In human behavior joint action is ubiquitous, such as during pedestrian traffic, teamwork ( e.g. bucket brigade or human chain), team sports, or group dance, where movements are adjusted according to the ongoing actions of others to fit the demands of the tasks at hand [6], [7], [8], [9].
Collective behavior characterizes the way in which an individual's activity is influenced by other members of its group, and in turn how they influence it [1]. In a system consisting of many similar ‘units’ [2] (such as fish in a shoal, birds in a flock, or players of a team sport [3]) the interactions between them can be simple (attraction/repulsion) or more complex, and can occur between neighbours in space [4] or through an underlying social network [5]. In human behavior joint action is ubiquitous, such as during pedestrian traffic, teamwork ( e.g. bucket brigade or human chain), team sports, or group dance, where movements are adjusted according to the ongoing actions of others to fit the demands of the tasks at hand [6], [7], [8], [9]. Here, we investigate joint actions of football players (European association football; soccer) to understand how players perform as a collective and how this relates to team success.