JOGO X: Introducing The Chess of Soccer

Pep Guardiola once said “The process of picking a line-up and devising a tactical game plan is like sitting in front of your chess pieces. You’ve no idea how similar the two things are.” This statement could not be more true. While fundamental human characteristics such as the ability to respond to mistakes and overcome adversity, keeping high concentration levels, and having an excellent work ethic, must be taken into consideration by coaches when picking their players, the strictly strategic and tactical part of the game can still be isolated from the human aspect. In other words, we can filter out all other parts of soccer and “chessify” the game.

While the objective in soccer is simple, which is to place the ball in your opponent’s goal more times than the opponent places the ball in your goal in a given timeframe, one may still feel overwhelmed after reading the phrase above by Pep Guardiola, one of the greatest managers of all time, and think “well, soccer must be a very complex game.” The reality is, what can be complicated and abstract, and requires learning, are the underlying laws of time, space, pressure, distance, speed, and angles, that very much govern a game of soccer. These are the natural laws of the game that most people are oblivious to, yet any kind of tactical discussion on soccer must include these laws as they are, not only always present, but also always relevant and central to any game situation.

There are principles in soccer that must be respected at all times, regardless of what players are involved. For example, just taking the relationship between any 2 players on the same team, in order to complete a successful pass from the ball carrier to a team mate, a sufficient angle must be created to provide optimal support to the ball carrier. The ball cannot travel through opponents, so if there is not a proper angle of support, then the ball cannot transfer from the ball carrier to the team mate. This is a fundamental concept in the game of soccer. This is why I cringe when I hear parents on the sideline of a game (particularly in the United States) yelling at the top of their lungs “Kick it up the field!”, or “Hustle!”. This type of behaviour just puts on display the lack of knowledge these parents have of the actual game their child is playing. They lack the understanding of the fact that, to play the game effectively (and develop players), they must be able to solve problems on the field, and do this in coordination with their team mates. The problems they must solve individually may include actions such as body orientation and checking their blindspots, however, to connect these individual actions to a team aspect, they must understand, read, and anticipate the natural laws of the game.

Another principle that applies to a larger, team-structured concept, is the idea of protecting the central zone of the field. If it is not protected, then your opponent has a more direct path to your goal, and you are in for a difficult night, as you are abandoning the most valuable zone of the playing area. What about the ability to execute a 60 yard aerial pass? Can I do that if I have multiple defenders in my immediate territory? Or if my team mate receiving the aerial pass already has a defender in their territory? The laws of football nature tell us no, because by the time the ball travels 60 yards, the defender is already in a position to intercept the pass, and will never reach the intended target, no matter how beautiful or precise the technical execution of the pass is. Now, of course, there are players with special abilities who, at times, can still execute a 60 yard pass regardless of the pressure in their territory. In cases like this, the defensive team may instead focus on the destination of the pass, rather than preventing the pass itself. In other words, the natural laws that govern the game are still respected, just executed in a different manner to achieve the same result.

We must respect the laws of physics and football nature when making football decisions. We must create the optimal football conditions. If I am moving pieces on a tactics board, the fundamental principles mentioned above can be achieved by simply moving the pieces in a structured manner that coordinate with one another to achieve the desired outcome. Wouldn’t it be amazing to have a way to gamify these principles, to exercise and test our strategic capacity of football? What if we could strip the game down to pure decision making, without the element of luck (the top players, teams, and coaches don’t depend on luck to be successful, they rather reduce the element of chance and instead opt for control to determine the outcome), but rather a game of ultimate logic? Then we would really be able to understand and learn the deep gameplay and laws of the beautiful game.

At JOGO X, we do just that. We gamify soccer in a way never seen before. We exercise the mind and challenge the traditional way of thinking. JOGO X is soccer on a board. JOGO X is the chess of soccer.