Opinion – Tostão: Things come and go in football, with different names

Over time, there have been a number of changes to the way the game is played, although there are so many things that come and go, with different names.

The past has to be known to understand the present, not to repeat it, a mixture of nostalgia and ignorance of changes in football and society.

At the beginning of football, teams played with two defenders, three midfielders and five forwards (2-3-5). Current Manchester City, who almost always have the ball, attack in a similar way. The two sides close and form a trio of guards with the steering wheel (midfielders), and the midfielders advance, one on each side, joining the three in front. City also use fixed attackers on the sides, like the old wingers, to widen the field, as they like to say.

The current Brazilian team and a large number of teams around the world, when they lose the ball and cannot press, score with a line of four in midfield, formed by two defensive midfielders and a winger on each side (4-4- two). This tactical formation started with the English, world champions in 1966, 56 years ago. The difference is that, in the English team, the line of four in the middle defended and advanced as a block. There was no distinction between the two midfielders and the two ends.

The Brazilian team, in the 1958, 1962 and 1970 World Cups, had a trio in midfield, with the left winger in the back (4-3-3), which was not repeated. The traditional 4-3-3, used during the last decades and increasingly current, is played with three in midfield and three in front, with two wingers, as Manchester City, Liverpool, Real Madrid, Corinthians and a large number of clubs around the world.

For several decades, most Brazilian teams played with a diamond in midfield, without ends, as Flamengo plays (4-3-1-2). At the time, other teams preferred to have two midfielders, two midfielders in front of the midfielders and two more forwards (4-2-2-2). In both formations, the advance on the sides is done by the sides, as Rodinei does in Flamengo. Roberto Carlos and Cafu were, for a long time, the two best full-backs in the world because they could score and attack efficiently.

Today, there are many different tactical designs and strategies. Some repeat the past. What changed quite positively were the intensity, the ability to defend and attack and the pressure marking, alternating with the more defensive marking, in addition to dozens of other technical and tactical details.

Fluminense is a peculiar team, in Brazil and in the world, for grouping, on one side of the field, several players to exchange passes and try to involve the opponent. This one, attracted, also congests the sector where the ball is. Although there are large spaces on the other side, Fluminense makes little use of ball turns. That way, I could score more goals. As there is great congestion on one side, errors in the exchange of passes also increase, one of the reasons Fluminense conceded several goals.

Football terminology has changed a lot. The spikes are now extreme. I would like the first midfielders, centralized, to be called midfielders, and that the second midfielders, who work from one area to the other, were the midfielders. Words and expressions used in football should be more self-explanatory. It’s hard to like what you don’t understand. “The word was not made to adorn, to shine like false gold; the word was made to say.” (Graciliano Ramos)