Soccer Strategy and the Zen of Things

Last night I watched the Korea - Australia soccer game in a bar here in Korea (Korea was victorious 3 - 1). As I watched it I began to think about the strategy problem facing each coach and each player on the field. My immediate reaction was firstly, that the strategies they seemed to be implementing were pretty unsophisticated, relatively in the box, and not all that good. As I considered ways to find better strategy for this context I also began to consider what would make a good team, how their quality could be developed and how they could interact with other teams to ensure more interesting football games. Of course this is a complex problem and there are many factors about which I have no idea, however, I think it is safe to say, that an external, and non physical, review of many sport's strategies could have a significant influence. 

The next logical thing to consider was the business of providing strategic consultation for such highly vested teams. I wonder for instance, if IDEO has ever been approached to help a sports team design a better view of their game, and if there is such a thing as design trained consultants in the sports industry, offering suggestions on better team structure etc. 

The last thought this situation led to was that of the Zen of complex systems, like the game of football. Several weeks ago I was considering the fact that most systems seem to have a Zen of sorts; an essential idea that holds them together and can be described as the ideal which makes all the other elements relevant. I considered that although most systems have a Zen, it is possible and likely that a system does not need to have such a formal notion, however, the thought occurred that what makes something a system is the presence of an underlying Zen. In any case, yesternight I wondered what the Zen of football would be like, and how different it is from the game that we watch and appreciate. 

A conversation on this would be interesting.

Photo: Reuters

Posted via email from Mark Whiting's posterous