This document discusses feedback in soccer using a cybernetic and systems approach. It explains that feedback is essential for players to monitor their performance and make corrections to achieve their objectives. There are three types of feedback: individual feedback regarding a player's actions with the ball, cooperative feedback with teammates, and competitive feedback against opponents. Positive feedback can lead to uncontrolled growth while negative feedback promotes goal-seeking and equilibrium. The cybernetic model emphasizes continual information flow and rapid, clear feedback to allow players to constantly adjust their actions during a match.

1. A Decision/Action Model for Soccer – Pt 7
Feedback in soccer
A cybernetic approach
“For a player to be skillful in football he needs information of three kinds. The first would
be concerned with his objective-what it is he is wanting to achieve… Secondly, he needs
information from his own performance with regard to the job that he has decided to do…
Thirdly, the player requires some knowledge of the results of his actions so that any
corrections that are necessary may be made. The writer has found that the cybernetic
approach to learning provides an adequate base for the explanation and understanding
of skilled behavior.
Eric Worthington – Learning & Teaching Soccer Skills
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2. Basic cybernetics
Cybernetics; “the art of steersmanship"; "deals with all forms of behavior in so
far as they are regular, or determinate, or reproducible"; "offers a method for
the scientific treatment of the system in which complexity is outstanding and too
important to be ignored.”
W. Ross Ashby
“the essential goal of cybernetics is to understand and define the functions and
processes of systems that have goals and that participate in circular, causal
chains that move from action to sensing to comparison with desired goal, and
again to action. Studies in cybernetics provide a means for examining the design
and function of any system, including social systems such as business
management and organizational learning, including for the purpose of making
them more efficient and effective.”
Wikipedia
Together, feed forward and feedback are necessary to create “circular, causal
chains.”
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3. Feed forward
Principa Cybernetica Web
“In a system where a transformation occurs, there are inputs and outputs. The
inputs are the result of the environment's influence on the system, and the
outputs are the influence of the system on the environment. Input and output
are separated by a duration of time, as in before and after, or past and
present.” [2]
F e e d f o r w a r d ->
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4. Feedback
Principa Cybernetica Web
“In every feedback loop, as the name suggests, information about the result of
a transformation or an action is sent back to the input of the system in the form
of input data.” [2]
F e e d f o r w a r d ->
Systems are nested and dynamically interconnected through channels of feed
forward and feedback. The relationships between a system other systems is in
constant flux.
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5. Feedback
Principa Cybernetica Web
F e e d f o r w a r d ->
Feedback; Merriam-Webster on-line dictionary.
 “the return to the input of a part of the output of a machine, system, or process”
 “the partial reversion of the effects of a process to its source or to a preceding stage”
 “the transmission of evaluative or corrective information about an action, event, or
process to the original or controlling source.”
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6. Defining positive and negative feedback
Principa Cybernetica Web
“If these new data facilitate and accelerate the transformation in the same
direction as the preceding results, they are positive feedback - their effects are
cumulative. If the new data produce a result in the opposite direction to
previous results, they are negative feedback - their effects stabilize the system.
In the first case there is exponential growth or decline; in the second there is
maintenance of the equilibrium.” [2]
F e e d f o r w a r d ->
F e e d f o r w a r d ->
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7. End result of positive feedback
Principa Cybernetica Web
“Positive feedback leads to divergent behavior: indefinite expansion or explosion
(a running away toward infinity) or total blocking of activities (a running away
toward zero). Each plus involves another plus; there is a snowball effect. The
examples are numerous: chain reaction, population explosion, industrial
expansion, capital invested at compound interest, inflation, proliferation of
cancer cells. However, when minus leads to another minus, events come to a
standstill. Typical examples are bankruptcy and economic depression.” [2]
“In either case a positive feedback loop left to itself can lead only to the
destruction of the system, through explosion or through the blocking of all its
functions. The wild behavior of positive loops - a veritable death wish - must be
controlled by negative loops. This control is essential for a system to maintain
itself in the course of time.” [2]
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8. End result of negative feedback
Principa Cybernetica Web – [modified for soccer]
“Negative feedback leads to adaptive, or goal-seeking behavior: sustaining the
same level, temperature, concentration, speed, direction. In some cases the goal
is self-determined and is preserved in the face of evolution: the system has
produced its own purpose... In other cases man [i.e. the coach as a larger
system] has determined the goals of the systems [i.e. players, lines, style]. [2]
In a negative loop every variation toward a plus triggers a correction toward the
minus, and vice versa. There is tight control; the system oscillates around an ideal
equilibrium that it never attains. A thermostat or a water tank equipped with a
float are simple examples of regulation by negative feedback.” [2]
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9. Worthington’s cybernetic model
“Cybernetic theory emphasizes the similarity between human behavior and the
feedback mechanisms found in modern self-controlling devices.” [4]
Worthington’s human control system
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10. Cybernetic models that pertain to soccer
Boyd’s OODA loop Teaching Games for Understanding
Franklin’s
LIDA
model
KNVB - TIC
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11. Balancing command and control in learning
When does giving feedback become giving instructions?
Learning “requires a regular environment, an adequate opportunity to practice, and rapid
and unequivocal feedback about the correctness of thoughts and actions. When these
conditions are fulfilled, skill eventually* develops, and the intuitive judgments and choices
that quickly come to mind will mostly be accurate. All this is the work of System 1, which
means it occurs automatically and fast. A marker of skilled performance is the ability to deal
with vast amounts of information swiftly and efficiently.” [3]
However
Feedback is constrained by a systems shared (the collective subsystems) experience.
Resilient systems (prepared and ready) have the ability to rapidly (fast and frugal) adjust to
wicked problems. Rigid, ill prepared systems are limited in the number and variety of
responses they have available. The former builds snowmobiles faster than the opponent
while the later keeps using the only tool it knows, usually a hammer. [2]
*Timescales. When a system gets stuck in a positive feedback loop a larger system may
have to intervene. The larger system can provide instruction which broadens its experience
base or changes its goals. This is when command has to exert its authority to the
subordinate members.
 “At some point you have to set things right” Graham Ramsay. Command realizes that the control
system has run out of resources and requires leadership.
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12. Worthington on cybernetics and soccer
“To complete the description of the player referred to earlier (slide1), he
monitors the whole approach to the kick to his colleague. The internal and
external feedback loops transmit all the selected information that is being
attended to by the senses. As far as the external feedback is concerned, the
information may show that the pass needs to be placed ahead of the colleague
and with not too much power. His eventual kick is drawn from his store of
experience of such actions and the internal feedback loop continues to provide
information… The output is concluded but still the external feedback is
transmitting information to be retained by way of the memory of the central
processing system.” [4]
Players have to attend i.e. monitor more then the ball. Teammates and
opponents are also first level concerns. The more players can block out lower
level noise the more attention they can pay to these high level issues. This
balance between blocking out noise and attending to real issues is at the heart
of training.
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13. Feedback in soccer
A qualitative view – feedback is more than a direction
A qualitative view of feedback stresses how an individual interacts with the
elements of the game; the artifacts, teammates and opponents. Separately
feedback comes to a player as;
 Individual feedback, me and the artifacts. Artifacts are those elements that do not
create or convey intent but demand attention. The ball is the biggest factor but others
like the field, weather and so on play a role.
 Cooperative feedback, me and teammates. This feedback deals with the level and
sophistication of the Teambuilding elements. How quickly a player can recognize and
utilize authority structures to match the changing realities.
 Competitive feedback, me and a goal. Feedback that informs a player how he or
she is doing in regards to achieving a result against resistance, product focused. The
goal may or may not include an active opponent.
These three types of feedback overlap each other creating the diagram on slide
14.
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14. Feedback in soccer
A qualitative view – feedback is more than a direction
Together individual, cooperative and competitive feedback create the sweet spot at ‘a’.
Activities that include cooperation, competition and individual accountability along with the
elements of the game provide a realistic environment for learning. These activities build up
from a base of 2v2 soccer like games. By starting here players have to work with a teammate,
contend with an opponent as well as the artifacts. When this combine in a results driven game
“rapid and unequivocal feedback (individual, cooperative, competitive) about the correctness
of thoughts and actions” [3] is freely available. When proper coaching is added, learning
occurs.
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15. Summary
Cybernetics is the study of open, self-regulating systems. These systems use feedback as a
control mechanism. In order to maintain control (moving towards a goal) the flow of
feedback must be continuous and as accurate as possible i.e. it’s “rapid and unequivocal” in
nature.
In order to maintain this state the system has to take in at least as much, or more,
information then it puts out. Failure to do this will, over time, starve the system and lead to
its collapse.
The Second Law of Thermodynamics drives this relationship. As the system moves through
time (feeds forward) it creates waste. The system always loses information
(energy/opportunities) during processing, the simple cost of doing business.
Players must “pay attention.” Paying attention includes attending to feedback in order to
adjust goals and behavior. Models which stress too many details can become bogged down
in them. Fast-and frugal models, like the four main moments, 1st, 2nd, 3rd attacker/defender,
individual, cooperative and competitive feedback use chunking to speed up the learning
process. These models structure orientation at the global level which allows the system to
focus on local issues.
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16. Selected references
1. BOYD, J. 1976, Destruction and Creation
(http://pogoarchives.org/m/dni/john_boyd_compendium/destruction_and_creation.pdf)
2. de ROSNAY, J. Jan. 6 1997, Feedback – Principia Cybernetica Web
(http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/FEEDBACK.html).
3. KAHNEMAN, D. 2011, Thinking Fast and Slow (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux).
4. WORTHINGTON, E. 1974, Learning and Teaching Soccer Skills (North Hollywood, Ca:
Hal Leighton Printing).
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17. Thank you
“I’ll live or die by my own ideas.” Johan Cruyff
Presentation created February 2013 by Larry Paul, Peoria Arizona.
All references are available as stated.
All content is the responsibility of the author.
For questions or to inquire how to arrange a consultation or workshop on this
topic or the others in the series you can contact me at larry4v4@hotmail.com, subject line;
decision/action model.
For more information visit the bettersoccermorefun channel on YouTube.
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