“What game is this?” said the excellent narrator Paulo Andrade, from ESPN Brasil, several times during the beautiful game between Chelsea and Liverpool. The 2-2 draw benefited leaders Manchester City, who had run amok, with ten points ahead of Chelsea.
A beautiful and decisive feature of City are the triangulations on both sides, with an open wing, a full-back that closes to be a point guard and an advancing midfielder. To get rid of the marking near the area, the ball moves from the center to the side and returns to the center for someone to finish. So many goals come out.
Liverpool are characterized by being a compact team, with a trio in midfield, scoring and advancing, two full-backs that cross very well, especially the right-hand one, Alexander-Arnold, with the ball from one side to the other. another and the long passes on the defenders’ backs, for the fast Salah and Mané.
At Chelsea, Thiago Silva remains brilliant. The team looks like City, in the exchange needs passes, and also like Liverpool, for the quick moves towards the goal.
One reason for the disagreement between coach Thomas Tuchel and Lukaku would be the fact that Chelsea won the European title without the center forward, with a lot of movement from the attacking trio. Tuchel wouldn’t be thrilled with Lukaku, a steady center forward, though he’s also moving to the right with his streaks. In the Belgium national team, Lukaku plays like Chelsea. At Inter Milan, he teamed up with Lautaro Martinez.
When watching the matches of the main European teams, mainly those of England, the differences in relation to the Brazilian teams are clear. The games are more intense, there is more pressure to retrieve the ball, more exchange of passes, more triangulations and less spaces between sectors, less balls crossed in the area, to count on luck, and fewer fouls, complaints and riots.
In Brazil, despite the poor performance of many classic midfielders, called shirt 10, like Ganso, Lucas Lima, Cazares, Benítez, Luan and others, the fascination for this type of player continues. In Europe, they disappeared, with some exceptions, like the Portuguese Bruno Fernandes, from Manchester United, who, in the last matches, has changed his position.
As the spaces between midfield and defense are very small, there is no need to have this midfielder, to play between the two sectors. This function is performed by the midfielder, who scores and advances as an offensive midfielder.
The repeated story that Brazil had five jerseys in the 1970 World Cup is a legend. At Cruzeiro, I played with an 8 and, in the national team, I played as a center forward, with a 9. Jairzinho, a 7 with Botafogo and in the national team, played from the right wing to the middle. Gerson and Rivellino were classic guards at their clubs. Gerson played at 8 in the Cup, and Rivellino, jersey 10 at Corinthians, played more on the left, with 11. The only classic jersey 10, spearhead, second striker, in the national team and in Santos, was Pelé.
The deification of coaches in victories is a worldwide fascination, but in Brazil, it is much more striking, trendy, as if everything that happened in the game resulted from the tactical planning and decisions of the coaches. This role played by the coaches, the owners of the ball and the game, undermines the evolution of football.
The charm of a game is not only in what happens but also in the unpredictability, in what could have been.
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