A concept is an abstraction that we use because it makes it easier to communicate. Although it seems that the concept of “concept” is easy to grasp, there are quite a few pitfalls with concepts. Naively there is the risk of taking the concept to be the same as a real thing as both are nouns. Consciously it is easy to understand that a concept is an abstraction. Nevertheless, the unconsciousness finds it much more difficult to understand that concepts are abstractions and not real things.

Examples of concepts that play an important role in football are:

• Basic principles
• Formation
• Motivation
• Discipline
• Flow
• System
• Personality
• Feedback

Whether a concept is useful in football depends on how helpful it is for instance in training players, understanding opponents play or increasing hiring the right players, in relation to how much the use of the concept leads to misunderstanding, over- or underestimation of opponents or hiring the wrong players.