Opinion – Tostão: Uncertainty is one of the reasons for the magic and popularity of football

One of the most important and difficult tasks for coaches and directors is to hire quality players that are not expensive and that bring technical and financial benefits to the club. I think some clubs hire too many players. Some arrive to add, as they like to say. Others, to subtract. They earn a lot and play a little.

In the past, there were scouts, amateurs, with a reputation for discovering young future stars. There are many football legends about it. Over time, progressively, scouts were replaced by professional, scientific performance analysts, who help coaches a lot in making decisions. However, even with so much information, hiring, to succeed, needs scientific knowledge and also unexpected factors, details, objective and subjective, that go beyond what was expected.

The hiring of Hulk by Atlético was, at the time, questionable, because of the huge investment. Hulk, for his technique, physical strength, dedication and the many facilities he finds, on average, in Brazil and South America, became one of the main or the best player in the country. Against Del Valle, he scored two beautiful goals, after two brilliant passes from midfielder Allan.

Selection is another level. It is debatable whether or not Hulk should be called up. The same happens with other players who work in the country. The technical level, in Brazil and in South America, is much lower than that of the Brazilian team and that of the great teams in the world. Gabigol, in the best moments, played for the national team a few times and didn’t do well.

This week, Manchester City signed the Norwegian Haaland, a sensation in Europe. Will he be the player who will make City better and be champions of Europe or will he have a hard time adapting to a team where all the players from mid to forward are very skilled and exchange a lot of passes? We’ll see.

It should work, because Haaland isn’t just a center or a finisher. He is fast and usually stands in the middle, with his body to the side, with an eye on the pass and another on the positioning of defenders, to receive the ball in front. Romario was a master at these moves.

Players like Romario, Haaland and others run counter to modern neurological concepts that the brain does one thing at a time. They are special athletes, with spatial and kinesthetic intelligence, capable of, in a fraction of a second, calculating the speed of the ball and the movement of teammates and opponents.

They say Mbappé can still go to Real Madrid. If true, will it be good or bad for Vinicius Junior, as Mbappé is more complete than the Brazilian and also plays better from left to middle? Vinicius Junior would go to the right to take the place of Rodrygo, another excellent player.

The great teams in Brazil and in the world hire, more and more, excellent players and, with that, the chances of losing to inferior teams decrease. According to mathematician Marcelo Viana, columnist for Sheetthe University of Oxford, England, recently published a study with 88,000 European league games, played between 1993 and 2019. The victories of the clearly superior teams increased from 60% to 80%.

I think the 20% of unexpected results is still a very high percentage, because of the large number of matches. Fortunately. Uncertainty is one of the reasons for the excitement, magic and popularity of football.