Episode Player

Metaphor is the lens through which we actually see the game. Call a player a computer and you start looking for software to upgrade. Call a team a puzzle and you start developing pieces to assemble. The metaphor decides, quietly, what counts as a problem and what counts as a solution.

In this episode: George Lakoff and Mark Johnson's foundational argument that metaphors shape how we think, not just how we speak, and what happens when you apply that to football. The reductionist family of metaphors that built modern coaching: the clock, the computer, the house, the pyramid, the toolbox, the puzzle. And the newer family challenging them: the radio, Tim Ingold's lines and meshworks, Bruce Lee's water, Rob Gray's Matrix. A study by Thibodeau and Boroditsky showing how a single metaphor change — beast versus virus — shifts what solutions people reach for. And what it actually means for coaching if skill is a relation rather than a possession.

The thread underneath: the metaphors we inherit are not neutral. They highlight some things and hide others. And the ones football has lived by for decades may be leaking the most important parts of the game away.

Further reading

• Lakoff, G. & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors We Live By. University of Chicago Press.
• Thibodeau, P. & Boroditsky, L. (2011). Metaphors We Think With: The Role of Metaphor in Reasoning. PLOS ONE.
• Ingold, T. (2015). The Life of Lines. Routledge.
• Brette, R. (2022). Brains as Computers: Metaphor, Analogy, Theory or Fact?. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution.
• Sontag, S. (1966). Against Interpretation. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

🌍 More at progressao.fi 
🐦 Follow us on X and Instagram: @progressaofi