Abstract
In this chapter, we are introduced to the famous football match between Brazil and Germany at FIFA 2014, and we try to understand, through the Anna Karenina principle, what is the unique signature of happy families. We also use Liebig’s law of the minimum to attempt to explain why some football teams fail, learn about Sir Ernest Shackleton’s heroic expedition to Antarctica in 1914, and understand how a team of 28 explorers survived against all the odds. Through this case study, we learn about the importance of flexibility and propose a new way to identify the weakest link in the chain and its impact on soccer teams in particular and small social systems in general.
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See the two documentary films https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuKUX-7x2Ws and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgh_77TtX5I.
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Neuman, Y. (2021). The Weakest Link in the Chain: From the Colossal Failure of Brazil’s Football Team to Sir Earnest Shackleton’s Endurance. In: How Small Social Systems Work. The Frontiers Collection. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82238-5_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82238-5_7
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