Braess’s Paradox in Soccer
In class, we learned how Braess’s Paradox applies to networks, such as how adding a link between two nodes within a network of traffic, for instance, could counterintuitively increase the expected time traveled for each traveler. This could be attributed to greedy travelers that all go for the best route if there were fewer people, but it then becomes longer due to overcrowding. Sometimes the expectation isn’t very intuitive and adding an extra route could have unintended consequences that have a reverse effect.
Adding a node to a network could increase the expected time traveled, and in the same vein removing a node from a network could decrease the expected time traveled. This same concept is applicable to soccer, where star players attract a lot of attention from the defense and become over utilized, and sometimes teams even play better without their star player. Teams can actually learn from this concept by not always going with the best player, since they have to take into account the extra focus dedicated from the defense toward a star player.
Source: https://mindyourdecisions.com/blog/2014/06/24/the-braess-paradox-in-soccer-how-a-team-can-be-better-without-its-best-scorer/