Opinion – Tostão: Order in chaos

Flamengo and Corinthians are the finalists of the Copa do Brasil. São Paulo played well in both matches, tried to pressure and score a goal at the beginning, but Flamengo’s highest individual quality prevailed. The red-black team, even without socks on the sides, to score and attack, does not weaken the marking, because the midfielders Éverton Ribeiro, on the right, and João Gomes, on the left, help the two sides.

Corinthians’ strategy, of putting pressure on Fluminense’s field to recover the ball, and of moving, with speed, from one intermediary to the other, was superior to Fluminense’s, of approaching and exchanging passes, to create goalscoring chances. This time, Cassio didn’t need to make great saves.

Vítor Pereira, after the match, said that this is the way of playing he wanted to see at Corinthians. For this, it is necessary to climb more often the best and not depend so much on the support of the crowd. Great teams are the ones that shine at home and abroad.

Tomorrow is Fla-Flu day, for the Brasileirão. Will the starters play? Flamengo, even being a finalist in the Copa do Brasil and Libertadores, should not abandon the Brasileirão, the most important competition in our football. The finals of the Copa do Brasil will only be on the 12th and 19th of October, and the Libertadores, on the 29th of October.

Fluminense, which has a lower cast than the main Brazilian teams, cannot give up and must fight to be among the first in the Brasileirão, to get a spot in next year’s Libertadores. The fans should applaud the team and the coach, for the good football, in the average of the matches, and for the good placements in the Brasileirão and in the Copa do Brasil.

After almost three years of the pandemic, I will be on vacation for two weeks, in an attempt to strengthen my soul and body. I’m going to lose Cruzeiro’s official access to Série A. I and several readers are tired of my technical and tactical analyses, of my tavern philosophies, of the importance I give to the unpredictable and of my criticisms of the exaggerated appreciation of coaches, as if they were always, with their conduct, the great and only responsible for the results.

There is often no correspondence between performance and score and between the strategy used by coaches and what happens on the field. There are also other emotional and unexpected facts that go beyond technical knowledge.

After medieval times, the Enlightenment believed that reason would be the only way to wisdom, that nature and all things had the logic of mathematics and that, only through scientific knowledge and rationality, people would be better and happier. Not quite. The imponderable remains important in life, in football and in all areas, and people are not so happy.

The great players, professionals from all areas, are those who, in addition to scientific knowledge, observe the details and try to reinvent football and life and put order in chaos.

Football repeats life, in emotion, reason, passion, technique and symbolization.

The psychoanalyst Lacan said that life takes place on three levels, the real, the symbolic and the imaginary. The real is the mixture of desires and instincts. Lacan said that the real was impossible. The human being, in order to survive and evolve, sublimated, repressed instincts and created the symbolic world of culture and civilization. But it is necessary to imagine, without losing reason.