Sideline Philosophy:Eigentor & other strange attractors 6 comments

3 Jul 2010 @ 13:32, by Max Sandor Brazil dethroned before being crowned: a lesson not just for Brazilian fans and pros but also for the sideline philosopher. All went well before the interval, the match appeared already decided. Whatever happened during the break, we may never come to know. What we do know that the game of the 'seleçao' disintegrated inexplicably. The consequence of a lack of harmony within a system demonstrates itself in strange ways: a seemingly unimportant action escalates to a game-breaking event. Processes like that have been come to be known as the 'butterfly effect'. The fact is that the team of the Netherlands, of which South and North Hollands are merely provinces, did not have a single chance in the first 53 minutes of the game but the Brazilian "Eigentor" gave it wings to finish off the rest. An Eigentor is a goal made by a player against his own team. (for the etymology of 'Eigen' see [link],_eigenvector_and_eigenspace ). But the goal in question wasn't even that. Melo, the unlucky Brazilian fellow credited with the goal, happened to just be in the way of the ball which found its own way through the phalanx of players right into the Brazilian goal. The sideline philosopher is being prompted with the question: at which point do parts of a working system fail and turn against the system itself? Many have tried but nobody I know of has yet found a clear answer, whether we look at cancer in medicine or "homeland" terrorism in social sciences. [pausing here to see the match between Germany and Argentina] Well, here I am again, during the interval, "Halbzeit" (halftime), to throw in another Germanism. 1:0 for Germany. Nobody seems to have learned anything from the previous games. Like Brazil yesterday, the German team failed to draw advantage of a strong first half of the match. Except that Argentina is playing much, much stronger than the Netherlands. Balls shot high over the goal and failure to make the obvious pass to the fellow player. In the attempt to gain the credits for goals for oneself and not for the another player of one's own team, more chances have been wasted in this cup than the total number of goals so far. As mentioned, the quality of the players is at such a high standard for ALL teams that more than ever the final decision of a match lies within the attitude, or even bias, of the refereree and the strategy of the coach. Besides some luck, of course. Luck? Does luck really exist or is it just a statistical event in a situation tilted towards a certain result? Germany was lacking the 'Wille zum Tor" (will to score) after the early hit, just like Brazil yesterday. Methinks 'luck' is always on the side of who really wants to score and even a biased referee must ultimately yield to goals shot, whether he wants a certain team to win or not. We will see shortly, who will emerge from the 15-minute break and have the 'will' to decide the match... [pausing here for the second half] Wow! They did it and it was good for a 4:0 in the best game yet of this world cup. And a game with a low number of fouls and a pleasure to the eye (more on the aesthetics of ball games at another time). Germany has the youngest team of all in this world cup, way to go for the future. Of course, the idea of a 'national' team appears a bit out-of-date for teams like Germany or France with African, East-Europe, and Southamerican natives who have been 'naturalized' (with soda??? or how??). Most of the rest of the native-natives of the team are playing in countries than their own. Given the fact that many nations employ coaches from other countries one may very well state that the time of 'national teams' is over and the original idea lost in the shuffle. In any case, I should really change the picture for this article. But I will need to take a break before seeing the next game Paraguay against Spain this afternoon. Over and out.

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