ABSTRACT
Football is the best of games. Its superiority derives from two sources, variety and continuity. The simplification one shall allow is that each team has an average scoring rate against the type of opponent they face. The strategy is clear – the team plays a more attacking game. In doing so its defence is weakened with an increased probability that their opponents will score. The need for an off-side rule has been accepted from the earliest days. Indeed the first off-side rule was more stringent, requiring that there be three opposing players in front of an attacking player when a pass is made, rather than the present two. When the ball is passed along the ground to a colleague care is taken to avoid the pass being intercepted. The compensatory probability of a draw falls rapidly. It seems that the defensive, low scoring, strategy adopted intuitively by weak teams playing stronger teams conforms to logic.
