Nassim Nicholas Taleb, an author, professor, and researcher, wrote a book entitled “The Black Swan” (not to be mistaken with the movie with Natalie Portman) that talked about how highly improbable and unpredictable events underlie almost everything about the world. More recently, he wrote a book called “Antifragile”, where he discusses all forms of systems from love to economics to the human body, and categorizes them into what he calls the Triad; either A. Fragile: things that break under pressure (ie. glass objects) B. Robust: Things that don’t care about stress or pressure (ie. diamond) and C. Antifragile: Things that gain from pressure and need stress and chaos in order to not only survive, but thrive (ie. human bone)
Nassim Taleb
If we take the 3 examples from above: glass, diamond, and bone, we can examine the concept of anti-fragility a little closer. Glass will break if it is dropped, thus, it is fragile. Diamond is nearly unbreakable, but doesn’t get any better from stress and therefore doesn’t care, so it is deemed robust. Human bone on the other hand, gets stronger from the right amount of stress and in fact, needs it, otherwise it atrophies leading to problems such as osteoporosis.
At this point you might be wondering how these concepts relate to the soccer player, other than having strong shins so the tiny shin guards don’t leave us vulnerable to nasty tackles. Taleb has many fascinating anecdotes in his book, but a few of the concepts stood out to me as profound ways soccer players and coaches can find more success and derive more pleasure from the sport. Let us examine 2 principles of anti-fragility, and how they apply to us as athletes and soccer players.
1. Fundamental Asymmetry: Another way of saying upside versus downside. Coaches, often when predicting the future of a potential recruit, refer to players either having a strong upside, or not. A strong upside means there is a lot to work with and the player will likely stay healthy and improve consistently rather than stagnate. Say a college coach is looking at an 18 year old freshman and will have him/her for 4 years; they think not only of the first year, but consider the player and person as a 4 year investment to the program. Many aspects of having a strong upside come down to things outside of our control such as maturation status or height.
A player who is playing at a high level technically and tactically and still has muscle mass and size to gain usually is seen as having a strong upside. Often, players who are dominating the at younger ages simply because they are farther along in their pubescent phases are closer to being maxed out because at the next level everyone will be bigger, faster, and stronger. However, upside can also be related to good leadership skills, good work ethic, and high levels of skill or athleticism that just need some guidance (good coaching). Compared to size and maturation status, those qualities are more under our control.
2. Fragilista: Someone who causes fragility because he thinks he understands what is going on. Also usually lacks a sense of humor. An example of this in soccer is the player who cannot take criticism or adapt to playing a different style of soccer because they think they know better. Or the coach who refuses to modify his philosophy, tactics or formation to the field, opponent, or his current roster of players and their traits. Taleb says “Fragilistas fragilize by depriving variability-loving systems of variability and error-loving systems of errors”.
About variability: The development of a player will depend on exposure to a variety of training stimuli and match circumstances. Similar to my last post on differential learning, soccer players develop faster when exposed to different types of games, different surfaces, competing with different teammates, in various climates, and of course, against different opponents. If a player grows up only playing futsal, or only playing outdoor on perfect grass, they are more fragile soccer players because when the time comes for the demands of playing and receiving long balls, or playing on a bumpy soccer field, some of them are not going to be prepared. Worse yet, perhaps this predisposes players to an injury because their body is not accustomed to the different surface or climate and is not as capable overall. I.e. the running demands and musculo-tendon stresses (i.e. hamstrings) involved in 11v11 full size pitch soccer is different from fustal and vice-versa.
Pep is pleased when you are anti-fragile
Furthermore, if you always eat the same snack at home before practice and then your team is on a road trip and you have to eat something different before a game…how will you be effected? Are you a coach who always comment on a player’s mistakes or subs them out when they are playing poorly? Or are you a player who is afraid of making mistakes and beats yourself up or hides on the field? The fear of failing leads to limitations, not growth. Soccer, as much as any sport (and due to the fact that we play with our feet), is a game of errors. Taleb once quoted the baseball legend and funny man Yogi Berra teasing the pressures of sport and media, “We made too many wrong mistakes”. Life, like soccer, is full is mistakes, and not all of them are necessarily wrong. A fragilista fears mistakes and change, while the antifragile athlete relishes the different challenges and learns from errors rather than fears them.
Anti-fragile>Robust>Fragile
Fear nothing but knowing you didn’t leave it all out there. Physically, sure, but also tactical and technical courage to play, play, play your game.