Moneyball in Football Theory: From Positionism vs Relationism, To The Data Revolution Of The Beautiful Game
Explaining Positionism vs Relationism and how we must be modest about football data analytics
“There is more than meets the eye” — W.H. Auden
Football can get pretty interesting if you choose to think about it intellectually. The game is constantly evolving, ever since the game’s inception in England to the coffee houses of Europe and the various schools of thought that have emerged as the game has grown (which you can read a bit about in my older posts in this publication based on Jonathan Wilson’s book “Inverting The Pyramid”)
But here we are in 2023 and we’re seeing more managers, coaches and thinkers starting to explore and modify and evolve tactics, and get creative at times.
There are some interesting theories and philosophies that are emerging in the modern game as of 2023/24. But they have also been around for years if you dig deep enough. However, we’re slowly seeing an evolution, perhaps the next cycle and re-invention of the game in today’s times.
Just like this tactic of the inverted fullback, which we’re seeing used pretty often in the game these days:
Terms like ‘Functional Play’, ‘Positionism’ and ‘Relationism’ have been thrown around in recent times, but what is the true nature of these football philosophies?
Relationism vs Positionism
This part is based on Jamie Hamilton’s Medium piece: What is Relationism?
On 3rd March 2023, The New York Times ran a remarkable article by their chief soccer analyst, Rory Smith. The piece, provocatively titled ‘Liverpool, Napoli, and the Enigma of Strategic Approaches,’ delved into the intriguing style of Brazilian coach Fernando Diniz and his innovative ‘apositional’ style of play.
March 14th: Antonio Gagliardi, the astute tactician behind Italy’s victorious Euro 2020 campaign, penned a thought-provoking piece for the publication L’Ultimo Uomo, questioning the future of the ‘position game’
March 20th: the Spanish soccer podcast, Play Futbol, unveiled an enthralling episode dissecting the nuances of ‘jogo funcional’ and exploring the tactical brilliance showcased on Fernando Diniz’s magnetic ‘tactical board’ .
March 22nd: Analytics FC, a UK-based data publication, explores the potential resolution of Juego de Posicion.
March 23rd: Swedish paper, Dagens Nyheter interviews coach educator Mark O’Sullivan, who notes Argentina’s departure from traditional positional play to embrace their style called ‘La Nuestra,’ that translates to ‘our way’ (which I’ve explored in an old article called: Inverting The Pyramid Deconstructed: Part II — ‘La Nuestra’ The Spread Of Football To Central Europe & South America)
March 25th: Jon Mackenzie, writer for Tifo/The Athletic writing on his Medium page, presents ‘Taking a Position on Relation in Football’
In his article, Mackenzie writes:
“A piece appeared on Hamilton’s Medium page in September 2022 titled FERNANDO DINIZ vs THE MAN-MACHINE. Although there are formative ideas that exist on his Medium before this point, this is the catalytic moment for the discussion of “position” and “relation” in the English-language discussion.
Already in title of the piece, the stage is set for the eventual shape of the ‘position’ and ‘relation’ debate as it will emerge in Hamilton’s work. What we have here is an opposition between Fernando Diniz and a so-called ‘machine’.
What is this machine? Well, it is “the prioritisation of standardisation, automation and repetition, a flattening out of human creativity through mechanized processes designed to benefit and serve some external non-human entity.”
Who are the main protagonists here? The high priest is Pep Guardiola but other notable actors are Thomas Tuchel and Antonio Conte. They are the ‘positionists’.
From this point onwards, Hamilton uses the term ‘positionism’ as a perjorative framed against whatever it is that Fernando Diniz is doing. Within a couple of months — by November 2022 — he has a name for this too.
What Pep Guardiola is to ‘positionism’, Fernando Diniz is to ‘relationism’.”
He references Jamie Hamilton’s tweet, which defines “positionism” and “relationism”, as the following:
As Mackenzie further writes in his Medium piece:
‘Positionalism’ is the point on the spectrum of ‘positional ideas’ where ‘position’ becomes the controlling factor. ‘Relationism’ is the point on the spectrum of ‘relational ideas’ where ‘relation’ becomes the controlling factor. But importantly, the two approaches aren’t dichotomous: ‘relationism’ is on the ‘positional’ spectrum and ‘positionism’ is on the ‘relational’ spectrum. Hamilton admits as much in his initial definition. ‘Position’ matters to ‘relational’ coaches and ‘relation’ matters to ‘positional’ coaches.
According to my understanding of what both Hamilton and MacKenzie are saying:
In their conceptualization and their ideas of the debate there are some hitches to be frank. The terms ‘position’ and ‘relation’ in football tactics, need out and out definitions. Clarity is needed in defining these terms separately and independently. But they cannot exist without each other. However, these terms have often been inadequately defined due to the rapid pace of the debates and the emergence of specialized jargon, like ‘positionism.’
A ‘position’ in football encompasses a wide range of meanings, from foundational, fundamental to tactical. The spectrum extends from ‘positional play’ (Juego de Posicion) as the basis for coaching to coaches who use positional ideas without a fully integrated tactical system.
Hamilton introduces ‘positionism’ as an extreme end of this spectrum, where ‘position’ becomes the dominant factor, potentially limiting the freedom, complexity and spontaneity of the game. Apart from the complexity that the interaction and collective effects of a ‘position’ entail.
Similarly, ‘relationism’ represents the opposite extreme, where ‘relation’ takes precedence in a tactical system.
In reality, ‘positionism’ and ‘relationism’ are not mutually exclusive; they coexist on a continuum. Coaches may incorporate elements of both, as ‘position’ matters to ‘relational’ coaches, and ‘relation’ matters to ‘positional’ coaches.
The debate, framed as an opposition between ‘position’ and ‘relation,’ may not accurately reflect the nuanced interplay between these concepts.
And it sort of frames itself as a conflict between ‘position’ and ‘relation.’
But from how I see it, a coach can’t be called ‘positionist’ simply because he uses ‘position’ as the base of his tactical approach.
Medium writer Clarissa Barcala writes in her brilliantly detailed Medium piece called “Not to say I didn’t speak of the flowers: space, time, positionism and relationism” where she says:
Emerged, then, an idea that relationist football boiled down to clustering players around the ball and that positional football was just spreading the players across the pitch; that one symbolized the maximum expression of freedom and the other, of mechanized and plastered football.
She further explores the state of the debate:
It turns out that, as in all other debates that expand a lot and move away from the core, the discussion between ‘positionism’ and ‘relationism’ was very distorted. In most of the debates where this topic is addressed, people usually talk about (and attack) scarecrows, adulterated and distorted concepts that barely remember the starting point from which they came, a classic consequence of the extreme polarization that the internet encourages.
Space and Time In Football
Barcala starts off her extensive article with exploring the concepts of “space” and “time” on the football pitch.
Before delving in detail into ‘positionism’ vs ‘relationism’ Barcala urges readers to understand the concepts of “space” and “time” on the football pitch.
To me, space is the space you occupy on the pitch and the space you create by action apart from the general space available, which is the length and breadth of the football pitch. Whereas, time is your time on the ball and your time without the ball.
And in turn, how you effectively you use time to create space, not just for you but also your teammates and going deeper, limiting space for your opponents. It’s also how you interact with space to subsequently, get more time on the ball or from a defensive perspective limit your opponent’s time on the ball. But that’s just my two cents.
Coming back, Barcala writes:
“There is those who talk about counter-attack, quick attack, whatever you want. You use the vocabulary as you prefer. I understand football as space and time” — Xavi Hernández.
See, football is something a bit more complex than just a foot and a ball, that is, the players and the ball. Of course, they’re the material part of the game, what makes a match happen, but that doesn’t mean they’re the only thing that exists in football — we need to dive a little deeper and be a little less materialists to understand where the positionism versus relationism debates starts. We need to grasp the concepts of space and time.
Out of the two concepts, space is probably the less abstract and therefore the easier to grasp: it’s literally the physical space of the football pitch, the material stage of a match. From this, we can perceive space through a load of different ways, but we will focus here on a specific perception: each player occupies a certain space on the pitch.
Time, however, is a bit more abstract and therefore more difficult to grasp and explain. To set a starting point, we can define it as the time someone takes to do something. Applying this principle to what happens in a football match, it’s the time a player takes to perform a determined action on the pitch, be it a pass, a shoot, a run, a dribble, anything.
Well, perfect, we have a neat concept perfect for a dictionary, but I’d rather split it in two: objectively, time is an action of a player, with or without the ball. It’s their movement, their touches, their interactions with the rest of the team — everything we see a player do is time taking shape. Subjectively, time is the individual perception that a player might have on what happens on the pitch — before interacting (or not), running (or standing still), passing (or carrying the ball), before materializing their action, a player must have conscience on what happens around them, must perceive the game, intuit, rationalize, and then, only then, act. In a nutshell, time is a player’s individual perception that guides their actions on the pitch.
Space is the stage and time is the play. Space is the instrument and time is the music. Space is the tongue and time is the speech. One doesn’t exist without the other, for one in meaningless without the other. And, inside a football match, they must walk together. If a player has control over their time but doesn’t have space to materialize it, or if a player has space but is unable to control the time of their actions, they can’t play. The players and the ball are the protagonists, but between the player and the ball there is space and there is time. And if a player wants to control the ball, they first need to control both space and time.
The Positionist Perspective
Starting off with the positionist perspective, it’s more of using ‘position’ as a means of controlling or influencing the actions in a game. The ‘positionists’ prefer the control of “space” through position. Further, they think by effective positioning space and time can be influenced, in an attacking sense and defending sense.
In essence, positionists believe that time is created only by a mastery of space.
So for positionists it’s space first and then time.
Quoting Xavi again, Barcala(who my guess is, is a Barcelona fan), continues her narrative
“If there’s space, there’s time” — Xavi Hernández
Barcala explores the concept by writing:
There are those who believe that a player can only have time to act and interact if they have space for it, that is, the path to master time is to first master space. These people prioritize spatial control of the pitch and see space as the first thing you must master in order to have control over the ball. If a team has full control of all the spaces on a football pitch, the players will be able to interact. The term “positional” comes from this idea — players must control their positions in order to control their actions.
You can read her entire breakdown of the history of positionist football and how it’s implemented in her article where she starts from the basic English tactics, since the game’s conception to Johan Cruyff’s Total Football, Juego de Posición and others. (But in this article, I will only quote and summarize)
But taking a couple of examples from her article, here are some visuals:
The Relationist Perspective
Coming to the Relationist perspective, it’s the other way around. Or the other side of the football paradox between space and time. Relationists think that space can only be available if there’s a mastery of time.
This kind of thinking prioritizes making right decisions and actions between themselves and interacting with their teammates so that they can control time, and in turn, lead to creating spaces and getting more time on the ball. So relationists advocate more mastery of the relations between themselves i.e. teammates, their opponents and the ball, and hence control space.
So for relationists, it’s time first and space after.
Quoting Carlo Ancelotti, Barcala lays the foundations of the relationist game.
“In football, spaces are created by moving” — Carlo Ancelotti
Writing in further definition of the ‘relationist’ perspective, Barcala adds:
On the other hand, there are those who believe a player will only have control of the spaces if they first master their time. If a player is able to make things on the right time, he will control spaces, therefore, the path to conquer space is to first conquer time. Here, the most important thing is that all players on the pitch have full control of their actions and the time of their actions and, from the interactions between the players, a team will control the spaces and therefore the ball. If a team has full control of the relations between its players, it will control the spaces of a football pitch — hence the name “relationism”.
Again you can read up all her detailed explanation explaining relationism with examples, in her article(But be warned, it’s a 68 minute read!)
*I have however, laid my own groundwork in various articles of my takeaways from reading Jonathan Wilson’s book “Inverting The Pyramid” in other older articles in this publication. It’s perhaps similar to Barcala’s explanation of the history of those tactics, but more history-centric*
Again taking visual examples from Barcala’s article, here’s relationism, in-game:
So from these images, you can get a better idea and understanding of both philosophies. Using ‘position’ as the base facet to compare the two styles, you’ll see that: positionism is more disciplined and fixed (at least positionally) as compared to a more fluid, and on-the-move and (positionally) adaptive and dynamic relationism.
Football vs Other Sports
Football is a complex game. And may just be the most complex sport of them all. At an intricate level, football requires more usage of collective play, collective strategies, as compared to individual play. Furthermore, it also involves significantly higher interaction of players with and without the ball as compared to other sports.
This is not just because there are 22 players on the pitch, but because of the dynamic nature of the game; any decision by a single player or a group of them can change the game in an instant.
Football is also not start-stop, like Cricket, Baseball, Basketball or American Football. So direct strategies, like hitting a ball, batting and bowling/pitching averages, or shot percentages or using textbook plays used in American Football and Basketball, can’t work for football, since it’s continuous.
Comparing both kinds i.e. continuous and start-stop sports, ChatGPT reveals:
But these differences are of course just basic.
However, the fluid nature of football sets it apart from start-stop sports. But where does data compare from football to start-stop sports?
For example, you can find out the zones from where a player’s shots go in the most, but getting him into that zone/position is pretty difficult in-game, because of the positions and space of all players on the pitch and the ball at any given moment.
Or for example, if the data suggests that a player has a higher probability of scoring with his left foot more than his right foot — but as the ball drops to him in-game he will choose the foot to shoot with depending on the ball played in and the space and situation he’s in. So data in football is much more difficult to apply in-game.
Applying the same data in start-stop sports, reveals a completely different picture. In basketball, getting a player into a shooting zone or to shoot from a certain play is much much easier. Similarly, in baseball, getting a batter who hits more home runs against a particular kind of pitcher or getting a batter on to the plate because he hits more home runs during a particular inning, is a much more easily decisive application of data.
As I’ll get to in the next section, data and analytics are more useful in studying and application for start-stop sports as compared to a continuous sport like football.
Moneyball in Football: The Football Data Revolution & Why We Must Be Modest About It According To A Soccer Mathematician
If you’ve watched the Hollywood movie Moneyball, you’d know just how impactful data-driven decisions can be in sport.
The film, released in 2011, tells the story of Billy Beane(Brad Pitt), a failed baseball prodigy in his youth, who became GM of the Oakland Athletics after his playing career.
The film focuses on the remarkable winning run by the A’s who went on a 20-game winning streak, the longest in baseball history, as Beane and an economist turned baseball data analyst from Yale named Peter Brand(Jonah Hill) assembled a squad of players on a shoe-string budget using data and analytics.
The data led to the surreal winning run and soon came to the forefront of media attention, at the time.
It’s a true story captured magnificently by director Bennett Miller and the score is pretty intriguing as well. And I only just saw the movie last month.
Much akin to Moneyball, we’re seeing a massive shift and a data revolution in football.
From a personal perspective, just reflecting on my youth back in 2003 when I began supporting Chelsea FC as a young teenager, this kind of data and analysis was unheard of and simply not available.
Even if it was being used in 2003, about the same time as Beane’s Oakland A’s, it would only be at the highest level of the game.
However, nowadays football data and football data APIs are accessible to anybody and everybody. Whether you’re a journalist or an analyst, a scout or simply a football fan who likes to geek out on football analytics, this kind of data is available at your fingertips.
The price points might seem steep at the moment, especially if you want Opta, StatsBomb data etc. But I guess the affordability for everybody will come eventually as time progresses.
This generation of young football fans, and budding youngsters who follow the game can make interesting observations by pivoting to this complex data analysis. This, in turn, is revolutionising the game. But only to a certain extent.
This is because football is more complex than data. It’s perhaps the most complex sport of all.
Author of the book “Soccermatics”, David Sumpter reckons that we must use football data modestly and acknowledge that the game is much more complex than data.
In his article, titled: Why we have to be modest about football analytics Sumpter suggests:
“The work of Raab, and his colleague Gerd Gigerenzer, shows that it is where our heuristic understanding of situations that helps us most. In these cases, it might be your feelings and intuitions that are the best model of a situation.
For example, the ‘take-the-first’ heuristic, which suggests players should shoot or pass based on the first option that occurs to them is widely used by the best and most experienced professional players in handball and basketball. It is intuitive, but it works.
And this is why we need to define complexity, because there is a link between the best way to approach the study of a sport and the complexity of that sport. The more complex a sport, the less we should trust methods based purely on statistics. That is not to say we should just go with our intuition, either. But it does mean we should start by knowing what we mean when we say football is complex.
When characterising complexity we usually talk about several different features. One is that a complex system is non-linear. Teams in football are more than the sum of their parts: pressing, for example, only works if everyone in the team presses. Another is the complex systems are open, they are not closed off from the external world. For example, the crowds, now returning to the matches, form an ever-changing external input that influences how the players feel and perform.
Think of some of the great turnarounds in Champions League knock-out stages. The players are not robots, they are people whose feelings are intertwined with their performances. A further feature is that complex systems are historical. Barcelona has a style and a way of playing which has evolved over decades and can’t be summed up purely in terms of how a particular pass is made now.
Most importantly, complex systems are dynamic. Natalia Balague, professor at the University of Barcelona, and pioneer of the idea of complex systems in sport, writes that training exercises for team sports should not ‘inform the athlete about a theoretically ideal motor output, but create tasks where skill can solve the constantly changing situations’. She quotes a leading Spanish coach as saying of his team, ‘When I see them moving like a flock of birds I know they are playing well.’ Complex systems, from bird flocks to football teams, never stay still, are always changing form, but also appear to have an underlying structure.
Non-linear, open, historical and dynamic… Compare it to other sports on these terms… Football is the most complex of sports.
Cognitive scientist, Abeba Birhane writes that modern statistical and machine learning tools try to “impose order, equilibrium, and stability to the active, fluid, messy, and unpredictable nature of human behaviour.”
The argument that Birhane puts forward — that this attempt to impose order ultimately fails and the consequences can often be negative for the people who are modelled — follows from a philosophical tradition which says that there is never one true way to understand a complex system. It is this same insight, which many of us feel but have difficulty expressing, that makes us feel uncomfortable when a company or individual claims to have a complete solution to the game we love. Football is just too complex to understand with a single model.
From the arguments above, we have established two things: (1) we should (partly) trust our intuition when studying a complex sport like football and (2) football is so complex we will never truly understand it. How then can we use mathematical models and analytics to improve our understanding of the game?
Birhane recently wrote Twitter threads reviewing the work of two leading complex systems philosophers, Alicia Juarrero and Paul Cilliers. What these complex thinkers emphasize is a modesty in how we use mathematical models. Following their advice, we need to start by admitting that there is no single way of seeing football (or any other complex system) that will solve all of our problems. Rather, there are different ways of seeing the game: different models, different concepts, and different ideas. We shouldn’t argue that everything else is wrong, but rather find different ways of being somewhat right, some of the time.
Considering the complexity argument and Sumpter’s statments, data has pretty divisive use in football. Sure it solves some things, but as he reckons, “modesty” is the way forward for football data and analytics.
So, this is where the game is at, as I write this article in September 2023. The game continues to see its next phase in this decade since 2020 and after COVID. This is a bit of an explanation of the burgeoning ideas in terms of football philosophy and the availability of technology and data within the game currently, with of course, citing and taking quotes and bits and peies from articles by other more knowledgeable and proficient people within the football spectrum.
Author note:
This is my take on modern football as of September 2023.
As it stands, I’m a journalist from India. A country where football doesn’t have the same history or heritage as compared to the UK, Europe and South America. So my knowledge is perhaps limited because of this. But I try to learn and understand the game in as much detail as I can since I’ve played the game as a child and have been watching fervently since my teenage years.
But on the other hand, Asian football is slowly growing. From Saudi Arabia to Son Heung-min of Spurs and the ISL in India. Let’s just hope something ignites in the minds of these Indian youngsters who have access to so much information about the game, that they can bring it on par with cricket in the country.
And who knows, see India qualify for the FIFA World Cup someday.
(I hope you’ve enjoyed this article. And do consider following my publication “After The Full Time Whistle”)
