Self organisation characteristics in football teams as opposing agent-based viable systems

This paper considers the cybernetics of Football (Soccer) teams in the context of these being representative of complex adaptive and self organizing systems that are in opposition to one another. We have obtained an extensive amount of positioning data relating to a particular real life football match captured using an innovative laser-based scanning system. This has been analyzed in an attempt to isolate any characteristics of self organization formed within and exhibited by each individual in each team and this property has been contextualized in terms of the Viable System Model. Our investigation is intended to provide some insight into how humans (as viable systems), when operating as teams that are themselves organized along viable system precepts, might exhibit the characteristics of self organization when organized in accordance with the provisions of the model. Our results indicate that the property of self organisation as represented by a power law is exhibited by members of football teams when they attempt to maintain their stated purpose of success over an opposing force.