Naïve thinking

A common comment after a game - in almost any sport - is "if" such and such had happened the result would be, say, 3x1 or another score. One learns a lot from chaos theory. In a highly complex system, such as a soccer game, you cannot just change something and assume that everythingelse would be identical to what it was. Eons ago I heard someone at the racetrack claiming against the rider when his come-from-behind horse lost by a neck. He wanted the rider to start accelerating two furlongs before it actually did and just assumed that the horse would run the two additional furlongs at the same speed that he run in the final stretch. And this looking only at one horse and rider, ignoring all interactions... It is a fruitless speculation to wonder what kind of result would we have in case so-and-so hadn't missed a penalty kick and so forth. We can't know how things would be if the weren't as they were....