I think of beauty as an absolute necessity. I don’t think it’s a privilege or an indulgence, it’s not even a quest. I think it’s almost like knowledge, which is to say, it’s what we were born for.

• Toni Morrison

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I've been playing football since I was twelve years old.

When I was younger, I thought the most important aspect of football was dribbling, and the most important aspect of dribbling was performing skill moves. As a result, I dedicated hours of daily training towards mastering the skill moves I had seen online and become obsessed with.

Right from the beginning, I had an idea of how I wanted to play and an aspiration to beauty in my playing style. I wanted to play fun, graceful, and elegant football that incorporated these silky skill moves. And I was very stubborn, uncompromising, and obviously very opinionated that this was how I wanted to play.

You could see this idea in action when I played, as I would try to perform skill moves every time I got the ball.

Unfortunately, as I gradually learned, dribbling isn't really about skill moves; it's about getting past your opponent. Fancy footwork and showmanship can and will always be a part of it, but simplicity is at the heart of being a good player. And the greatest players are the ones that have refined their dribbling and simplified their game. They don't do the unnecessary things that waste their energy, effort, or time when trying to get past an opponent.

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Perfection is finally obtained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there's no longer anything to take away.

• Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Wind, Sand and Stars

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I came into the game with strong (perhaps subconscious) opinions on how it should be played, and because of that, I had to work really, really hard to move away from the unpolished aspects of those opinions, refine my game, and transform my understanding of beauty in football.

On reflection, however, I think that starting off with such flawed ideas is not necessarily a bad thing. Many amateur players seem to have no idea how they want to play and no deep understanding of the game. They make bad decisions over and over again without realizing it. Without a clear philosophy of how the game should be played according to themselves, they lack personality on the pitch. They are unable to fluidly express themselves with the ball at their feet. Their repertoire is a catalog of bad habits.

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What kind of mistake is rushing in to take the ball? What kind of mistake is failing to see the connections before us? They are not identical, but they are cousins. The soccer player rushes in to control the ball; eager to win it he is too aggressive, moving too close too soon, instead of taking his time. By failing to notice what is there, he ends up losing it. Neglecting his body, he hyper-focuses on the ball; eager to master his control of it, he forgets that mastery of the ball is a concern secondary to the mastery of his body. The soccer player does not need a secret revealed, he does not need to control the ball; what he needs is to control himself.

• inspired by Wittgenstein Plays Chess with Marcel Duchamp, or How Not to Do Philosophy (2020)

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In contrast, even as a twelve-year-old, I already knew what I wanted. Unfortunately, my initial understanding of the game was so poor and my ideas so unrefined, that at the time, I was a worse player than someone with much less talent/practice but fewer strong opinions.

It's also important to note that I never tried to be something; I just played football. I never sat down and thought about my philosophy of the game (until now). Deciding how I wanted to play was a result of playing and doing what felt right to me on the pitch, not sitting down to think. All of this is written in retrospect.

It's been years since I started my footballing journey. My playing style has completely changed since I laced up my first pair of football boots, but funnily enough, in a way it also hasn't changed at all.

I just learned to do a little less. I learned to simplify my game.