In a football match, everything is complicated by the presence of the opposite team.

Sartre wrote this line in a footnote in his 1960 philosophical work "Critique de la raison dialectique" while discussing how cooperation within a group is shaped by opposition from an antagonistic group. He uses a football (soccer) match as an example: teamwork is inseparable from the constraints and reactions imposed by the other side.

Plans and coordination are never purely internal; once an opponent is present, every move must account for interference, counter-strategy, and changing conditions created by the adversary.

In fact, in a football match, everything is complicated by the presence of the opposite team. The positive reciprocity between members of a team is closely connected with a negative and antagonistic reciprocity. But this complication does not alter our problem in any way.

In football everything is complicated by the presence of the opposite team.