Soccer and the Butterfly Effect

Like i mentioned before, I'm a Sports Freak. So i'm gonna stay with the same theme for this post too.

Most of you must have heard about the Chaos Theory.

In a scientific context, the word chaos has a slightly different meaning than it does in its general usage as a state of confusion, lacking any order. Chaos, with reference to Chaos Theory, refers to an apparent lack of order in a system that nevertheless obeys particular laws or rules. The two main components of chaos theory are the ideas that systems - no matter how complex they may be - rely upon an underlying order, and that very simple or small systems and events can cause very complex behaviors or events. This latter idea is known as sensitive dependence on initial conditions, a circumstance discovered by Edward Lorenz (who is generally credited as the first experimenter in the area of chaos) in the early 1960s.

The Butterfly Effect, first described by Lorenz, vividly illustrates the essential idea of the Chaos Theory. In a 1963 paper for the New York Academy of Sciences, Lorenz had quoted an unnamed meteorologist's assertion that, if chaos theory were true, a single flap of a single seagull's wings would be enough to change the course of all future weather systems on the earth. In the due course of time, this statement was refined to - "If a butterfly flaps its wings in Brazil, there will be a tornado in Texas".

After last week's Champions League encounter between Arsenal and Real Madrid, my good friend Hari Shenoy came up with another definition for the same ->

"If a mid-fielder on any football ground in the world sneezes,
Jose Antonio Reyes of Arsenal will have a fall!"

Here are a few more I added to the list.

"If a defender blinks during a match, the next thing he will
witness is Ronaldinho celebrating a hat-trick."

"If Mikael Silvestre receives the ball, the oppositon
will celebrate a couple of self-goals."

"If Ronaldo (Brazil) scores a goal, he will wake up
wishing it were true." (Reverse Butterfly Effect?)

"If Joe Cole takes a shot on goal, atleast 5 defenders will be
left rueing the result of a wicked deflection."

“If a footballer is tackled and rolls in pain during a match in
any football ground, Jose Mourinho will cite 'simulation' as a
reason to why Chelsea didn't win their match." (With his
sulk-mode on ofcourse.)

and finally...

"If a certain Russian slips on a banana peel and dies,
Chelsea will get relegated to the 2nd division."