Wide peripheral vision and cultural transmission

Claudio Paul Caniggia and Nahuel Molina represented the Argentine National Team in completely different generations. In fact, the “Son of the Wind” said goodbye to Argentine football in May 1998, just a month after the birth of the defender who would become world champion in 2022. They played in different positions and their sports trajectories had such disparate trim It would seem impossible to compare them.

However, a particularity unites them and that both turned goals into World Cups thanks to assists that seemed impossible by the two best players in history: Diego Armando Maradona and Lionel Andrés Messi. Caniggia against Brazil, in the round of 16 of Italy ’90. Molina against Netherlands, in the quarterfinals of Qatar ’22. Their assistants should have seen them chop with the corner of the eye.

In football, the number 10 was almost always reserved for the most talented player, not for a matter of tradition, but rather for a game of the game: it is destined to the hitch or creator, a position that requires Technical characteristics and tactical intelligence out of the ordinary. And science has a lot to say about it.

“His friend could be quietly pilot of combat aircraft tests,” a doctor told Fernando Signorini, a historical physical trainer of Maradona. After checks that were made to the star in Rome, The studies revealed that Maradona had an exceptional visual capacity, with a range of peripheral vision above the average.

“That unique capacity only saw her again in a player: Lionel Andrés Messi”recalls Signorini about the current captain of the National Team, whom he trained during the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. The aforementioned goals of Claudio Paul Caniggia and Nahuel Molina, receptors of those mythical assists, are examples that both 10 had an exceptional visual capacity. Evolutionarily, peripheral vision is associated with the ability of humans to conquer open spaces. But evolution is not direct.

“Actually, development seems to be deeper,” says Ana Liza Tropea, a researcher at the University of Buenos Aires who specializes in human evolution.

“The peripheral vision is associated with something very complex such as Bipedism, the ability to walk on two legs”, Continues. “And for that it happened, many characteristics had to be developed, the peripheral vision being only one of them.”

The researcher reveals that all these characteristics developed as a great complex during the time when humans lived in forested environments.

Paleontological data reveal that several million years had to pass until humans decided to venture into open spaces.

“This is very interesting and challenging because one is almost unable to explain the bipedism by not being able to talk about adaptation. What was the forced? Maybe it simply happened”, Says the researcher, who emphasizes that, according to current evolutionary theory, embryonic development, learned behaviors and random factors are as important as natural selection and adaptation.

Interestingly, walking on two legs or peripheral vision, are decisive in great players. “Evolution is not just adaptation. If one thinks linearly, he could say that peripheral vision and bipedism are evolutionary adaptations to play football well, ”adds tropee.

In this way, football skill not only speaks of technical skill, but also Our evolutionary history as human beings.

It is known that it was Diego Maradona who taught and encouraged Lionel Messi to kick free throws during the 2010 World Cupwhen the first directed the national team. The result was the formation of one of the most effective players when defining.

However, the styles of both when executing the free throws are quite different. Highly efficient and remarkably different. Two particular styles taken to the extreme of perfection that could be doubted if Diego and Leo were of the same species. But they were: without a doubt, human beings; Without a doubt, Homo sapiens.

“Culture also evolves”says Lucas Kreiman, professor of the subject evolution at the University of Buenos Aires. “The evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins proposed, in a somewhat reductionist way, that culture is subject to the same rules as genes and natural selection: it is copied and, if it succeeds in its context or is neutral, it is transmitted from generation to generation to generation ”, Explains this postdoctoral fellow of CONICET.

He adds that Dawkins called the Cultural Evolution Unit as Meme. It is the cultural equivalent of the gene and its study is called metic. “From there comes the name that became popular on the Internet,” Kreiman smiles.

“A good example of meme, that is, of cultural information unit, It’s the way to kick a ball. This is transmitted from generation to generation, but one technique will be more used than another depending on its evolutionary success, in this case, the effectiveness when making a goal, ”says the biologist.

Kreiman recounts another sports example: “The Kung Fu is a martial art that is taught by imitation; The techniques are the information unit, the disciples copy the teachers. However, there are different schools, even within the same region. It is studied that this is due to copy errors by the discipleswho transmitted that information from generation to generation, ”he explains.

“This is how the genes work: they are copied differently -what is called mutation -they are inherited and continue over time.”

This cultural evolution also seems to explain how skilled and contemporary players that shone in the same position (Juan Román Riquelme and Pablo Aimar, for example) had different styles: an exquisite game achieved from schools with different cultural inheritances in the lower Argentinos Juniors and students from Río Cuarto, respectively.

Just as culture evolves, behaviors and behaviors do it too. “The interesting thing,” Kreiman continues, “is that behaviors do not seem to be inherited as Darwin or Dawkins proposed.”

The biologist explains that his evolution resembles Lamarck’s ideas, Darwin’s precursor: A behavior can be learned to respond to an environmental need and then transmitted to the next generation.

This is very different from what Darwin raised with other characters, which are not acquired but are present and will only be inherited if they are efficient in the environment. Biological information is always vertically transferred to the offspring. Cultural information also does so horizontally within the same generation.

Maradona’s image teaching Messi then acquires another meaning: that of the teacher who transmits a behavior that the disciple then adapts according to his context. The Aztec ball, used in the World Cup ’86, was very different from the Rihla de Qatar. Therefore, the stuck technique that worked in a context needed to be adjusted on another, showing how behaviors can evolve to respond to new conditions.

Former soccer player Mónica Santino seems to agree. “The materials with which the balls were made are different. Before, when the balls wet, they changed weight”, He explains.

“The techniques are learned spontaneously and in game spaces. Soccer schools or academies need to offer spaces for freedom because football is learned with balls that are not in the best conditions and on a fairly irregular courts, ”

The coach today Our feminist football Villa 31 insists that it is the game that teaches you: “You grow up on quite irregular courts where you learn to control the ball”. In this case, the evolution by metic does not seem to be the ideal to convey knowledge where the challenge is imposed by the environment. The old Lamarck seems to beat the controversial Dawkins and the always fresh Darwin.

The game is always conditioned by physical abilities. The ability to solve a certain situation – such as a defective field or a ball in poor condition – depends largely on the physical qualities of each player. Kicking a free kick with a current ball, as Messi does, whose foot rarely rises beyond the knee, is very different from Maradona’s techniquewho had to raise the leg almost to the height of the hip to impact the balls in their time. The same problem, two different solutions within the same species.

“The same hip in two people can work very differently”explains Nicolás Vidal, kinesiologist at the University of Buenos Aires. “There are well -marked positions,” says Vidal.

“Maradona had the typical attitude of an eccentric person: I walked with the sternum (the chest) projected forward and the arms slightly back -known as Tarzan posture. Messi, on the other hand, is more withdrawn, introverted, with the chest inwards and the shoulders collected. It is another biomechanics. “

This postural difference affects muscle flexion and hip rotationwhich, in turn, influences his style of play. The personality not only defined two ways to lead their teams towards glory, but also two ways of guiding the ball to the network.

Paleontologists estimate that the articulation that joins the hip with the femur as we know it appeared in human evolution approximately four million years.

Since then, human lineage has been a network of anatomical, cultural and behavioral changes, transmitted from generation to generation not only by adaptation, but through different evolutionary models.

You could say, then, that four million years ago the evolution towards sports glory began.