If we look at the greatest teams in history, we see even though most of these teams contain brilliant individuals, what made them still remembered was always more than these individuals.
Greatness was not truly measured with the success the teams achieved. Otherwise, as Jorge Valdano once said, we should be remembering Capello’s Milan over Sacchi’s.
Then what made these greatest teams so remarkable?
Then what made these greatest teams so remarkable?
To be able to answer this question, we should first remember reductionist and holistic perspectives.
Javier Mallo explaines the differences in his book, Complex Football, as follows:
Javier Mallo explaines the differences in his book, Complex Football, as follows:
"Reductionists focus on the smallest levels of the scale, trying to explain the system behavior from the elementary individual confrontations.”
“Thus, it is more important to have good players in a team rather than the playing formation or tactical relationships potentiated by the coach.”
“On the other hand, the holistic approach prioritizes the upper side of the scale, the macro-level. In this sense, the interaction between the footballers inside the playing system is more important than the capacity of each player on its own.”
Now going back to our discussion;
Since footballers, football teams, and football are not linear events/objects. We cannot define or solve them with Descartes’ analytical thinking.
Since footballers, football teams, and football are not linear events/objects. We cannot define or solve them with Descartes’ analytical thinking.
We have to approach them understanding their complexity (regarding uncertainty, entirety, interdependency, and spontaneous emergency).
If we are talking about complex thinking, then we should start talking about Arisotelian holism: “The whole is something more than the sum of the parts.”
No doubt that Valeriy Lobanovskyi was one of the frontiers in football who could understand this complexity and see the possibility and importance of building a ‘star team’ instead of ‘team of stars’.
Jonathan Wilson in his famous book, Inverting the Pyramid, perfectly explains how Lobanovskyi interpreted football:
Football eventually became for him a system of 22 elements - 2 subsystems of 11 elements - moving within a defined area (the field) and subject to a series of restrictions (the laws of the game).”
“If the two subsystems were equal, the outcome would be a draw. If one was stronger, it would win. So much is obvious, even if the manner of addressing it is not.”
“But the aspect that Lobanovskyi found truly fascinating is that the subsystems were subject to a peculiarity: the efficiency of the subsystem is greater than the sum of the efficiencies of the elements that compose it.”
The difference between the whole and the sum of its parts is something defined and added by the coach, and how large that difference is what separates greatest teams from a team of stars.
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