A Zen State Of Mind
Quieting the babbling mind and pouring over teams
Arteta has some favourite terms, Process, Basics, Duels. You know them, but my all time favourite is Flow. Arteta doesn’t pull out Flow unless we’re flowing, so when he uses it you know we’re in a good place. After 13 goals in 3 matches he cleared his throat and uttered the word we should all love, “The team is flowing, the energy is there, a lot of quality, you have to play the game in different ways, today we’ve done it.”
It’s been a while, but it feel like the Flow is back. But why? Yes, Martin Ødegaard is back and we all know that a purring engine controlling the pace of the game helps, we all know that magical passes that defy expectation helps, but there is something else too, something less tangible.
On most occasions the difference between what seems like Flowing and not Flowing is the tiniest of margins, like ridiculous red cards (Rice, Trossard, Saliba) or injuries (Ødegaard, White, Merino…) or just plain bad luck (the damn football gods and their wretched sense of humour). Games that could have been won are drawn or lost.
Other times it's because of an imbalance in the team or a lack of communication between certain players, or concentration levels, or even a tactical error at a crucial moment in a game.
There are so many contributing factors to whether a team seems to Flow or not. But the main reason a team can get their mojo back is the strangest of all. It's just a question of turning off the individual and collective rational mind and getting out of your own way, thinking less and allowing the "doing" to happen on its own. Flow is an Unconscious phenomena, not a conscious one.
Flow happens when a team is manifesting a pleasurable state of focus and a total absorption in the act of playing football, without the rational mind making in-the-moment decisions, but instead, all the thousands of hours of practice and repetition leading to an instinctual organic non-thinking style of play.
Which means although Flow is an unpredictable and fleeting state, it is always rooted in what happens off the pitch as much as what happens on the pitch. Arteta and the coaches are creating the potential for Flow every day in training.
I think Ødegarrd brings two things, his immense skill and genius, of course, but he also brings a state of mind in other players, a background confidence, an unconscious bias toward this Flow state of mind. He even gives it to we fans who feel that wonderful calm confidence from just seeing his name on the team sheet.
Last season when we had injuries other players stood up to the challenge and took over goal scoring duties or became the hero of matches, this season that happened a little less without Ødegaard. For me his skills are crucial of course, he is a footballing genius, but also the way he allows other players to think less and be themselves more is vital. Besides his geometrical mastery he spreads the secret ingredient of calm, non-thought in playing. Amazing really.
I know about flow. In my other Substack, Jonathan Foster’s The Crow, I feel it too sometimes, when I quiet my monkey mind and allow my subconscious take centre stage, where I get a feeling of separation, a kind of dislocation from myself where I drifts off and seem to watch the words appear on the page, as if from some other place than within myself.
There is far too much importance placed on rational thought and control. I have experience of the subconscious being a powerful tool, more aligned to the world and what’s happening that the rational bubbling consciousness I call myself. And I see this happen in teams that flow too. When a team really flows its playing is greater than the sum of its players. Players flowing and morphing into a team that, sometimes like a tide and sometimes like a multitude of separate eddies can become an unstoppable river flooding through the opposition.
Look at the eddies flowing and tumbling between Ødegaard and Saka who appear roped together in an elastic mind meld, reading each others darting runs and space-creating hesitations, their apparent simplicity belying a deep complexity, their movement like a pinball machine on full tilt, defenders on slo-mo as these two bounce through them pinging and angling the ball toward the inevitable.
The first half against Sporting and certainly the first half against West Ham were beautiful examples. All we need now is a continual wave of brilliance to flow over Man United and wash them right off the pitch.
Good luck on Wednesday, Gooners, let’s see what happens, but I have a good feeling about this one. Will Arteta start using my favourite word again in the post-match? Lets hope so! Have a great week Wonderlanders and enjoy your flow.