Let me be frank. I loved Xavi’s interview in The Guardian earlier this month, in spite of the fact that I don’t remember a word of what he said except the following. Answering an early question of Sid Lowe’s—how do you respond when the opposition forces you to play on the back foot?—Xavi responded:
Think quickly, look for spaces. That’s what I do: look for spaces. All day. I’m always looking. All day, all day. [Xavi starts gesturing as if he is looking around, swinging his head]. Here? No. There? No. People who haven’t played don’t always realise how hard that is. Space, space, space. It’s like being on the PlayStation.
I find this electrifying. First, Xavi begins to respond to a question asking him to explain the solution to a difficult problem—-a problem so difficult that he realises, as he is explaining it, that his attempts to verbalise a solution are manifestly useless. People who haven’t played don’t always realise how hard that is. People who haven’t played—played what? Football? Possession football? Football with Barcelona? Football against Barcelona?
But how many people who have done even all these things can understand quite perfectly what it is to play like Xavi?
I don’t speak as a supremacist. I understand that it would be difficult for most top-level athletes—not only Xavi, but also Peter Crouch—to explain how they do what they do. To explain something is a step towards institutionalising it as somehow replicable. Is that probable in sport? Is that even desirable? No, the joy of Xavi’s response to me is not that it is particularly helpful—it is that he made it at all. Imagine him sitting there, gesticulating in a sort of footballer’s kathakali, trying to convey a world of meaning by swinging his head. He relies on the repetition of a single word to convey the starkest of all abstractions: space, space, space.
Then, casting around for a more concrete expression of what he tries to do, he deploys the words, It’s like being on the PlayStation.
I am trying to find ways to describe what this simile does. A few days ago, I read an irritating op-ed by Alain de Botton, which explained that books do not prepare us for real love. What, I thought. Was de Botton really trying to tell us that literature is not akin to and, indeed, sometimes fundamentally opposed to the tangible world? What next, Malcom Gladwell explaining that revolutions do not happen on the Internet?
Yet in one way, Xavi saying that he plays football like being on the PlayStation evokes that very juxtaposition. Imagine someone telling you that she fell in love, and saying, It’s like being in a movie. It employs the same absurd language we use again and again, when we describe something in the real world by saying that it is “as pretty as a picture,” or by unscrambling the frequency of good news as “music to our ears.”
When Xavi trying to describe the mental process he undertakes in a World Cup semi-final, says it’s like being on the PlayStation, it is yet another way in which a metaphor becomes reflexive—another instance of a word becoming its meaning. Xavi tells us that being Xavi is like being in a video game. Of Xavi. If this were an exact simile, it would mean that even as those of you who play video game football do so in order to pretend to be Xavi, Xavi is playing football—in the Camp Nou, in front of 90,000 screaming fans and a century of footballing history—pretending to be video-game Xavi.
But there’s a further complication. To me, video games occupy the same space as traditional sport does; not quite life, not quite art, but a framework where both intersect. They are too much like each other for the boundaries of a traditional analogy—love like a Shakespeare play, a landscape like a Gainsborough—to sustain themselves. A football video game starts out with the most fundamental purpose of an artificial object: it is the simulacrum of physical football. It has to be like real football.
Can such a game really have developed to a stage where it becomes the basis for comparison, rather than its object? The ability to do something that is considered humanly improbable invites comparison to the inhuman: we have read players being praised as ‘Playstation footballers’ before. But rationality demands that we recognise the superiority of the physical experience by defining what it is not: we might say that the traditional or the original is better because it is not predictable, not mechanical, not prescribed by algorithm, not dictated by the whims of some code monkey who never graduated Harvard.
It may be a little 1970s to fantasise about a future in which this superiority erodes or becomes irrelevant, when games are so sophisticated that they might match or improve the experience of real football. How do our standards of evaluation change then? Will there be a point when we can begin to entertain that ultimate 1970s fantasy: that an imagined essence of humanity—its biological and cognitive integrity—will fail, to be replaced by simulacra that fulfil its goals much better?
But even as Xavi’s throwaway line encourages me to reimagine him in a Terminator suit, looming out of a fog that engulfs the Camp Nou, speaking in a strange Austro-Californian accent, I’m reminded of Garry Kasparov’s superb essay from early last year, The Chess Master and the Computer:
There is little doubt that different people are blessed with different amounts of cognitive gifts such as long-term memory and the visuospatial skills chess players are said to employ. One of the reasons chess is an “unparalleled laboratory” and a “unique nexus” is that it demands high performance from so many of the brain’s functions. Where so many of these investigations fail on a practical level is by not recognizing the importance of the process of learning and playing chess. The ability to work hard for days on end without losing focus is a talent. The ability to keep absorbing new information after many hours of study is a talent. Programming yourself by analyzing your decision-making outcomes and processes can improve results much the way that a smarter chess algorithm will play better than another running on the same computer. We might not be able to change our hardware, but we can definitely upgrade our software.
I’m no gamer; Super Mario describes the limits of my experience there. But I’m interested in knowing how video games are already informing our experience of football, the vocabulary we use to describe it, how we evaluate the games we are watching, and perhaps how it shapes the way we, and the footballers of the future who are currently sixteen years old, or six, may come to play the game. Like science fiction, does PlayStation hold the key to the future? Or like all true prophecy, is it actually imagining for us what football cannot or will not ever be?
I’ll end with a simile of my own. Last month, Dinosaur Comics published this comic on the statistical likelihood of humanity actually producing a Batman. We start with the number of children born to billionaire parents each year!, begins T-Rex brightly, going on to control the chances of such an individual also being an Olympic athlete, and then also being an orphan who witnesses their parents’ murder, and so on and on. Conclusion? We are likely to produce one Batman every 25 million years.
I hate to say it, T-Rex says, but reality SUCKS sometimes.
But if such a human did come along, how would they ever describe themselves to us? How would Batman describe the condition of Batman-ness to other people? (I know, I know: he wouldn’t.) What is the closest thing to being Batman? The only accurate comparison, perhaps, would be to say that being a superhero is like being in a comic book.
Perhaps that’s what Xavi meant.
Supriya Nair is a journalist from Bombay. She writes about things other than football at President Blink-Blink, and is on Twitter here.
Cf., far more troublingly, soldiers visualising battles as videogames about soldiers in battle.
I say 1970s, but the anxiety, of course, continually morphs to remain alive and flourishing.
Read More: Pixel Dramas, Xavi
by Supriya Nair · February 18, 2011
This is like a hat-trick on debut.
This is, to use a simile of my own, a sight for sore eyes. As was the Xavi interview, devoid as it was of the phrase “110 percent”.
Of course you would write about Xavi as your first post. And now Pandora has moved onto OMD. So I am going to use my own questionable analogy- I feel like I am in a John Hughes movie now, complete with sighing, stars in my eyes and euphoric giddiness. (And I have the soundtrack to go with it.)
*Token Metal Gear Solid II reference, comparison*
Dude. When you play a football game on a games console, you know how you look for space to play the ball into? That’s the simile. That is all.
@Haarball Dude, dont call a chick a dude!
@Doctor’s Your Uncle I meant that in a unisex way.
Really awesome piece, Supriya.
On a practical note, one thing that video game soccer is really excellent at is easing the player into the all too often intimidating world of soccer. Being an American who never grew up immersed in the culture was a bit like being an English only speaker and trying to get around Russia by oneself. American football, baseball and basketball can offer you a rough outline of what is happening on and off the pitch in the world of soccer- just like fluency in your native language will obviously give you a rough outline of what to expect from nouns (goals), assists (adjectives) and defense (um, verbs, I guess).
Video games can then act as an “Idiot’s Guide” in a way. Softly guiding you through the subtleties of the offside rule, the importance of space and movement, etc.
On the flip side, after having played so much more fifa than having watched actual matches, I find myself irrationally expecting players to play like their video game alter-egos and frustrated when they don’t. Maybe this is why I find watching Barcelona games so relaxing and enjoyable, as they, more than any other team, play the game the same way EA Sports replicates it.
Anyway, I just wanted to say I really liked the article.
Sensible Soccer, Foot-to-ball and Me is an essay by computer game and music journalist and comic book author Kieron Gillen about how playing an old football computer game Sensible Soccer taught him to appreciate the real thing.
Fantastic piece!
Don’t think video game simulation of football will play a big part in the near future but it does provide a kind of abstract concept for those who aren’t out on the field as often as others. Of course, the similarities stop there.
I think Xavi meant that, like in a football video game, he follows one objective and one objective only, find a route to the goal.
This is a fabulous article! Very well written and a very interesting take on Xavi’s description of how he does what he does. From someone, who has played video games (esp. football simulations) since a very young age, I can tell you that the most successful players excel at locating, timing and executing passes to “open” players. That is, locating space where you can hurt your opponent and using that to your advantage.
What makes it easier to do on PlayStation is that you get the benefit of a top-down camera view of the field and the players under your control. In addition, the AI (artificial intelligence) administers aids to help guide the ball to the expected destination etc.
Xavi, at field-level, can see and execute passes with such consistent precision that seeing him do so, to a video game footballer, is “like being on PlayStation.”
My two cents. Really enjoyed reading.
@ruffneckc This is pretty much spot on. I had a terrible time initially when I tried playing FIFA 2010 from a first-person perspective. Without that top-down view I found myself making either very poor passes, or very obvious passes.
The way I see it is that players like Xavi essentially have that top-down map in their heads and then have the physical skill to execute the pass. Video game players have the benefit of a top-down view , and the only physical skill required is to press a button. Playing the video game obviously requires some skill, but it just makes us mortals all the more aware of the skill these great midfielders have.
Slightly offtopic, but since there might be a bunch of gamers here, this interview by the president of Nintendo with one of the Pro Evo game designers is pretty cool – http://www.nintendo.co.uk/NOE/en_GB/news/iwata/iwata_asks_-_nintendo_3ds_third_party_game_developers_31641_31707.html
Supriya is now the Roger Ebert of football journalists.
Look up video of Xavi’s defense-splitting, perfectly weighted, diagonal, heart-wrenching, cliche-inducing pass to Alves against Malaga two seasons ago and you may surely begin to believe he is playing on the PS3 when he steps out on the field.
The Run of Play and Dinosaur Comics, two of my favourite things in this world, finally together. My life will probably only get worse from here. Thanks a lot XAVI
@lobotics You said it.
I know that some NFL coaches and players have said that they try out practice routines on the John Madden game, so maybe the line is getting somewhat blurred between games and the real thing.
@rike I once heard an interview with former pro baseball player, Cal Ripken Jr, where the interviewer tried to guide Cal into saying that kids play too much video games. For those who don’t know, Cal is known for playing fundamental baseball. Cal caught the interviewer off guard by saying that he thought it was good that kids played video game baseball. Cal felt that it helped kids learn the rules of baseball and how “to play the real game”. The interviewer did not have a follw up question to Cal’s response.
Terrific stuff. I think I read somewhere in an interview that after Man U beat Man City a few weeks ago, Vincent Kompany & Wayne Rooney went & played FIFA 11 to unwind. (Rooney won.) I couldn’t figure out why, after playing 90+ minutes of exhausting, real-life soccer, you’d go play the digital kind as a way to relax. Your argument, I think, helps me understand that impulse.
I also kept returning to this time, just after the Columbine shootings in Colorado, when Lt. David Grossman (author of _On Killing_) came & spoke at our college about the way American society conditions its kids to kill through, among other things, first person shooters. A bummer to bring up, I know, but I couldn’t shake the memory (particularly with that link to the Washington Post article).
Anyway, sorry to be such a drag. Lovely article…
Great article.
The real football to video game football comparison also has another element: both affect how we approach the other. When
I’m playing FIFA, I try to play and think as though I’m on the pitch with the team I’m playing ad (mostly arsenal). This way of thinking teammates into a kind of mental practice, so when i go and play games in real life, I think about making plays as though I’m a player on FIFA. It’s weird, because I don’t simplify it by simply thinking like I was an arsenal player; I go through the extra step of putting it into terms of video game arsenal.
The other effect is how I view plays and players. I have huge repect for Xavi, but because he has punished me so many times in FIFA, I don’t like real life him as much…
@Logan * translates not teammates.
And after posting this I realized how obvious it was =\
Excellent read. I also liked that you used ‘Bombay’ instead of ‘Mumbai’ in your tagline.
Great piece.
As Confucius say “Tell me and I will forget, show me and I might remember, involve me and I will understand.”
I feel the turn of phrase exposes Xavi’s genius even further. We have been told that film (video) is the ultimate postmodern art form for its amalgamation of basically all other art forms literature, performance, photography etc
But Video games break the through wall of engagement where the user creates his own narrative and is part of the story, and has a chance to be a protagonist.
Video games offer access to other worlds fantastical or professional
Hence: for “People who haven’t played”… “It’s like being on the PlayStation.”
Cool piece. However, I’m slightly confused as to what the article is exactly trying to get at…your observation of Xavi with respect to what he said? Or you understanding of what he’s trying to say?
Maybe, as @Rike does, my involvement with videogame football, playing a little of my own, and watching real life matches allows me to understand and see both in a parallel manner: I get why Barcelona and Xavi’s method of play is revered. It is exhibited in a way where it seems like a fantasy, as if the players all knew where each other were, regardless of their position or which direction they are facing. Similarly, videogame football gives the “user” – or ball handler – an advantage of being able to see the area around him, giving him an extra sense of danger or potential. This amount of vision gives the player extra time and options, without having to actually think about relocating your position or angling your body properly, leaving more cognitive breathing room to find your next pass and move. This gives rise to rapid, one touch, (sometimes) route one football, that is usually impossible to recreate in real life, hence the term “Playstation football” – football if there were no physical restraints (fatigue, limited vision, speed of thought etc..)
Xavi, and Barca’s play in general, seems to replicate this fashion of tapping the ball around casually, effortlessly, almost as if there was no caution of space or threats, or no consequences to losing the ball. Xavi’s level of skill on the ball, touch, and spatial understanding is akin to an almost supra human nature of play, like a video game character. And like a video game character, the world you are in is to be exploited and conquered by whatever abilities you are given with. In Xavi’s world, teammates are other characters you meet along the way, space is his side kick, his feet are his weapons, and the mind becomes ammunition.
The way Xavi plays soccer eerily mirrors my reaction to the first Super Mario Brothers game for the Nintendo 64 – it is so perfect in the use of all three dimensions, you can feel your mind melting and dripping out your ear.
Great post!
Wordsmithery + video games + great links + Xavi = Enjoyable read.
Since playing playstation football, I’ve become more aware when berating a player on tele for misplacing a pass or ignoring an obvious channel that he doesn’t have the benefit of our higher perspective. Doesn’t stop me from berating him though. Hmm.
While video games and Barcelona are being discussed, has anyone had any success faithfully replicating Barca’s playing style on Fifa, PES, or football manager? (In particular, if you play Messi in his traditional deep-lying right wing position, he doesn’t have anywhere near the impact he ought to have.) It seems to be a difficult proposition to capture such a fluid style in rigid code.
I think Fifa leans heavily towards a Premier League style of play – fast, strong, direct. Arcade football.
I’d buy Pro Evo next time, if it wasn’t for Fifa’s damned ‘Be a Pro’ mode.
It’s electronic crack!
After Arsenal 3-1 Chelsea earlier this season there was another of these moments–Walcott, in his interview after the game, described his thought process as he passed it to Fabregas for the second goal as ‘Just a little X’ or something along similar lines.
This piece is quite remarkable,! Enjoyed every word and found myself nodding in silent agreement.
I think the Playstation line is revealing for another reason. Maybe it is a clever way of contextualising the opposition. “It’s like being on the Playstation.” Barcelona’s (and Xavi’s) football is often played at levels of technical proficiency that are so much higher than everyone else, that opposition teams can seem to be depressingly formulaic in their tactics. Finding spaces and unlocking defences can similarly feel formulaic, as a result. The Playstation analogy is significant here, beacuse Barcelona are cast as the “human” player, with the opposition being the AI – pre-rendered tactics, animation, movement etc.
Anytime a Kasparov reference makes it, I’m in! (I’m a chess enthusiast, too.)
I wonder how much ambiguity hinges on the preposition “on” …
1. as in “on,” like a character in the game.
2. as in “on,’ like a dude playing the game.
But what other player personifies the FIFA game’s penchant for auto-completing a passes to your pixel teammates? Xavi is an auto-completer.
@Pranav Backliwal I think you’re on to something with the ‘human’ v ‘AI’ approach; Barcelona representing a more organic way of playing, and other teams chained to code. Not all other teams mind you, I’m just generalising for emphasis.
I think it was written of Dalglish that his proficiency for picking out an unexpected pass that unpicked a defence, was founded on his ability to take a mental picture, a snapshot, of the game in progress, make a split second assessment of what would happen two frames in advance (which way the centre-back would move, how fast his teammate would progress down the right wing etc) and then send the ball down the path that made perfect sense to him, but looked like lunatic genius to everyone else.
We’ve got a proper description for this process now of course and google has reminded me that it’s called visual-spatial intelligence. I’m sure we can all pick out a range of favourite players who display this kind of intelligence in a way that consistently thrills us. Those whose intuitive grasp of space and time seperates them from the herd and allows them entry to an Inter-Galactic XI of footballers from another dimension.
I would imagine though, that if we were able to project these pictures that the Inter-Galactic team create in their heads, they would all look quite different. In Dalglish’s mind, the opposition players might look like grey blurs, but the ball and his teammates would appear to in razor-sharp high definition. For Zidane it might be less about pictures, more about noises, creating a auditory-spatial soundscape in his mind, a footballing sonic radar which he manipulates to create intricate symphonies. Ronaldinho pictures the other 21 players on the pitch as giant inflatable bobble-heads, spotting ways to weave between them to a continous samba soundtrack.
What intrigues me is the idea that the Playstation might have created a common visual reference point for players, resulting in a more homogeneous verson of the kind internal construct that Dalglish used to pick out the right pass. If more players are creating a shared minds-eye picture of the pitch and players, and using this picture to make their footballing choices (pass, dribble, fall over), then does this create greater potential for tiki-taka style systems that are based on mutual understanding and co-operation?
@ngb Wayne Rooney beat Joleon Lescott, not Vincent Kompany.
If you are going to be a drag, you might as well get your facts checked.
great piece!
It makes me want to take a closer look on how the rise of the Tony Hawk games might have affected the skateboarding scene – did it help expand the possibility-space of skateboarding tricks?
I’d rather read what Xabi Alonso says about his passing. It’s one thing to pass to teammates whom you know so well, and with whom you’ve played for so long, products of the same academy with the same philosophy; it’s totally another thing to play passes to a strange collection of people from various academies, from various parts of the world with different playing styles.
The fast, Portuguese winger/striker, the Togolese mercenary, the German midfield wunderkind, the former player of the year returning from injury, the Portuguese center back who follows Mourinho, egos, personalities, legends, villains, heroes and flops. Some are there for the money, some for the glory, some for Madrid, some for Mourinho himself, some are starting their career, some are ending it, some are pledging their life to Madrid, some just want out of Manchester City.
Every pass is not just important, it’s political.
Final paragraph is quite Aristotelian. The whole an oak tree has oak tree-like qualities. Is it arrogant for Xavi to agree with his Playstation portrayal? Maybe, or it could be just a sense of self-definition.
@Benderinho
So that would make Xavi/Barcelona … Neo and his crew? That is a little depressing for the not-Barcas …
This reminds me of David Foster Wallace’s piece “How tracy austin broke my heart”.
Thanks for a lekker read.
@rike I found this to be the case as well, as a European learning about American football. I played Madden 2001 hours on end, and it really gave me basic insight in players, routes, formations, rules etc. that some of my friends, whom I’ve watched NFL with since, still lack as they haven’t either been brought up with the sport or played the madden games.