Wednesday, 21.02.2024

Protagonists Of The Game – Between Absolutism and Relativism

In this article we are trying to summarize a discussion about Positionism and Relationism in a somewhat different way. This discourse has evolved in various ways and shapes, often without a clear overview of the status quo of itself. By doing so, it did reach it’s intended goal already: Discuss football differently (again). Now we will try to give perspective and an update on the discussion by updating some premises of itself but also giving an outlook into practice and practitioners. Welcome to Spielverlagerung Discussion.

Language, stats, and football

Americans call aubergines ‘eggplants’. For those familiar with the deep purple skin of the vegetable(?), this seems peculiar. To British ears, it’s one of those “oh, America!” things to roll ones eyes at and quietly mock, like ‘pants’ and ‘soccer’ and the missing ‘u’ in ‘colour’. And then you learn that there’s a variety of aubergine that is white, and small, and generally looks quite like an egg.

The Art of the Long Ball

Ever since the massive success of Guardiola at Barcelona, a lot of people have gravitated towards the philosophy of positional play. This momentum in turn, increased the number of articles and analysis on the subject, putting a large emphasis on playing out from the back in the current literature on the game. Because of this, I thought that it might be interesting to go completely against the grain, and instead focus on long balls and how one is able to utilize them.