Football needs more paradigms, not records
What can be counted vs what counts
Real claimed their record 13th European Cup/Champions League title. The next best challenger, AC Milan, is on 7 titles and did not qualify for Europe. In Italy, Juventus marched to their 7th consecutive title and with 34 titles, almost double of both AC Milan and Inter (on 18 apiece).
No risk of being caught any time soon.
Real Madrid are no strangers to trend setting. On multiple occasions, they’ve broken the world transfer record, been the world’s richest club, had the best players in the world, sold the most shirts etc. Juventus are a similar story, just minus the European hegemony.
But such records raise a fundamental question — what really counts in football? Quantity or quality? Records or paradigms?
Paradigms
What is a paradigm? As per modern custom, let us start with the Wikipedia definition:
a distinct set of concepts or thought patterns, including theories…postulates…for what constitutes legitimate contributions to a field
I like this definition because it stresses contributions to a field. But to illustrate the concept, the following definition would also help:
a set of forms all of which contain a particular element, especially the set of all inflected forms based on a single stem or theme
American physicist and philoshopher, Thomas Kuhn, in his timeless book, the Structure of Scientific Revolutions, identified the concept of paradigm shift:
…paradigm shift is a fundamental shift in the concepts and experimental practices of a scientific discipline.
That definition can be easily adapted to football.
While Real and Juventus have claimed the lion’s share of European and domestic records, it’s their rivals, AC Milan and Barcelona who have provided the biggest paradigm shifts in football during the last 30 years. When we add the great Ajax sides of the early 70s, we have perhaps the most defining trio of football thinking.
This trio introduced new themes, new stems and new frameworks that reflected an innovative mindset. AC Milan with its zonal marking, Barcelona with Tiki-Taka, and Ajax with Total Football. Inter can also get an honorable mention here for catalyzing the tradition of catenaccio.
In football, the result is an impostor. You can do things really, really well but not win. There’s something greater than the result, more lasting — a legacy. — Xavi
Records vs paradigms
Records are a tangible measure of dominant performance. In most cases, dominance can be achieved by using a winning template that is built around smart formation, game-changing players or other tactics.
Paradigms are broader than being mere ‘templates for success’. Certainly, the aim of developing a paradigm is to give sustained competitive advantage over rivals. But to me, paradigms are about a longer term, about an eco-system and about a change in mindset. More than winning templates, paradigms are equally about ‘contributions to the field’.
The great paradigms we’ve seen in football have certainly resulted in dominance and translated into records.
The reverse is not always true.
Records don’t always reflect the existence of an underlying paradigm.
Why football needs paradigms
Football is peculiar in that despite being the most popular sport in the world, its history is still ‘alive’. It’s top two ‘all time greatest’ players (Pele, Maradona) are still alive and their two closest challengers (Ronaldo, Messi) are currently plying their trade with spectacular success. But any list of football’s greats will be incomplete without Johan Cruyff being mentioned. He was immensely skilled but did not boast a medal collection those mentioned above.
Cryuff’s contribution to football is much more than Ajax, Holland and Barcelona. It was about paradigms — be it executing Total football or influencing Tiki-Taka at Barcelona.
“As a player, he turned football into an art form. Johan came along and revolutionized everything. The modern-day Barça started with him, he is the expression of our identity, he brought us a style of football we love.” — Barcelona’s ex-president Joan Laporta, 2010
Paradigms are the true game changers — no pun intended. They are about systemic innovation, about ‘contributions to the field’.
With so many competitions and insane amount of money to buy superstars, records will always come and go. They are transient. We need something bigger, something more encompassing. Something that can capture the minds of players, coaches and spectators alike.
Real broke AC Milan’s record of 28 years by becoming the first team to successfully defend their European Cup/Champions League title. It is a trivial ‘record’ in the larger schemes of things. Much greater records have been set e.g., Ajax’s three-peat or indeed Real’s own five wins in a row.
But, after making my case for paradigms over records, it is a record that I wish is not broken. Paradoxically, because this is one record that typifies paradigms. It tells a story — of a system, a style, and the audacious acquisition of both the club and its famed Dutch trio. It tells a story much like Inter of the 60s, great Ajax side of the mid-70s and the tiki-taka powered Barcelona, thirty years later.
The paradigms given to the world by these clubs accentuated the records they were setting. In recent editions of the Champions League, with due respect to clubs, there is something missing despite all this dominance.
Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see. Arthur Schopenhauer
Records are about setting the bar high. For many years, football seems like a target practice — hitting what others cannot in terms of money, power, goals and dominance.
Paradigms are about targets that no one has visualized.
Records are like assorted trivia. Paradigms are like stories.
One is quirky and tangible.
The other is elaborate and intangible — the stuff of romance.
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