Seeing the Spaces: Lessons from the Beautiful Game

The book explores the importance of seeing, creating and managing space. That insight emerges from soccer and applies in just about every area of life. After introducing the key role of space in soccer, the book shows how that perspective can be applied in the education, military and corporate areas as well as in other sports. We often see obstacles rather than opportunities. We spend too much time focused on the immediate task in front of us, and not enough thinking about what we are trying to do; not enough pausing to explore the open spaces around us and all the possibilities they create. Many see soccer as a series of individual confrontations with the winners sending the ball somewhere down the field. But there is another dramatically different way to play and watch the game. The point is not to beat the next defender but to get the ball past the entire defense. That requires not just seeing the defenders, but the spaces between them. Once you start to see the spaces, you can see how the movement of the offense actually opens or cuts off opportunities. You see the value of getting the ball to someone who is in position to see the spaces and take advantage of them. You see the importance of someone making a run without the ball, drawing a defender with them, and opening a space for a teammate. The book applies the idea of seeing, creating and managing space to other areas and shows how that perspective opens up important new opportunities. It highlights how the education, military, corporate and sport areas are evolving in response to new technologies and the spaces, the opportunities, that are emerging. The book applies the idea of looking for open space to managing personal space, education, military operations, leading an organization, or just watching soccer and other sports. If you are new to the game, the book gives you a sense of what it's like out on the field, with enough detail to enjoy watching or getting out there yourself. This will be particularly helpful for parents and grandparents who spend hours on the sideline watching the children play. Players will get some ideas about how to move their game to the next level. Coaches might pick up a few tips about ways to get some of the key ideas across to their players. Fans will discover a whole new way to enjoy the game. For everyone, knowing a bit about how spaces emerge in soccer will help you see the spaces all around you. After the opening discussion of the importance of seeing, creating and managing spaces in soccer, the book shows how those ideas apply in virtually any other area. That perspective is particularly important as the wave of artificial intelligence innovation is opening new spaces, new opportunities, everywhere. The section on education highlights the revolution in learning that is already underway. The pyramid of formal education, building blocks opening future possibilities, is being refined and in some cases replaced by an exploratory model to build on personal interests. The spaces are not just at the end of the journey, they are everywhere along the way. Information used to be scarce and now it is free and easily accessible. Education is shifting from preparation for undefined uses somewhere in the future to exciting exploration now to meet pressing challenges and build on our curiosity. The trick in exploring is to create interesting, meaningful, complete questions. This is a real art form, and it's an extremely important skill. In fact it is rapidly becoming a real differentiator in academic and professional performance. The book then moves on to show the importance of seeing the spaces in military maneuvers and creatively responding to the opponents' moves. It demonstrates how seeing the spaces is the core of corporate strategy and innovation. The book explains how the same ideas of managing space are key to understanding strategy in other sports, and it explores the whole new space of sports analytics.