Sublime
An inspiration engine for ideas
What Kind of Game are You Playing
In the 1999 tennis book, Extraordinary Tennis for the Ordinary Tennis Player, author Simon Ramo broke down the difference between amateur and professional tennis, writing that they were two different types of games:
Amateur tennis is a Loser's Game: 80% of points are lost on unforced errors. You win by avoiding error
‘workmanlike’ players were selected instead of ‘stars’ and the appeal of the ‘David Beckham’ narrative (the instinctive belief that good-looking players are somehow better) was rejected.
John Yorke • Into The Woods: How Stories Work and Why We Tell Them
the first thing football scouts look for in youngsters is ‘intelligence’, the ability to see quickly what is going on around them and to plan for all eventualities – something we academics might call spatial reasoning. Nor are footballers lazy.
David Sumpter • Soccermatics: Mathematical Adventures in the Beautiful Game (Bloomsbury Sigma)
Football, as a more complex team game without a form of real possession, is largely about triangles. One such triangle might be the player currently touching the ball, the one about to receive it, and the off-ball player currently causing the greatest deformation in the defence’s shape. Triangles might replace ‘ball events’ as the key unit of footb
... See moreDavid Sally • The Numbers Game: Why Everything You Know About Football is Wrong
