Metaphors And Magic - Casting A Spell On Football
Stewing the magpies in the Emirates cauldron.
Normally AW comes out on a Tuesday (for no reason at all), but I’ve got a hectic week coming, so here’s an early-bird posting for you. Hope you don’t mind :)
1.
Words are not neutral. They create the world. Words are packets of meaning that create little chains of meaning with which we map out the vastness of reality, sculpt the universe, focus attention, and fence off everything else. How we talk about the world is how we think about the world. We think of time as money, love as a journey, emotional states as directions. But no matter how we describe the world, behind our metaphors lies a bedrock of of “reality”.
In this so-called Digital Age, we are swamped in metaphorical thinking that shapes our thoughts and expectations about ourselves. In the 20C we’ve begun to think of ourselves in relation to the latest technology: the brain was once a telephone switching network, then it morphed to a cybernetic metaphor, then digitalisation influenced our thinking with the brain becoming hardware and the mind software.
We end up thinking of humans as programmable. If the body is hardware and the mind is software then a few tweaks here and a few inputs there and the output will change. So eventually we begin thinking of ourselves more like computers than like the animals we really are. We begin to platform certain characteristics and demote others and consequently our expectations about the world and our behaviour changes because we are creating a pretense of a world through metaphor.
Which (finally) brings me around to our expectations about football. Because if you think of players as biological intelligence systems you’ll have a underlying set of expectations that correspond to the metaphor. Players should be able to perform at an optimal level if they are only programmed with the right input. Put them through the right training program, give them the right tactical information and encourage them psychologically to deal with the stresses and strains of the game and voila, your team will outperform others because your hardware and software are superior to your competitors.
Except that’s just a pile of baloney.
The bedrock of reality onto which we build out metaphors is that players are human beings subject to human biological and psychological forces, which have nothing to do with the on-off switching of computers. We are infinitely more complex. So complex in fact that we can invent games like football, we can play and watch games like football and we can get emotionally attached to the results of games like football.
We can also find ourselves experiencing “flow", where a team of individuals seem to connect and play with a fluidity and interconnectedness that overwhelms an opponent. And on other days we can perform ALL the exact same training exercise and tactical lessons and psychological treatments and fail completely to find flow, individually or as a team. But because we use all these Digital Age metaphors we are baffled as to why input A doesn’t inevitably lead to output B.
If I hear the question “What did Arsenal do in Dubai?” one more time I’ll go mad. The assumption is that a set of inputs were programmed into the players in Dubai which lead to this astounding run of goals and victories. If only we know what that set of inputs was we could do repeat the sequence over and over again. Except we can’t because as humans we are subject to an infinitely more complex set of influences and patterns and experiences that will never be repeated, can never be calculated and will never happen again. Get used to it, because then you can drop the ludicrous assumption that we are Biological Intelligence Systems and instead enjoy the fact that we are merely animals subject to the whims of an unfathomably more complex world that we can ever understand.
2.
Which brings me to the incomprehensibly beautiful display of flowing footballing magic that was Arsenal against Newcastle on Saturday night. Maybe the best display of footballing wizardry from Arsenal for a very long time. The magpies had their feathers plucked, were basted and stewed in an Emirates cauldron bubbling with passion and power. Dark Arts? Oh yes! Arsenal cast a spell on Newcastle. There was magic in the air and no amount of the usual anti-football amulets could help them break free of Arsenal’s bewitching witchery.
The first half was mesmerising. You couldn’t take your eyes off that red and white whirlwind blowing those feeble magpies off-course. Even the usual narratives from the commentators were silenced as they battened-down the hatches and tried to desperately consult their maps and navigate to a new story (except, of course one World Class commentating idiot who continued to claim it was a sunny day as Storm Saka drenched his very sad carnival). Even Ali McHoisted-On-His-Own-Petard managed to cough up few a compliments after his usual dour drivel was blown off to smithereens (apologies to readers who don’t have to suffer the British media’s usual suspect commentary teams if your not aware of who I’m referring to).
Arteta used very human words to describe the performance, intensity, commitment, determination, aggression, and he was right. Arsenal were a little taller, a little faster, a little bigger throughout. We played quick, sharp, intelligent football which just sliced and diced a clunking and bewildered Newcastle. He could have used the word instinct too, because the best football seems to happens when a non-thinking flow is born from impulsive creative improvisations in a state of confident dream-like control. Or, to put it another way, when the teams strings are being pulled by a benign universe they seem to detach and peacefully bear witness to their own astounding performance.
Now don’t get me wrong, the hundreds of hours sitting in the meeting room and in one to one sessions nurturing the mind to feel confident and positive, establishing clarity in an endless loop of learning and feedback is essential for professional sportspeople. But the kind of flow we saw against Newcastle can’t be programmed, it happens or it doesn’t, but when it does, Arsenal are an unstoppable force. Balance was restored against the Magpies stole their “was it in was it out” one-nil victory and we are now once again back in the race. Anyone want to write off Arsenal this season with all this magic floating about? Nope?
Normally there’s one or two players performing at a slightly higher level and a couple dragging along behind. But against Newcastle it would only be fair to give a Men Of The Match Award because everyone was brilliant, fully engaged and performing to their limits. If I could have asked for anything more (churlish I know) I’d have had Kai bury that opportunity right at the beginning of the second half merely because it would have been one of the team goals of the decade!
So there you go fellow Wonderlanders, fairy dust was sprinkled over our very human players and something magical happened. Let’s all relax and let the flowing football just happen before our very eyes as we continues to witness slight-of-foot magic of the highest order. Have a great week and don’t forget, if you enjoyed this, share Arsenal Wonderland far and wide :)