  From the diversity of applications of Network Science, in this Opinion Paper
we are concerned about its potential to analyze one of the most extended group
sports: Football (soccer in U.S. terminology). As we will see, Network Science
allows addressing different aspects of the team organization and performance
not captured by classical analyses based on the performance of individual
players. The reason behind relies on the complex nature of the game, which,
paraphrasing the foundational paradigm of complexity sciences "can not be
analyzed by looking at its components (i.e., players) individually but, on the
contrary, considering the system as a whole" or, in the classical words of
after-match interviews "it's not just me, it's the team".

Physics and Society