Progressão

Jani Sarajärvi
  • 0.0 (0)
  • Soccer
  • Updated Weekly

Progressão is a book, a podcast, and a long-term thinking project focused on football, learning, and skilful human behaviour. Our work approaches football from a complex, holistic, and ecological perspective, where players and all football actors are understood as living beings always in correspondence with their environment.

  1. 6d ago

    #195 Trained for One Game, Faced Another: A France U21 Case on Representative practice

    Representative practice is one of those ideas that sounds simple until a match shows you exactly where your training stopped being representative. France U21 against Estonia U21. Final score six to one, but the number that stayed was a specific moment that kept repeating: a lateral penetration, a final acceleration to the edge of the box, and a ball into the danger area at a pace nothing in camp had produced. Estonia had trained for exactly this situation. Sessions with coaches crossing on the byline, three distinct end actions, defenders sliding and reading. And still the game arrived at a tempo they had never once seen in training. That is not a player problem. That is a design problem. In this episode: representativeness and the difference between general intensity and specific intensity — and why confusing the two is one of the most common, most invisible failures in practice design. Why the problem is almost always in the design, not the player. And why "we trained that" and "we trained the version of that which actually shows up at this level" are two completely different comments. 🌍 More at progressao.fi  🐦 Follow us on X and Instagram: @progressaofi

    12 min

  2. Jun 2

    #194 The metaphors football lives by

    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

    18 min

  3. May 26

    #193 Resonance: the foundation of skill?

    Resonance starts as a simple idea from physics. Pluck a guitar string and the body of the instrument starts to vibrate with it. Two systems, coupled, moving together. James Gibson used the word as a synonym for attunement, to describe something much bigger: the way a perceiving organism tunes itself to the information in its environment. A great defender doesn't compute the game from inside his head. He resonates with it. In this episode, the first in the new monologue format, the conversation moves from Gibson's original intuition to the work of Vicente Raja, who has spent the last decade turning resonance from a metaphor into a testable scientific framework. Along the way: Anderson's neural reuse, tau-coupling, a study showing ecological resonance in human brain activity, Rúben Dias as a worked example, and what all of this means for how we design training environments. A small detour through Tim Ingold's "lines" too, because they turn out to describe the same phenomenon from a different angle. The thread underneath all of it: the player and the game are not two things interacting. They are one coupled system, and the coach's job is to build the conditions in which that coupling can develop. Vicente Raja's research 🌍 More at progressao.fi  🐦 Follow us on X and Instagram: @progressaofi

    14 min

  4. May 19

    #192 DISCUSSÃO MUNDO: Vicente Raja – radical embodiment and resonance

    Welcome to the Progressão podcast. As Progressão now continues in English, we are revisiting some of our earlier Discussão conversations — episodes that have stayed with us and still feel highly relevant today. In this episode, we are joined by Dr. Vicente Raja, a researcher working at the intersection of ecological psychology, neuroscience, and philosophy. His work explores the relationship between brain, behaviour, and environment through ideas such as radical embodiment and resonance. In this conversation, we dive into these concepts and reflect on what they might mean for understanding skill, learning, and coaching. A thoughtful and wide-ranging discussion that connects science, philosophy, and practice. Vicente Raja on ResearchGate 🌍 More at progressao.fi 🐦 Follow us on X and Instagram: @progressaofi

    41 min

  5. May 12

    #191 Representative design: does your training really reflect the game?

    Welcome to the Progressão podcast. In this episode, we continue our journey from drills and games, through situations, and now into one of the key concepts of ecological dynamics: representative design. In football, training often looks organised, structured, and even very “game-like”. But does it truly represent the demands players face in matches?  In this episode, we explore how learning depends on the relationship between the player and the environment, especially on the information available, how it is perceived, and how action emerges from it. We discuss key ideas such as perception–action coupling and action fidelity, and why even small differences in timing, spacing, or pressure can completely change player behaviour. Through practical examples, from finishing and pressing to rondos and positional games, we reflect on why some exercises transfer to the game, while others only appear to. Representative design is about identifying the essential elements of football situations and bringing those into training in a meaningful way. Articles mentioned in the episode: Pinder, R. A., Davids, K., Renshaw, I., & Araújo, D. (2011). Representative learning design and functionality of research and practice in sport. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 33(1), 146–155. Full article Headrick, J., Renshaw, I., Davids, K., Pinder, R. A., & Araújo, D. (2015). The dynamics of expertise acquisition in sport: The role of affective learning design. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 16(Part 1), 83–90. Full article 🌍 More at progressao.fi 🐦 Follow us on X and Instagram: @progressaofi

    14 min

  6. May 5

    #190 Beyond small-sided games: train the situation

    Welcome to the Progressão podcast. In our previous episode, we questioned the common debate around drills versus games and explored whether this is the right way to understand training in football. This week, we take the discussion further and focus on small-sided games and situation-based exercises. Small-sided games are widely used in modern coaching and are often seen as an ideal way to train the game. But are they always representative of what actually happens in matches? In this episode, we explore some of the limitations of small-sided games, from differences in distances and timing to how pressure is experienced in real situations. From there, we introduce another approach that may complement small-sided games: situation-based exercises. Football is not just a continuous flow, it is made up of recurring situations. Build up under pressure, press releases, lateral penetration, defending crosses. These moments appear again and again, and becoming skilful means learning to act effectively within them. Through concrete examples, we discuss how training can be designed to reflect these situations more closely, connecting players to meaningful information in the game environment. 🌍 More at progressao.fi 🐦 Follow us on X and Instagram: @progressaofi

    15 min

  7. Apr 28

    #189 Drills vs games: a false debate?

    Welcome to the Progressão podcast. In this episode, we take on one of the most common debates in football coaching: drills versus games. Should players first learn technique through repetition, and then apply it in the game? Or should learning take place directly through game-like situations? These questions are often discussed as if they represent two separate methods. But in this episode, we suggest that this might be the wrong way to look at training altogether. Building on our earlier discussions around ecological dynamics and skill, we explore how different theoretical perspectives — especially information-processing and ecological approaches — shape the way coaches design training. We discuss why the distinction between drills and games can be misleading, how the same exercise can be understood in very different ways, and why learning in football may be better understood as a holistic, relational process rather than a collection of isolated parts. 🌍 More at progressao.fi 🐦 Follow us on X and Instagram: @progressaofi

    12 min

  8. Apr 21

    #188 Game intelligence: back to nature

    Welcome to the Progressão podcast. In Episode 187, we opened the discussion around game intelligence by revisiting the more traditional definitions of the concept — a view where game intelligence is often treated as a separate cognitive component involving perception, anticipation, and decision-making.  This week, we take the discussion further. Or perhaps more accurately, we take it back to nature. What if game intelligence is not something that sits inside the player as a separate mental component? What if skilful action is better understood through the relationship between the player and the environment? In this episode, we use examples from nature — plants, box jellyfish, and wolves — to challenge the idea that intelligence must always be brain-based. From there, we move into the ecological view of football, where perception and action are inseparable, and where skill emerges through attunement to meaningful information in the environment.  Drawing especially from two key propositions, we argue that game intelligence is the ability to establish a meaningful connection with the environment, and that skill learning is the process of becoming attuned to ecological information and organising action within an information-rich world.  From Jari Litmanen to affordances, direct perception, and the human–environment system, this episode continues our journey toward understanding football as a living, relational, and deeply ecological phenomenon. Further reading from the ideas discussed in this episode: Bielecki, J., Dam Nielsen, S. K., Nachman, G., & Garm, A. (2023). Associative learning in the box jellyfish Tripedalia cystophora. Current Biology. Gable, T. D., Homkes, A. T., Johnson-Bice, S. M., Windels, S. K., & Bump, J. K. (2021). Wolves choose ambushing locations to counter and capitalize on the sensory abilities of their prey. Behavioral Ecology, 32(2), 339–348. Mech, L. D., Smith, D. W., & MacNulty, D. R. (2015). Wolves on the Hunt. University of Chicago Press. Segundo‐Ortin, M., & Calvo, P. (2022). Consciousness and cognition in plants. WIREs Cognitive Science, 13(2). 🌍 More at progressao.fi 🐦 Follow us on X and Instagram: @progressaofi

    12 min
See All (195)

About

Progressão is a book, a podcast, and a long-term thinking project focused on football, learning, and skilful human behaviour. Our work approaches football from a complex, holistic, and ecological perspective, where players and all football actors are understood as living beings always in correspondence with their environment.

Information

  • Creator
    Jani Sarajärvi
  • Years Active
    2022 - 2026
  • Episodes
    195
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Progressão
  • Show Website
    Progressão

You Might Also Like