What once seemed an unlikely escape from the relegation mire is a true triumph of irrationality, writes Matthew Syed
“A wise man,” wrote David Hume, the Scottish philosopher, at the beginning of chapter ten of his famous An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, “proportions his belief to the evidence.” As a statement, it seems difficult to disagree with this. Isn’t proportioning beliefs to evidence the hallmark of science, of rationality?
Hold that thought for a moment and now consider the predicament of Leicester City on February 7, 2015. This was a club that had been tipped for relegation by many pundits even before a ball had been kicked in anger this season. They had a threadbare squad compared with many rivals and they were, by late winter, anchored to the bottom of the Barclays Premier League.
They lost 1-0 to Crystal Palace on that day and the possibility of survival seemed to vanish before the eyes of many neutrals. In the following morning’s match reports, phrases associated with hopelessness were the order of the day: “doomed”, “the writing is on the wall”, “there must be a feeling of despair given the nature of this latest defeat”, “surely there is no way back from here”.
It got worse. Leicester lost to Arsenal three days later, then to Aston Villa in the FA Cup. A few weeks after that, after a draw and another defeat, they faced Hull City in a “must win game”. It ended goalless despite Hull being down to ten men for the last 20 minutes. At the final whistle, some fans seemed to lose hope too, with boos echoing around the King Power stadium. Leicester were, at this point, an eye-watering seven points adrift of safety.
The corner had still not been turned. The next match was a 4-3 defeat against Tottenham Hotspur, leading one pundit to say that Leicester were “finished”. All the statistics seemed to corroborate that perspective. They had won only two of 24 league games and had suffered 17 defeats since the famous 5-3 victory over Manchester United in September. And they had been unable to score in 13 of their 28 games to that point.
I wonder how Hume would have reflected on Leicester’s predicament on April 4. The rational man, remember, proportions his beliefs to the evidence. And rationally speaking, Leicester were very nearly toast. Most fair-minded people had written them off. The big question was not whether they would survive, but how long Nigel Pearson would last as manager once the relegation was confirmed. That was the rational view, the scientific view, the empirical view.
But this is why rationality is not always a positive thing. The problem with rationality, with proportioning one’s beliefs to the evidence, is that it can undermine efficacy. When humans (or animals) are presented with a challenge that is very nearly hopeless, we are liable to wilt. Our willpower disappears. We cannot sustain optimism in the face of odds that are stacked against us — and so there is a tendency to stop trying altogether. This is sometimes called “learned helplessness”.
We saw the phenomenon during the World Cup when Brazil faced Germany. They went 3-0 down after 24 minutes. Statistically speaking, they were very nearly finished, but not quite. They still had a chance of making a comeback, but the manner of the goals and the size of the occasion led to what can only be described as a state of collective hopelessness. Brazil crumbled. They would not have been able to exploit a lucky break, even if they had got one.
And this is where irrationality is so important. Studies by Shelley Taylor, the psychologist, among others, have shown that when humans are confronted with a difficult challenge, it is those who have an irrationally high expectation of completing it who are most likely to succeed. They become more efficacious, more motivated, more capable of exploiting luck and circumstance. It is their unreasonable optimism that averts helplessness and boosts performance.
In the build-up to the crunch West Ham United game, Dean Hammond, the Leicester midfielder, gave an interview where almost every second answer contained the word “belief”. “We believe in ourselves”; “we believe we can do it”; “it’s still in our hands”; “you have to believe”. This was not a man trying to proportion his beliefs to the evidence; this was a man (on the fringe of the squad) trying to exaggerate his beliefs in defiance of the evidence.
And this, I think, is at least part of the reason for the astonishing turnaround over recent weeks. Watch the intensity, the drive, the sense of the players communicating belief, one to the other. Watch the games against West Bromwich Albion, Swansea City, Burnley and Newcastle United. By the time of Saturday’s match against Southampton, the belief was so vivid, you could almost smell it. It is almost the polar opposite of the surrender of Brazil, and the capitulation of QPR.
Leicester did not become a significantly better team during the last seven games, but they focused their collective attention not on the near-certainty of relegation, but on the slim possibility of avoiding it. They were able to capitalise on benign refereeing decisions, lucky rebounds (like the ricochet off an opposition defender to set up Esteban Cambiasso for the opener against West Ham) and other vicissitudes. They are not yet safe, but they have put themselves in a position that, just a few weeks ago, would have seemed miraculous.
And isn’t this the basic story of the underdog through the ages? When we feel hopeless, hope disappears. When we recognise the near-futility of our situation, the situation becomes futile. The human mind struggles to reconcile a tiny probability of success with the energy that is required to give it a chance of materialising.
This is why so many of mankind’s great achievements have been accomplished not by rationalists, but by mavericks. These are the people who continued to believe, whose demented optimism remained intact, who continued to reach for the stars when everyone else had sensibly concluded they were beyond our reach.
Leicester are on the brink of one of the most astonishing turnarounds. If they survive in the top flight, it will be a triumph, above all, of irrationality
