‘I love football because it’s the opposite of science: contradictory, primitive, emotional’

These days we know someone ran 12.345km during a game. An admirable figure but did he run to help? To get in the way? As he ran, did he think? We need the context. If not, let’s leave the numbers for something else

Let’s not allow the uncertainty of results, the patriotic feeling football provokes or the increasing money generated by this fantastic industry to distract us from the evolution of the game itself, the play. Regressive tactics advance at greater speed than creative ones and the obsession with statistics contributes to that.

At this World Cup, more than ever before, we want to know everything with mathematical precision, even though football is beautiful when two and two don’t make four. Or when South Korea beat Germany, say.

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from Football | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2KxggET