europe achieved its great influence on the rest of the world solely through the initiating and developing an industrialization. However, the facts show that Europe already controlled more than 35% of the Globe even before an industrialization even started, so the absolute truth of this theory is not the most authoritative one.

Although the Chinese were the first to create firearms, which were also used both in South Asia and Japan for some time before arriving in Europe, firearms and the production of gunpowder had by far the greatest influence in Europe, mainly due to the European economic and political models that implied high tax rates which the Europeans paid to the supreme state authorities. This allowed the states and their monarchs or sovereigns to spend huge sums of money on investing in war equipment, improving the production of weapons and gunpowder, which, as a result, has been later used in a large number of wars. By dominating weapons, the Europeans managed to subdue many territories, thus expanding their influence throughout the Globe.

Another major factor in the spread of European influence was the global system of goods exchange that the Europeans initiated. To a large extent, it was based on the domination of sea routes, the transportation of goods across seas and oceans, since history has established that Europeans were excellent sailors. In this way, through decades and centuries, Europeans became close with dominating large areas, spreading their influence and transferring it to other territories and people.

For an example, by the middle of the 18th century, the English, as the most influential ones, founded thirteen colonies on American soil, where about 2.5 million people lived. After a certain time since the discovery of America, it was the English who began to settle it in large numbers and gradually subjugate it, at the same time exploiting its values. England saw its colonies as a safe market for its goods and a large raw material area for the needs of the booming industry. The main economic branches in the colonies were mining, crafts and goods exchange in the Northern colonies, as well as manufacturing plantations in the Southern ones.

For the English, their development of the textile industry and cotton production, it was the Southern colonies on American soil that were of great importance. During the 1790s, the English brought the cotton to Europe for the first time. The beginning of the machine industry was also extremely important in developing technologies related to the textile industry, since the first obstacle for the English was that the raw cotton had to be constantly cleaned before being used. Eli Whitney from New England (British North American colony) solved that problem with his machine created for quick cotton seeds removing; it was a process that required more than a day of active work before the machine was invented. Its development encouraged further advances in technology and machine industry related to textile production, which led to the mass cultivation of cotton in America, which the English used later.

Major turning point in mechanic engineering and manufacturing also came from Britain — since that during the 18th century machines depended on waterpower, James Watt’s invention of the steam engine (1781) marked a turning point in mechanical engineering and further technological development. On the basis of a large number of mines and huge amounts of coal reserves, the English took over the dominance of the world market in that aspect, as well.

Thus, the machine gradually became an irreplaceable life factor, but, over the time, also a way of thinking — viewing things through the prism of automation, a clear structure and a process that ultimately brings products, benefits and therefore results. The machine operates according to rationalized pattern and defined rules that it constantly follows and by which it constantly produces similar or identical things in large quantities.

The influence of the science and philosophy

For years and we can say it now for decades, we’ve witnessed the standardization, which is only one segment of the theory of Analytic Philosophy, a school of thought based on logic and rationality, that is, such a way of thinking and conceptualizing things. It seems that football, as a global element imbued with sociocultural context, but also with science influence that can’t bypass it in any way, fell under the influence of Logical Positivism — a homogenized and generalized view of things based on unified opinion, rigidity, structuredness and definiens. The founders of Logical Positivism, members of the Vienna Circle (among whom, it’s turned out, the most prominent were the philosophers Rudolf Carnap and Hans Reichenbach) were, among other things, experts in the domains of mathematics, logic, natural and social sciences. They were intellectuals and scientists from spheres which are based on the empiricism — rational principles, scientifically proven and confirmed views that do not exceed the limits of the provable… a view based on the empiricism leads towards scientific, that is, a scientific method based on measurability and definiens.

Provability and scientific foundation are what preserved the principles of Logical Positivism over time, but also what made it widespread in the roots of society. Forms of Analytic Philosophy and Logical positivism, in various forms and spheres, were becoming contextualized and interpreted in their own way. Scientism as an element of the scientific method is one of the main characteristics of Logical Positivism and Analytic Philosophy — the key things of the scientific method are empirical and measurable records, which say that everything can be proven, measured, dimensioned and rationalized.

Resistance to the grounded and especially to the scientifically-provable is not that easy— as a result, the progression of the Analytic Philosophy ideology was almost inevitable. One of this ideology protagonists, Rudolph Carnap, otherwise an author of very famous works, such as “The Logical Structure of the World”, was very important in spreading this ideological view to the world — his struggle for rational, logical explanation and defined stances, Carnap also led against one of the most prominent representatives of Continental philosophy — Martin Heidegger — whose postulates were significantly different.

Carnap believed that all metaphysical stances are actually pseudo-stances that have been proven by logical analysis to be empty phrases, that is, phrases that usurp expressions that have been formed and defined. On the other hand, Heidegger rejected those formed and defined stances as necessarily correct ones, struggling against the fact that only what is the product of logical rationality is true.

The first outlines of football revolution in Europe

In the previous part, we said that the Analytic Philosophy of the 20th century believed that:

Scientism as an element of the scientific method is one of the main characteristics of Logical Positivism and Analytical Philosophy — the key things of the scientific method are empirical and measurable records, which say that everything can be proven, measured, dimensioned and rationalized.

What is provable, measured, dimensioned and rationalized can be the assembly of a unique system. A system is an assembly of an organization. Regardless of how amateur football was still during the 19th century, people believed that football, as a phenomenon, could progress only by being more organized. Science and the scientific method thus gained their breakthrough in football over time. During the early 19th century in Britain, in addition to football, other sports were also popular and developed — like cricket. It was precisely the term “scientific” that was firstly used in relation to cricket, back in 1833.

Science derives from and depends on rules, internal or external. Perhaps the biggest impact on the changes, development and implementation of science in football was the offside rule changing, which generalized certain laws and indirectly influenced teams to be forced to use a greater number of short passes, thus changing the direct, chaotic and transitional game to an increasingly combinative one. The first-established football clubs in England, Sheffield FC, Royal Engineers, Queen’s Park, Cambridge University, Forest FC, each for themselves, dictated their own rules of the game and therefore also the offside rules. The rules were not generalized and the first outlines of the defined game laws itself, which should have been observed by a greater number of clubs, were brought by John Charles Thring, whose thoughts on football (explained in the piece “The Field”) were written in the text “The Simplest Game’’, which came out in 1862 and, among other things, talked about potential offside rules. The British FA adopted his initial ideas about the offside rule in 1863, which were the first universal offside rules in England. They were later changed and expanded, while those processes continue to this day.

Lancashire as a source of scientific and systematic football

Lancashire, NW England, near to Scotland border, first half of the 19th century. The Dragley Beck hamlet, the townland of Ulverston (which derives its name from the Scandinavian influence in that part of Britain), county Cumbria. In that part of England, the term “scientific” was firstly used in the context of football during 1839. From the so-called “scientific football”, as it was then popularly called while the game was in the transitional and developing phase, the famous British “Combination Game” was born — a style and game orientation based on cooperation, teamwork and mutual passing between players in longer time intervals. “Scientific football” and “Combination game” are the forerunners of modern combinatory football style. The very name “Combination Game” came from the man who’s invented the oldest football competition which still does exist — the FA Cup —> Charles Alcock.

He said: ‘’Nothing works better than what I call a game of combinations.’’ By “Combination Game”, he considered “The process of following a teammate who has the ball at his feet, in order to help him, if necessary, by taking the ball if the teammate is attacked or prevented from continuing”.

Charles Alcock thought it was very important to help the player with the ball by having him surrounded by teammates that he could use for combinations or to eventually get out of trouble.

The football that captivated the World

Jimmy Hogan

The fact that Lancashire was of immense importance for the history of football was also confirmed by October 1882, when perhaps the most influential revolutionary in the history of football, Jimmy Hogan, was born in Nelson.
Short playing career, but an impact on the game he made through a coaching job that has gone into eternity.
At the end of the first decade of the 20th century (1910), Hogan was invited by the Dutch club Dordrecht to work on improving the fitness and technical segments of the team, but also to implement the “Combination Game”. The Dutch FA itself was fascinated with his ideas, so they appointed him to take a charge of the national team in the friendly match against Germany. With that, Hogan took a big initial step in transferring the English ideology to Dutch football.
Hogan was decorated with an extraordinary ideological influence that he had on the players he coached, as well as on the people he worked with. The career took him to Austria, specifically Vienna, from which the war took him out. However, he went to another Danube-lying city — Budapest. Hogan spread his influence throughout Central Europe, he influenced the creation of the dominant Hungarian MTK, which in that period was probably one of the best European teams. He made relations with some historically extremely important coaches (Izidor ‘’Dori’’ Kürschner, Hugo Meisl…), but he also influenced the formation of the famous Austrian “Wunderteam”, as well as the Hungarian “Light Cavalry”, i.e. the “Golden Team” from 1950s.

What is most significant for the history of world football — Jimmy Hogan influenced the formation of the widely known Danube School of football; a period and thinking direction ideologically inspired by the ideas of Jimmy Hogan, which marked the dominance of coaches and clubs from Vienna, Budapest and Prague, and which was based on the game of short passes, cooperation, possession, control of the game through constant movement, as well as fluidity. The coach of one of the best football teams in the history of the game, the Hungarian national team from the 1950s, Gusztáv Sebes, once said:

“We played football as Jimmy Hogan taught us. When our football history is told, his name should be written in gold letters.

Sándor Barcs, former president of the UEFA and the Football Association of Hungary spoke similarly: “Jimmy Hogan taught us everything we know about football.”

The English influence on the “Total” and “Absolute” in football

Not only Lancashire was historically important for football, considering that some revolutionary football names also came from Yorkshire… One of the historically important Yorkshiremen is Herbert Chapman, who, during the 1920s, caught the wave of improving football as a game, thus becoming one of the pioneers in defining football on the basic phases of the game (attacking organization, transition from attack to defense, defensive organization and transition from defense to attack), with which he introduced the first football formation defined in a collective form (WM, 3–2–2–3). However, most importantly — he defined and oriented his game according to space and positions. The roles and tasks of each individual were oriented towards the space that the idea was to dominate.

In the country of great football ideological changes and inventions, the Netherlands, the first registered football match was organized by the English in 1865, when textile industry workers played against members of the British delegation in The Hague.
Jimmy Hogan’s influence was also indirectly great in spreading the ideology across the Netherlands. One of his students, Jozef Blum, in the period between 1935–1938 was a coach in Strasbourg, where he was coaching Vienna-born Karl Humenberger. Humenberger absorbed the influence of Josef Blum and later spread the roots of Hogan’s ideology to the Netherlands after taking over Ajax, which would turn out to be one of the most important clubs in the history of football.

Although the roots of Jimmy Hogan’s English ideology in Ajax came in the form of Humenberger, the English coaches were ones who directly influenced Ajax’s historic ideological rise. Some of them were working on ideological implementation even before the arrival of Karl Humenberger. Probably the most important and influential one was Jack Reynolds (another Lancashire-born coach) who led Ajax on two occasions, but who is also considered to be one of the most important people in the development of spatially dominant football based on fluidity, short passes, combinations and defined spaces. He was also one of the pioneers of many training principles and methods that had not been seen in the Netherlands until then. His influence was the basis for the later development of Ajax, the club that was founded in 1900, and which, until 1941, was not led by a single Dutchman as a coach! Until 1941, there were only British coaches — an Irishman, Jack Kirwan, who was the first coach in the history of the Dutch club, and later, until Wim Volkers, who was the first Dutchman to be a coach at Ajax, as many as four English coaches were sitting on the bench of the ‘’Amsterdammers’’. One of the most historically significant English coach of Ajax was Vic Buckingham, who stayed on the bench until the arrival of Rinus Michels, on whom he had a great influence and whose work and ideological basis Michels wanted to upgrade. The impact that the English ideology left on Ajax was of historical importance, as evidenced by the fact that after Vic Buckingham finished his second span as Ajax coach (1965), from that moment until today, no English coach has led Ajax. From Rinus Michels implementing English idea of football, the Netherlands absorbed the influence and later implemented it in its football culture.

Michels wanted to modify and establish the ideology of the English pioneers of absolute spatial football, also relying on Dutch classical architecture and painting that valued manipulation of space, obsession with rational precision and symmetry of objects.

Rebellious style — “Total City”

Even in the distant past, Amsterdam as a city was modeled after the expressionist architecture, according to which the industrial city was supposed to become a kind of a masterpiece. The city plan was conceptualized in a specific way and the idea was based on the expression of the feelings of its citizens, who were rebels in that time.
The basic premise was space, that is, the manipulation and domination of spaces, in order to make the most out of them and to show the feelings of all the individuals who lived there with their symmetry and regularity. The idea was called “Total City” and during the 20th century, a similar theme appeared in Amsterdam, which they wanted to finally be implemented. The key word in the plans for the reconstruction and redesigning of Amsterdam was ‘‘orderliness’’, since there was an idea that spaces must be rationally and properly exploited, while also being integrated into the concept. The concept implied the maximum use of space and its dominance and the very appearance of the integrated objects according to the “Total City” concept represents unified and collaborative art — the idea was that the artistic impression does not represent an individual object, nor that certain segments conceptually protrude, but that all objects follow a concept that would unite them into a whole that would express the artistic impression they wanted to achieve.

However, the Dutch ideology of “Total Football” is far better known to the world than the ideology of “Total City”.
In the essential and constructive sense, they do not differ too much, given that the main idea of the “Total Football” is based on rationality, maximum, disciplined exploitation and filling of spaces and so-called spaciousness — that is, controlling the largest and widest possible dimensions of matters, as well as dominance of structure and rationalized entities that lead to collaboration and the effect of beauty of what is the product of such a construction. In a figurative sense — the Dutch wanted to transfer the way of creating the “Total City” to football.

‘’Order feeds spontaneity’’

In rational and logic-oriented ideology, order means arrangement and precise determinations. According to this way of thinking, for something to be orderly, it should be arranged in a planned manner, and it should keep the places assigned to it so that order is always present. According to Rationalism in structuring, in order for something to be arranged somewhere, it must have its own location, that is, its own space.

Thus, “Total Football” and “Total City” are based on the unit of space which is considered to be a dimensionally limited entity that is empty and into which certain things can be placed. Space is considered as static entity that is strategically exploited and that is a reference in relation to things we know. Given that “Total Football” sees space as a static reference, this resulted in the sectorization of football pitches, i.e. the zoning of the game…

“Most people believe that there is only zonal defending, but that is not true: there is also zonal attacking. When your attackers are away from the ball, waiting for it to arrive after a series of events and actions, it is a zone attack — zone by zone. We call it a positional attack, but in reality, it’s zonal attack. The point is not to go for the ball, but to wait for it to come to a certain zone.’’ — Pep Guardiola.

In order for the deployment to be as precise, analytically determined and purposeful as possible, the zoning of the pitch tended to establish an order according to which each player would be assigned a sector to fill and which would lead to maximum efficiency. In order for the effect of dominating different areas of the pitch to come to the fore, it became necessary to wait in the areas, even in moments when the ball is far from the player. If the filling of pre-determined zones were violated, the order of the organization would also be violated and destroyed, and this, according to the rational ideology of “Total Football”, lead to unwanted chaos.

As Juanma Lillo once said, in this ideology, the players should not be oriented towards the ball sector, but rather wait for the ball to arrive in the area designated for them so that they can influence the decisive move… The ball goes to the zones, and not the players to the ball.

I like to say that rational and so-called regular sectorization is actually a method that forces opponents to react to spaces, and then to the players which occupy them. That’s why I consider zonally determined football as a football with a zonal radius within static spaces. The player has a limited radius of action within its own zone, due to which dominates the space intended for him and within which he has his maximum range of movement that would maintain predetermination and would not violate order and structure.

One of the key segments of dominating the pitch as much as possible is the spaciousness, i.e., the distance between two points that includes the entities that influence the space exploitation (opponent, teammate, ball). Spaciousness, in my opinion, can be maximal (at the level of the entire team) and defined by the farthest points horizontally and vertically, as well as specific spaciousness, which refers to the spaciousness between two players and includes all entities (obstacles and supporting factors) that are present during transferring the ball from point A to point B.

In order to maximize the effect of placements within the zones, i.e. for the team to spread out more easily on the pitch, the factor of position — the condition in which something or someone is in relation to something else and in relation to the space, was increasingly important. Looking at things in this way, we come to the conclusion that the position is also a static entity, i.e. that it’s also determined, defined and that it primarily relates to something, and only then with something.

The Positional approach thus makes it clear that the space is the primary reference in relation to Time and speed, given that ideology conceptualizes the space as well as an absolute theory does, according to which the space exists independently of any object or state.

Positionist ideology is a football representative of Analytic Philosophy, and one of its most important philosophers, Rudolf Carnap, clearly defined the determinants that characterize this ideology model:

The principles of Analytic Philosophy, in its conceptualization and construction, were taken over and adopted by the idea of Positionism, i.e. football ideology based on the dominance of spaces and rationally determined zones:

• logical definition (spreading over the pitch)
• scientific rationalization (sectorizing the pitch)
• conceptualization and abstraction (dimensioning)
• rigidity (strictness in occupying the zones)
• precision, definition, stability (immutability, static, separation with certain distances)

Spatial determinism

Control is probably one of the most important concepts in the history of mankind, so in football as well. It enables the reduction of unpredictability, chaos, but it can also have a very favorable influence on the Future possibilities… The Positionist ideology wanted to use its understanding of the space in order to rationalize and define the static entity, which would make the space determined and thus acquire its own dimensions that can be subsequently exploited. In this way, the Positionist ideology made space as a premise of determinism, i.e., a reference and an entity whose dimensions are used in planning, because it is believed that by dominating and rationalizing space as a static and defined matter, Future possibilities can be determined, that is, events can be determined.

As control is one of the most important concepts among people, determinism is also one of the things that people like to control the most, because they think that it can enable them to dominate not only what is happening now, but also what will happen in the future. In order to control something, it must be static, defined and rationalized, because that is the only way for something to be predictable and thus subjected to manipulations. Such a belief of deterministic ideology originates from the theory that future events can arise and be derived only from what is known to be “real”.

Just like that, the famous Russian neurologist, physiologist and psychologist, Ivan Petrovich Pavlov, winner of the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1904, who became famous during his lifetime for the discovery of social conditioning that he established in some of his experiments with dogs, once said:

“The proposed, suggested behavior can be predicted and controlled, since we operate in a certain universe where everything is controlled by antecedent causes. By manipulating the environment, behavior can be changed.’’

His statement refers to an ideology that says that our actions and all events are the result of scientific laws, which means that all choices and decisions are determined by the situation that immediately preceded them. Etymologically, determinism is just that — the philosophical teaching that everything that exists is connected by cause-and-effect relationships, material or immaterial in nature. Determinism leads to idealism, i.e. attempts to exert external influence on events in order to create interpretations that are perfect, pre-planned, defined and designed in advance. Idealism is omnipresent in football, it’s reflected in patternization, training situations that are determined and imagined to be mirrored and performed in the real time of the game and that come as an external form — they are imposed as suggested behavior.

The development of determinism and idealism in football brought very important elements of these ideologies into the game — reducing free will and out of the context behavior.

Space and Time — Positionism

“Total football is, above all, a matter of distance and positioning. It’s the basis of all tactical thinking. If you have the right distance and position, everything falls into the place.’’ — Johan Cruyff

The pitch sectorizing was largely aimed at determining optimal distances, considering that the planned layouts between each zone of the pitch clearly enabled the team to connect within their mutual zonal distances, but also, due to the way it was deployed by sectors, to spread on larger area of the pitch, thus dominating the space.

“Total football” and its later iterations (mostly related to Pep Guardiola’s Positional revolution) over time became production machines that, with their ideology of dominating static spaces and dimensionally limited entities within them, managed to control the physical environment and thus enable players to correlate. Cooperation, collective player actions and acceleration occur from predetermined spaces, given that the Positional approach believes that controlling space will create situations for well-timed actions.

From my point of view, in football, Time is an expression of an interval and speed of interactions with the elements that define the location. The elements are:

• obstacles, limitations — opponents;
• support and cooperation — teammate;
• usable assets — ball, surrounding space and the distance

Precisely because Time is an alive and organic thing, the relation between the distance and Time is not necessarily proportional. Distance is an element of spatiality, although it is a variable thing, it is not a complex system; it’s a static reference — as opposed to Time. You will not always cover a certain distance in a certain time interval, which depends on speed, obstacles, group and collective help (support and cooperation), usable assets and the way you want to get from point A to point B.
If we were to say that Time and distance in football are necessarily proportional, we would indirectly say that football is deterministic game, while the Time is a linear and unchangeable reference that does not depend on context and an environment.

Although they are not necessarily proportional units, Time and the distance are very often in mutual cooperation, considering that the distance is one of the elements that affects the control of Time and the duration of a certain process. Taking into account the mentioned defined distances and the distances between players that lead to the dominance of space, in the Positionist ideology, Time is mainly expressed through Timing, that is, the expression for reaction within Time and moment, which signifies acting from space in terms of changing the speed of an action or selecting the next possible one.

Limited spatiality does not allow an individual to dominate Time, but rather favors well-timed actions and reactions, as well as play acceleration from the space. Partly due to distancing and spacing. The distances are longer, the passing lines as well, and an aim is to connect determined spaces which are occupied by players, very often under a trained body angle that does not allow them to have long individual time sequences on the ball. In order to achieve the benefit of positioning and mutual distances between players, as well as for the attack to take place in zonal way, in Positionism, Time is approached reactively in order to obtain timeliness of actions derived from the space.

Timeliness of demarcating moves, re-adapting position for appearing on the passing line, timeliness of zonal pre-rotations, timeliness of body positioning in order to speed up the play from the designated space. In this way, spaces and distances are connected and a collaboration between them is created to produce interactions based on spaces and well-timed actioning from them.

In order for timeliness from dominating the spaces to be achievable, the zonal attack needs a rational and symmetrical space occupation, so that the possibility of connecting for the sake of interactions can constantly exist. The repeatedly mentioned determinism is a very important part of the Positionism, given that the very method of rational and symmetrical deployment of zones on the pitch is deterministic, that is, it allows the player in each zone to have clear solutions if the spaces are adequately occupied. Precisely because of this, the years of development of the Positional approach led to homogenization and standardization which was gradually globalized; premises, ideas and solutions differ in the details, but they originate and are based on the same ideology. Yet…

“People are not excited by what is frequent” or in Latin: “Ab assuetis non fit passio”

Space → Place -> Time:

Place — Approximationism — Interactionism

We found out that in the Positional approach, the static and defined space is categorized as the same reference value as the ball, teammate and an opponent, which are in constant motion. However, do the players themselves see and feel the space like that? Certainly not.

Considering that in motion, under constant pressure and emotional discharge, players process information about where and in what condition the ball is, where and in what circumstances their teammates are, as well as where they are in relation to the opponents, at the same time using their intuition, an experience based on training or previously-experienced situations, the perception of what is happening, in accordance to which they move as fluidly as possible, which leads to non-conceptualized, non-identical or simply flexible and uncertain situations. Players feel space as a product of their own interactions with the ball, teammates, opponents and Time; their mind recognizes space when one of their referent matters is displaced in relation to the another.

It was Luciano Spalletti, the coach of the current first-placed Serie A team, Napoli, who said:

“There are no tactical schemes anymore. The spaces are no longer between the lines, but among players. The skill is in finding them.’’

If the rigid Positionist theory claims that in addition to the three fluid and constantly moving reference points (ball, teammate, opponent), one of the initiators of the football game can be viewed as static matter such as Positionist ideology sees space, Luciano Spalletti, with this quote, defined that those spaces actually exist and derive between the players and that the space is alive, organic matter.
As a result, according to an alternative conceptualization, space represents matter created through controlling space, but not by static occupation, but by interactions, relationships and connection of people with the physical environment, nearby reference points and the space. According to the philosophy of Martin Heidegger, the German philosopher, such an organic and interactively created area is defined as a Place (Place, not Space), and the concept by which it arises in the Continental Philosophy is called reciprocal opening (cooperation and interaction with the space).
As such, a Place is a matter that depends on relations, and the theory of Relationism talks about the world and events that are not defined and prepared (determined and structured), but found, that is, created as a product of interactions, even though a certain space or area is the basis that allows us to think about things that can be found through relational processes…

“The bringing-together of structures, matter and space leads to wholes through which the Place could be revealed to offer hidden possibilities for further human interaction…”

Space conceptualized in this way has no dimensions and no limits. Its limits are within the limits of interactions, but the basis of all interactions is about connectiveness and the basis of connectiveness is in relations that are physically expressed through distance.

Approximationism — relation between the Distance and Time

If, in Positionist ideology, we are talking about connecting certain zones in order to initiate interactions, are we then talking about an interaction as a rationalized process that is a consequence of the quality determination of the game and proper actions within separated spaces?

From my point of view, connectivity and Interactionism are inversely proportional to distance and proportional to Time. By shortening mutual distances, i.e. approximations, the connection between individuals is increased as well as the possibility of their mutual interaction, but the time required for cooperation is automatically shortened.

Approximationism, as such, allows the control and dominance over Time, considering that it places mutual distances in the function of the group and allows connections on short distances that affect the interval and speed of interaction with the physical environment, i.e. space, opponent, ball and teammates. The shorter the distance is, the more pronounced the connectiveness, and this is also shown by the sociological representation of Interactionism:

What else does this interactionist graph can show us?

Perhaps the fact that Approximationism is inversely proportional to rational positioning, i.e. that spatial regularity and determinism negatively affect connections and mutual group cooperations. On the right picture, group no. 2, the matters are connected in a more or less rational rectilinear, vertical line, but their connections are weaker, why?

Because the distances between the individual parts of the group are longer due to symmetry — different heights are occupied due to a more rational layout, the group of units dominates a larger space, i.e. they’re stretched over larger area, but the mutual connections between the group members are far weaker than in group 1, on the left picture. The distance between the two most distant points of group 1 is short and reduced, their arrangement is not rational, but they are extremely connected by the concept of Approximationism. The very expressiveness of the connections can be shown to a good extent by the distance between the two most distant points; if they are connected, the connectiveness of the group can be much more pronounced.

The basis of the Interactionism concept is exactly about that. According to the theory, Interactionism is the social process of interactions between individuals in a certain connected group. The behavior of the group can’t be considered on the basis of isolated individuals that make it up, but on the basis of their complex activities they’re performing as a group. Individual behavior can only be analyzed by the group context, which, according to the theory, can be determined by three variables:

• Individual personality structure
• Function, role
• Reference group

Accordingly, the principles of functions and actions in different reference groups can be dissimilar, in order for the approximation approach to get an outline of functionality. In order to adapt the functions to the collective model, it is important to define areas of approximations, functions and individual actions in relation to the reference group. If we take the repeatedly mentioned distance as a parameter, it tells us about the distance between two points, locations or two matters. The distance between the primary points, A and B, in my thinking, in an alternative football conceptualization mean:

• A — (player or) reference group location — location where the ball is or the reference group location
• B — (player or) location that at a given moment does not interact with the reference group closest to the ball

The basic distance between locations and points A and B can be defined by the mutual distance:

Nevertheless, here, we can see the difference in the ideological conceptualizations of the Positionism and Approximationism. The isolated observation of distances implies a static understanding that would imply that the distance is proportional to Time, and I believe that this is not necessarily the case.

Approximationism leads to the creation of space (the Place) through interactions with space, teammates, but also with opponents and the ball. If we consider that all these moving and collaborative matters are factors that are between points A and B, then we come to a clear conclusion that the process of bringing the ball from one location to another is complex and interactional in its nature.

According to alternative conceptualization, the first way of bringing the ball to location B can be through the process of arranging secondary options between points A and B, so that through the dominance of Time and interactions, the ball will be brought to a point or location that at a given moment is not part of the interactionist process of the reference group.

If the distance between A and B is insurmountable, the approximation of other points unites a connected group and creates relations that, through dominating time, can dominate the ball and lead it to the location B:

Exploit points C, D, E, F, G, H, I to get the ball between A and B

Time Domination — creating space through mutual interactions, arranging options that could connect the location of the ball and the location closest to the target point B:

Just as the Place, an interactively created matter, has no limits or dimensions, Approximationism does not know for static spaces or dimensional limitations when forming relations and cooperation. In addition to representing the final point itself, location B can also represent the next matter that can be interacted with and thus create a level of cooperation necessary to bring the ball to the final situations of realization.

However, as according to the alternative ideological determinant, approximations and dominance over Time are the primary things and locations are not static and fixed entities, the roles of players outside the reference group can also be flexible in order to put the function of interactions that could bring the ball to the sector closest to the goal on a primary place. For Approximationism, locations are just one matter which interactions are made with, and someone who has stayed there or came into it from some previous interaction, can equally participate in interacting with the location.

Interactions are continuous, but they can also be different — group, combinative, with optimal speed and Time control, etc. In the moments of connecting points A and B, when the location of point B is emptied, after the ball is brought to it, it can be used either for new combinative interactions, or for a change of speed and a different type of cooperation with space, the opponent(s) and the ball.

Talking about working with Julian Nagelsmann (at RB Leipzig), Spanish player Dani Olmo described his understanding of an Approximationism in very interesting way:

“Here [in this game model] we associate/interact more, we try to rely on each other, to give more speed to the game. If we open up in space, we play as fast as the coach wants. That’s why we want to get together as much as possible, almost like in futsal, as much as possible. If the space is smaller, it is better because we give better circulation of the ball. You attract more rivals, but for that you have to be ready to play under pressure. If you manage to do that, the spaces that open up are bigger and you progress with more depth.’’

The situation below, with Real Madrid’s Carlo Ancelotti as an example, perfectly illustrates the elements described by Dani Olmo.

Connecting makes everyone happy.”

In order for interactions and connections to be successful, it’s necessary to synchronize concepts and movements, to teach players to understand and recognize situations and their needs, to understand how to dominate Time, and consequently the ball and Places. In order for this to be feasible, concepts and principles must be directed in such a way as to value and favor approximations, interactions, creativity, freedom of individual and group time, as well as no limitations in the perception of solutions to certain situations.

The system must value an individual

According to the general theory, tactics are a set of principles and concepts created to help players and get the best out of them. However, ‘’the best’’ in traditional ideology implies the more expedient and what’s needed from the individual for the sake of the functioning of the collective idea and system.

In a relatively short time, I’ve spent as a coach, through the provided information and Positional tactical-ideological guidelines, I was increasingly overwhelmed by the impression that football players, the most important part of football are becoming less and less happy in the system in which they function, even while they’re still in the youth categories. One gets the impression that, as they were growing and coming closer to their dreams to become realized, they were increasingly deprived of the possibility to interpret and perceive the game, events and its needs exclusively in their own way. Their freedom is limited by the entities of the system, as well as the right to function on the field in a manner that represents their understandings.
It’s really important to understand that football players are the ones who have the privilege to express their feelings and dreams, as well as the perception of life.

The results of the most successful players have become a basis for youth category players to believe that everything what the system says is correct. With the progression of the Positionism, football became more and more a machine, well-organized system of clear and defined rules.

American singer-songwriter, Tracy Chapman, spoke of a similar problem in music, criticizing the modern music scene: “The way popular music is categorized and compartmentalized reduces the options for everyone. Although people don’t talk about it, there are a lot of problems with dividing music into genres. That, in the end, limits creativity.”

“The machine is told how free you are, while everything around you is shaped to fit the demands of the system.”

“When I arrived in Barcelona, a coach told me — here you have to pass the ball, let’s play with two touches and not dribble that much. I didn’t pass the ball and I didn’t play the first year.’’ More than twenty years later, the player who said this, by winning the World Cup title in Qatar, very likely confirmed the status of the best player in the history of the game. The same game that some youth category coach prevented him from playing just because he did not fit into the system.
That doesn’t mean that the system should not exist, but that the system is maybe set up to promote and influence the uniformed and exclusively systemic values —modern ideological system does not favor individuality, creativity, but also do not present players’ identity, by trying to shape players in order to improve their systemic value. In this way, the system does not value the identity, diversity and naturalness of football players who are the most important part of the football itself.

The construction of the Positionist system made it clear that this ideology, like the Analytic Philosophy of the Vienna Circle from the 20th century, bases its conception of reality and the future on systematicity, rationality, and that it reduces individuality, its perception of reality, as well as freedom and creativity, which were considered primitive. It’s believed that in football, individual freedom and perception can’t defeat the system, but what if we combine individual perceptions and put them in a certain context and function?

The famous Basque sculptor and former Real Sociedad goalkeeper from the 1960s, Eduardo Chillida, once said:

“The limits of structure and space, as well as rationalization itself, fall apart when there are interactions between different forms.”

Logic vs Creativity

Logic is said to establish the laws by which truth is arrived at. Probably because logic, by its etymological definition, is a philosophical discipline that deals with the study of the forms and laws of true and correct thinking. Does this mean that what is logically explicable and rational is actually what is right? Maybe — but maybe not. I believe that the modern football ideology of Positionism, which due to the great and proven successes it has achieved, has become a measuring unit and a “law of true and correct thinking”. The influence of Analytic Philosophy through the Positionist ideology made football “logical” — ideology defined the laws that lead to the truth and results, and due to that, the opinions arose that this is only way. Everything that is not according to a theory that is logically explicable is imposed as simply wrong.

“All scenarios constructed from one worldview share principles, and those principles set the limits of what is possible.” — a definition of Future possibilities.

Rationalization in football is largely related to Determinism and Future possibilities, which believe that the future arises only from what is real, known and defined. The process of generating Future possibilities through a deterministic world view says: “First, we explain a set of principles that govern a domain. We then make assumptions about specific states of affairs that might occur, and then trace the consequences of these states using principles. Then we come up with a set of scenarios that describe a set of possible futures.’’

The question arises, does everything in the world arise from a set of scenarios and things that are perfectly familiar to us? If so, why can’t we predict things or why can’t we influence some things to make or prevent something to happen? This would lead to linearity or regular cyclical development of events, and thus the future.

In fact, the world, including football as its very important product, does not work like that. The influence of the context, the perception of needs, the determinant in thinking, the cultural-historical moment of the society or the world, the medical, physiological and technical stage of development of people, therefore the football players actually dictate the future, and you will admit that all these factors can’t be precisely controlled and determined. They are organic and natural, unpredictable. This is how the world and football are created and how do they function.

The set of scenarios and principles is a complex process, definitely more complicated than the context of the individual who is considered unable to defeat the system, however free and creative he may be. Exactly, the Positionist ideology wants to nurture collective creativity, i.e. creative enthusiasm that should ultimately be the product of the whole complex system following an idea that leads to sequential solutions, even if the solutions of individuals within that system are limited and reduced to certain norms.

Rules and concepts must exist, but as it’s been already mentioned, the ideology of the system should value the individual and its creative perceptions.

How do you actually imagine freedom and creativity?

Is it like vastness, boundlessness, infinity, like something imaginary that you can see, but you don’t know how to formulate it and translate it to the words...? It is like freedom and creativity — an alive and organic thing, an interaction of feelings, not an entity or something you can just define as body and matter. Freedom and creativity are personal interpretation, but also the interaction of perception, way of thinking, available knowledge, imagination, understanding of what you are surrounded by and being in harmony with the environment.

Are freedom and creativity entities? Do they fit into a certain spatial and temporal unit? If the imagination and freedom of creativity are limited by a certain entity, does that present freedom or the optimal range of action?

• Do you discern logic or intuition in freedom and creativity?
• Experience and imagination or rationality?
• Are freedom and creativity defined or are they a matter of perception?
• Are they rigid or fluid?
• Are they fixed and defined or flexible?
• Are they spatially limited as an entity, or do you see freedom and creativity as an interaction of feelings, perception, autonomy, connection with mind and body, environment and imagination?

“Creativity is simply connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t actually do it, they just saw something.’’

The word creativity itself comes from the Latin expression creation ex nihilo, which means creating something out of nothing. The interaction of senses, human knowledge, perception and spirit is usually associated with art, which is also mentioned in a Latin proverb:

“Artem non odit nisi ignarus” — or “Only the ignorant hate an art”

This very saying is written at the entrance to Berlin’s ‘’Neues Museum’’.

Probably the most important relationist in today’s football, whose team function and is organized according to an Approximationist ideology, the coach of Fluminense, Fernando Diniz, once said:

‘’I have my football vision. Football is art.’’

I could definitely agree with him.

Sociocultural context

“Neither Johan Cruyff nor Pep Guardiola could change the history of Argentine football today.” — Cesar Luis Menotti (2019)

One of the most important coaches in the history of Argentine football and one of the bearers of the widely known Argentine “La Nuestra”, a way of understanding football and life, said a lot of things with this statement.

Why did he mention Johan Cruyff in addition to Pep Guardiola, and not someone who could really take over the national team from a coach at a given moment?

Is the composition of the Argentine national team squad so poor and incompatible that even the most respected and influential experts could not bring great success to the Argentine NT?

In addition to these two questions that clearly arise after reading Luis Menotti’s statement, I’d like to ask probably the most important question, which can actually explain why the popular “El Flaco” said this…

From which countries and football cultures are Johan Cruyff and Pep Guardiola coming from? From the Netherlands (Cruyff) and Spain (Guardiola)— certainly the most important pillars of the Positionist ideology that rules the world. In Spain, specifically Barcelona, where Pep Guardiola also made his way, Johan Cruyff and Rinus Michels brought and implanted the ideology from the Netherlands, a country whose modern social construction largely originates from the 16th and 17th centuries and is based on the influence of puritanical religious ideologies. Puritanism, as a religious reform, had a great influence on the formation of moral and state principles in the Western Europe countries — mainly because the ideology of Puritanism has its roots in Calvinist teachings. Puritans are considered to be morally very strict people who reject primitive freedom and pleasures, and in addition to the religious and moral influence, the way of state organization has largely defined the model of society of Western European countries for decades and centuries. They’re, along with the Netherlands, based on strong internal repression and the formation of a society with a high level of self-discipline and respect for state order, statutes, laws and prescribed and defined rules. The characteristics of the arrangement, social heritage and culture of the countries of Western Europe are mainly based on the principles of Analytic Philosophy and Logical Positivism, which had, as one of its premises, the reduction of “primitive freedom and intuition”, but also the progression of a consistent, unified and universal rational opinions — as well as respecting the “order that feeds spontaneity”.

Throughout its history, Argentina has had ideological football turbulences — a complete mindset changes after the 1958 World Cup that led to an expressed desire to win at all costs, without taking into account the style and manner in which victory can be achieved. The Argentines called this period “Anti-football”, and it was marked, above all, by Osvaldo Zubeldia, whose student Carlos Bilardo won the World Cup in 1986 with a similar approach, but there were also Victorio Spinetto and Juan Carlos Lorenzo. What connected them was analyticity, a fanatical desire to win at all costs, but also a connection with Europe, which differed from Argentine understandings. In the 21st century, Argentina, like everyone else, has turned to a conceptualized positional model of the game to a considerable extent — but it has not brought Argentina much, the best example of which is the period under Jorge Sampaoli.

Just like that, Cruyff’s and Guardiola’s ideological model, which is part of the European sociocultural approach, differs to a great extent from the Argentinian one. “La Nuestra” is closely related to the style and perception of life of the Argentine people expressed in football, which for Argentina represents — spontaneity, creativity, improvisation, individual expression, talent, luxury in cooperation, combinations and connections.

I think that, if we talk about football cultures, which are mostly reflected in the identity and later the successes of national teams, the psychosocial view of the people, its sociocultural aspect, national identity and the history of the people itself are taken into account to a rather small extent. It’s very important because it could define what kind of identity is probably the best to express and present all national aspects, along with narrowly football ones, as a state product. After all, the national team and national football are partly a mirror of its society, primarily because the football players of one nation are the product of that society — with all its sociocultural and character traits. Exactly, Relationism as a theory claims that every ideological perspective or system is conditioned by the socio-cultural context.

There are many positive things behind the Positionist ideology that have contributed to the game improvement under its global dominance. The interest in the systemic development of the game and making players better through structure is historically important, but there are also many factors that indicate that the Positionist ideology, derived from Analytic Philosophy, became a global brand that blinded everyone and made them stop thinking about something different or alternative, given that it would differ from the modern and scientific context. What’ s global and proven is not necessarily correct. We may soon be at a turning point, and the global perception could easily become completely different… Because there is definitely an alternative way.