Episode 12.54: The England Euro24 Performance and Ontological Inversion

In an unlikely departure as it might seem from our usual philosophical discussions, we turn to the performance of the England Men’s football team in Euro 24 as an example of “inside first outside second”. We use this desultory performance as an example in other words of putting the individual first and the team second. One could scarcely have a more graphic example. It’s an illustration of the debilitating effects of forgetting the Alf Ramsay principle of “running off the hall”; of making chains of great passes possible by working hard. The problem in essence is that they think that the person holding the ball is the one who makes the play when it is in fact the team as a whole that has to position itself in such a way as to optimise that player’s opportunities to make the most of the ball that he has at the time. In a nutshell they need to transfer their thinking from “inside first” - individual first - “outside second” - team 2nd - to “outside first” - team first - “inside second” - individual second. Then they might get somewhere; otherwise they won’t.