World Cup 2026, NIRS Brite Ultra, and the Metabolism of Collective Energies - A Match Forming a Third Body
World Cup 2026, NIRS Brite Ultra, and the Metabolism of Collective Energies - Can a Match Form a Third Body?
An experimental question about Jiwasa, fNIRS hyperscanning, opponents, coaching staff, and the living body of the match
Even when one team plays against another, can everyone still participate in a common field?
This is the central question of this blog.
In a World Cup match, there are two teams, two tactical plans, two main fan bases, two benches, two desires for victory. One wants to score. The other wants to prevent the goal. One wants to accelerate. The other wants to slow down. One wants to occupy space. The other wants to close space.
But both are on the same field.
They share the same ball.
They share the same pitch.
They share the same lines.
They share the same official time.
They share the same rules.
They share the same referee.
They share the same score.
They share the same risk.
They share the same atmosphere.
They share the same public pressure.
They share the same possibility of error, glory, fear, and hope.
Therefore, we can propose a hypothesis:
a match creates a third body.
This third body is the living body of the game.
It does not belong only to one team. It emerges from the encounter between both teams, coaching staffs, the ball, space, rules, score, crowd, fear, risk, hope, and lived time.
World Cup 2026 can be thought of as a planetary laboratory of this third body.
The scientific question
The experimental question would be:
in a football match, does true Jiwasa appear only inside each team, or is there also a common Jiwasa of the match, shared by opponents who inhabit the same field of rules, space, and risk?
This question is powerful because it shifts football from a purely individual or tactical analysis toward a body-territorial, biobehavioral, and collective analysis.
The player does not play alone.
The team does not play alone.
Even the opponent participates in the form of the game.
The attacker is an attacker because there is defense.
The defense is defense because there is threat.
A pass is a pass because there is space and pressure.
A dribble is a dribble because there is an opposing body.
A goal is a goal because there is rule, post, goalkeeper, line, crowd, and score.
The match exists because everyone accepts entering the same common field.
So, even when there is opposition, there is coupling.
Opposition also connects.
The third body of the match
The third body of the match is the temporary organism that is born when everyone enters the same system.
It lasts while the game lasts.
It has its own breathing.
It has its own rhythm.
It has its own memory.
It has its own tension.
It has state changes.
It has moments of acceleration.
It has moments of freezing.
It has emotional fevers.
It has drops in energy.
It has pulses of hope.
It has crises.
It has reorganizations.
When a goal is scored, the third body changes.
The team that scored changes.
The team that conceded changes.
The coaches change.
The crowd changes.
The score changes.
The perception of time changes.
Courage changes.
Fear changes.
Risk changes.
Hope changes.
The whole game moves into another state.
This is the metabolism of collective energies.
What do we mean by metabolism of collective energies?
Here, “energy” is not a loose metaphor.
It is the set of bodily, cognitive, emotional, physiological, and symbolic flows that circulate during the match.
Attention.
Breathing.
Heartbeat.
Muscular effort.
Allostatic load.
Anxiety.
Confidence.
Fear.
Risk.
Hope.
Decision-making.
Communication.
Positioning.
Gesture.
Gaze.
Shout.
Silence.
Crowd pressure.
Score pressure.
Memory of previous matches.
Imagination of the future.
All of this circulates.
One player’s body changes another player’s body. A full-back’s movement reorganizes the midfielder. The goalkeeper’s shout reorganizes the defensive line. An attacker’s run alters the defender’s breathing. The coach’s gesture changes the midfield’s attention. The crowd changes perceived pressure. The score changes courage. The remaining time changes the perception of risk.
The metabolism of the match is this circulation.
NIRS Brite Ultra: why use fNIRS hyperscanning?
To study this phenomenon, we need to measure several bodies at the same time.
This is where fNIRS hyperscanning enters.
fNIRS, or functional near-infrared spectroscopy, measures cortical hemodynamic changes, especially variations in oxygenated and deoxygenated hemoglobin. It is portable, relatively tolerant of movement, and more suitable for naturalistic contexts than technologies that require intense immobility.
The Brite Ultra allows us to imagine an important methodological leap: measuring large groups simultaneously, with synchronized data. This opens an unprecedented possibility for studying football as a living system, rather than merely as the sum of individuals.
The goal would not be to “read the minds” of players.
The goal would be to observe patterns of synchrony, coupling, decoupling, and reorganization among body-territories during specific moments of the game.
Main hypothesis
The main hypothesis would be:
true Jiwasa may appear as biobehavioral synchrony among body-territories.
This synchrony may occur across different layers.
Inside the same team.
Between player and coach.
Between sectors of the field.
Between goalkeeper and defensive line.
Between midfield and attack.
Between two directly coupled opponents.
Between both teams during moments of shared risk.
Between field and crowd.
Between score and collective breathing.
Thus, we would have three levels of Jiwasa:
1. Internal Jiwasa of the team
When the players of one team share perception, rhythm, confidence, and action.
2. Adversarial Jiwasa
When opponents become dynamically coupled because they need to respond to each other in real time.
3. Common Jiwasa of the match
When all bodies, even in opposition, enter a shared field of rule, space, time, risk, and hope.
The third level is the most important for this blog.
It suggests that the game is larger than the teams.
Experimental design: World Cup 2026 as inspiration, laboratory as beginning
A real experiment during a World Cup would require consent from athletes, coaching staffs, federations, tournament organizers, and very rigorous ethical protocols. For this reason, the experimental design can begin in controlled environments and gradually advance.
The proposal would have four phases.
Phase 1 — Laboratory of football interaction
Before measuring a full match, we begin with reduced tasks.
Pairs of players.
Triads of players.
Player and coach.
Goalkeeper and defender.
Midfielder and attacker.
Attacker and defender.
Possible tasks:
joint analysis of plays;
video-based decision-making;
responses to coach instructions;
pressure simulations;
small-sided games in controlled settings;
cooperation and opposition situations.
Objective:
to identify basic patterns of fNIRS synchrony, communication, trust, decision-making, and bodily coupling.
Question:
when two players truly understand each other, is there an increase in hemodynamic synchrony in prefrontal and temporoparietal regions?
Phase 2 — Small-sided games with two teams
Then we move to small-sided games.
3 vs. 3.
5 vs. 5.
7 vs. 7.
Here, the adversarial logic already appears.
We measure players from both teams simultaneously with fNIRS, while also recording GPS, video, audio, heart rate, breathing, IMU, game events, and ball data.
Objective:
to compare moments of internal cooperation with moments of direct opposition.
Questions:
when one team presses in a coordinated way, does internal synchrony increase?
when the opposing defense responds in an equally coordinated way, does synchrony between opponents appear?
when a counterattack occurs, does the whole field change state?
when there is a goal, foul, penalty, or major error, does a global reorganization of the system emerge?
Phase 3 — 11 vs. 11 simulation with coaching staff
In this phase, the experiment approaches real football.
Possible participants:
22 starting players;
2 head coaches;
up to 6 key staff members.
This forms a set of up to 30 participants, compatible with a large-group hyperscanning system.
The coaching staff is fundamental.
Because the game does not happen only inside the field. The bench also regulates the game. The coach perceives patterns, anticipates risks, makes gestures, shouts, remains silent, substitutes players, adjusts the system, transmits confidence or anxiety.
Questions:
which players does the coach synchronize with most?
does tactical instruction later appear as hemodynamic, behavioral, and spatial reorganization?
does the bench feel the game before the team changes?
does the team change before the bench perceives it?
are there moments when the coach enters the team’s true Jiwasa?
are there moments when the team follows another Jiwasa and the coach remains outside the living time of the game?
Phase 4 — Match with simulated or real crowd
The final phase includes the public atmosphere.
It can be a training match with controlled spectators.
It can be a simulation with stadium sound.
It can be a friendly match in an experimental context.
It can be a layer of supporters measured in the laboratory while watching the same game.
The crowd is part of the third body.
It regulates pressure, fear, courage, acceleration, confidence, and lived time.
Objective:
to study how sounds, chants, boos, silence, and emotional explosions modify players, coaches, and game dynamics.
Question:
does the crowd synchronize bodies even without physically entering the field?
What should be measured?
The experiment would need to combine multiple layers of data.
1. fNIRS / NIRS
Oxygenated hemoglobin, deoxygenated hemoglobin, and total hemoglobin in cortical regions of interest, especially prefrontal cortex, motor/premotor areas, and temporoparietal regions when possible.
2. Peripheral physiology
Heart rate, heart-rate variability, breathing, temperature, skin conductance, and physical load.
3. Movement and space
GPS, optical tracking, IMU, speed, acceleration, distance between players, compactness, width, depth, passing lanes, pressure, space occupation.
4. Game events
Pass, shot, tackle, foul, corner kick, penalty, goal, save, substitution, card, VAR, halftime, tactical change.
5. Communication
Shouts, gestures, gazes, instructions, bench signals, pauses, complaints, encouragement.
6. Symbolic state
Score, remaining time, importance of the match, tournament phase, history between national teams, public narrative, crowd pressure, national expectation.
The metabolism of collective energies appears when these layers are integrated.
How should it be analyzed?
The analysis needs to be dynamic.
The game changes every second.
Therefore, the question is not only “who synchronized with whom?”, but:
when did synchrony occur?
in which phase of the game?
under what pressure?
with what score?
after which event?
before which decision?
with what tactical consequence?
with what physiological change?
with what spatial alteration?
Possible methods:
cross-correlation;
wavelet coherence;
interbrain synchrony;
temporal graph models;
dynamic networks;
entropy;
sliding-window analysis;
multilevel models;
event-based models;
interpretable machine learning;
fNIRS + tracking + physiology integration.
The goal would be to build temporal maps of the living body of the match.
Specific hypotheses
Hypothesis 1 — True Jiwasa of the team
During phases of efficient cooperation, the team that wins a micro-phase will show greater internal biobehavioral synchrony: combined patterns of fNIRS, movement, physiology, and decision-making.
Examples:
coordinated pressing;
clean build-up play;
defensive cover;
well-timed counterattack;
fluid positional exchange;
collective reaction after error.
Hypothesis 2 — False Jiwasa of the team
When the team is fragmented, internal synchrony decreases or becomes disorganized.
Possible signs:
late pressing;
isolated players;
disconnected lines;
gestures of frustration;
high individual effort with low collective coupling;
prefrontal overload in some athletes;
delayed responses to phase changes.
In false Jiwasa, the body wears the collective jersey, but plays trapped inside an inner world that has not yet coupled with the team.
Hypothesis 3 — Adversarial Jiwasa
Even opponents can synchronize.
An attacker and a defender can form a coupled pair. The attacker feints, the defender adjusts. The defender anticipates, the attacker changes. One accelerates, the other responds. One body moves the other.
This synchrony is not moral cooperation.
It is dynamic coupling.
Two bodies in conflict can form a common circuit of prediction and response.
Hypothesis 4 — The third body of the game
In highly salient events, global synchrony may appear between both teams and coaching staffs.
Examples:
goal;
penalty;
VAR;
red card;
serious injury;
decisive error;
impossible save;
final minutes;
extra time;
penalty shootout.
In these moments, everyone shares the same temporal shock.
The living body of the match changes state.
Common Jiwasa appears as global reorganization.
Hypothesis 5 — Coach as field modulator
The coaching staff may function as an external regulatory system.
The coach observes the third body from outside the line, yet inside the symbolic field. The coach regulates through gesture, voice, substitution, tactical design, facial expression, and timing.
Question:
when does the coach’s instruction enter the body of the team?
It may be possible for a coach’s message to appear as a detectable change in:
player positioning;
passing patterns;
internal synchrony;
prefrontal load;
breathing rhythm;
decision-making.
If this occurs, the bench becomes a measurable part of collective metabolism.
Hypothesis 6 — Crowd as allostatic layer
The crowd is public breathing.
It can increase pressure, reduce fear, amplify courage, disorganize opponents, strengthen belonging, or intensify anxiety.
Question:
does the collective sound of the crowd alter the hemodynamic and physiological patterns of players?
Even without measuring all supporters, we can measure the atmosphere:
decibels;
type of chant;
moment of the game;
reaction after goal;
silence;
boos;
applause;
pressure on the referee;
emotional intensity.
The crowd would enter the model as a collective allostatic force.
The common field between opponents
Here we return to the initial question.
Even when one team plays against another, is there something common to all?
Yes.
The common element is the shared field.
The shared rule.
The shared space.
The shared time.
The shared ball.
The shared risk.
The shared score.
The shared public gaze.
The shared event.
This common field does not eliminate conflict.
It organizes conflict.
The match is a space where opposition exists because everyone accepts belonging to the same system.
The opponent is not outside the game.
The opponent is part of the game.
The other team is not noise.
It is a component of the third body.
What could this experiment reveal?
This study could show that football is more than individual performance.
It could reveal:
how a team becomes a collective body;
how opponents couple;
how coaches modulate the field;
how the crowd alters bodily states;
how goals change biobehavioral networks;
how the score reorganizes courage and fear;
how the game creates lived time;
how the World Cup produces planetary metabolism.
It could also help differentiate:
real chemistry and apparent chemistry;
living leadership and empty command;
collective pressure and individual running;
true Jiwasa and false Jiwasa;
a team in flow and a fragmented team;
a coupled athlete and an isolated athlete.
Ethical care
This type of research requires deep care.
The neural and physiological data of athletes cannot become merchandise.
They cannot serve predatory control.
They cannot be used by betting companies.
They cannot become a tool of performance surveillance without consent.
They cannot reduce the athlete to a metric.
They cannot transform body-territory into a market asset.
The goal must be scientific, ethical, and protective:
to understand the collective;
to protect athletes;
to improve health;
to reduce injuries;
to improve communication;
to strengthen cooperation;
to respect privacy;
to prevent predatory use.
If football is studied as a metabolism of collective energies, the first principle must be:
no data from the body-territory should serve the capture of the body-territory.
Scientific limitations
fNIRS is a powerful tool, but it has limits.
It mainly measures superficial cortical areas.
It is sensitive to movement, sweat, hair, light, and optode contact.
It requires artifact correction.
It requires short channels to separate systemic signals.
It requires rigorous synchronization with game events.
It requires models that integrate movement and hemodynamics.
It requires avoiding magical interpretations.
Jiwasa would not be measured directly.
What we could measure are operational signatures:
interbrain synchrony;
physiological synchrony;
spatial synchrony;
movement coordination;
network changes;
common responses to events;
coupling between players, opponents, and staff.
The concept guides the question.
Science tests patterns.
World Cup 2026 as horizon
World Cup 2026 will be an immense symbolic field.
But the experiment may begin earlier, in clubs, youth national teams, training centers, small-sided games, and simulations. The World Cup serves as a conceptual horizon: the moment when the entire planet perceives that football creates collective bodies.
The scientific question is born from the World Cup, but it can be tested on any field.
In a school.
In a square.
In a youth academy.
In a professional training session.
In a friendly match.
In a national team.
In a mobile laboratory.
In a stadium.
The World Cup simply expands the scale.
Final neurochallenge
The final question is simple:
when two teams enter the pitch, are we seeing twenty-two individuals, two teams, or a third living body emerging from the encounter among all of them?
Perhaps the answer is:
we see all three at the same time.
We see individuals with their Weichö.
We see teams with their internal Jiwasas.
We see the match as a third body.
Football is born when these levels meet.
World Cup 2026 will be a global spectacle because millions of bodies will perceive this third body without needing to name it.
But science can begin to measure it.
With NIRS, tracking, physiology, video, sound, temporal graphs, and ethical care, we can ask:
how does the game breathe?
when does the game change state?
when does the team feel together?
when does the opponent enter the same rhythm?
when does the crowd cross the field?
when is the living body of the match born?
The future of football may be here:
not only measuring players, but understanding the collectives that players create.
Not only studying isolated brains, but studying body-territories in relation.
Not only asking who won.
Asking what collective metabolism had to be created for that victory to happen.
Mini-review of post-2021 articles and foundations using fNIRS/NIRS, hyperscanning, and collective behavior
Czeszumski, A., Liang, S. H.-Y., Dikker, S., König, P., Lee, C.-P., Koole, S. L., & Kelsen, B. A. (2022). Cooperative Behavior Evokes Interbrain Synchrony in the Prefrontal and Temporoparietal Cortex: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of fNIRS Hyperscanning Studies. eNeuro, 9(2).
A systematic review and meta-analysis showing that cooperative behaviors evoke interbrain synchrony in prefrontal and temporoparietal regions. This is one of the strongest bases for thinking of true Jiwasa as an operational hypothesis of synchrony among bodies in cooperation.
Moffat, R., et al. (2024). Mobile fNIRS for exploring inter-brain synchrony across generations. Frontiers in Neuroergonomics.
Shows the usefulness of mobile fNIRS for studying interbrain synchrony in more naturalistic interactions, reinforcing the relevance of taking the technology into less artificial contexts.
Carollo, A., et al. (2024). Hyperscanning literature after two decades of neuroscientific research. Neuroscience.
A broad review of the hyperscanning field, useful for situating the methodological growth of multi-brain research and its possibilities for complex social interactions.
Réveillé, C., et al. (2025). Trajectories of interbrain synchrony during teamwork. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience.
An fNIRS hyperscanning study on how interbrain synchrony develops during a team task. Important for thinking of Jiwasa as a dynamic phenomenon that changes within the task itself.
Zhang, H., Liu, H., Li, Z., & Zhang, D. (2025). Distinct fNIRS Inter-Brain Coupling Patterns for Cooperation versus Competition in a Tennis Game. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience.
An fNIRS hyperscanning study in a motion-based tennis game, comparing cooperation and competition. It is especially relevant to the hypothesis that opposition also generates distinct interbrain coupling patterns.
Wang, H., Li, L., & Liu, C. (2025). An fNIRS hyperscanning study on the influence of team type and sex factors on athletes’ trust behavior and neural mechanisms. Scientific Reports.
A study with athletes using fNIRS hyperscanning and a trust task, showing relations between team type, trust behavior, and neural synchrony. It helps bring hyperscanning closer to the sports field.
Chen, Y., et al. (2025). An fNIRS hyperscanning dataset on the modulation of interpersonal brain synchrony by verbal communication during collaborative problem solving. Scientific Data.
Provides an fNIRS hyperscanning dataset in collaboration, important for methodology, data synchronization, and analysis of social interaction in collaborative tasks.
Azhari, A., et al. (2025). A Systematic Review of Inter-Brain Synchrony and Clinical/Developmental Conditions. Brain Sciences.
A systematic review on interbrain synchrony across different conditions, useful for thinking about how synchrony patterns vary according to context, health, relationship, and task type.
Bourgeais, Q., Charrier, R., Sanlaville, E., & Seifert, L. (2024). A temporal graph model to study the dynamics of collective behavior and performance in team sports: an application to basketball. Social Network Analysis and Mining.
Although it is not an fNIRS study, it offers an important foundation for modeling team sports as dynamic systems through temporal graphs, which is essential for integrating neural, physiological, and spatial data.
Artinis Medical Systems. (2026). Brite Ultra: fNIRS hyperscanning system.
Technical basis for the experimental design: the Brite Ultra system enables fNIRS hyperscanning of large groups with multiple synchronized devices, opening the possibility of measuring entire teams in naturalistic contexts.
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