Opinion – Tostão: Talent starts in childhood

January is the month of Copinha, the month for boys to dream of success in football. Everything is uncertain. Some, more promising and skilled, will fall by the wayside, while others, with less talent, will be more victorious.

In the 1960s, there was no Copinha. I played, for Minas Gerais, the Brazilian youth tournament, in Volta Redonda, between 15 to 20 year olds. As I was 14, I had to get permission from my parents and the Juvenile Court to participate.

At the age of 16, he was already a holder of Cruzeiro. I trained during the day and studied at night. At 18, I had to make a difficult choice between being a professional athlete and studying. I opted for football, because I already played for the Brazilian team. At the age of 26, I stopped playing because of a detached retina, and I realized a teenager’s dream of being a university professional. As a kid, I thought football was just for fun.

The boys should be better guided by the clubs, to live better with the frustration and with the success and to learn another activity, even more that the athlete’s time can be very short. As the great soccer star Dirceu Lopes used to say, nobody is prepared for fame.

In the past, the training of athletes started in the street naked, on the dirt fields, with the cloth ball, then with the rubber ball and, finally, glory, with the leather ball. It was a game, with no rules and no teachers. Some think that this period favored the formation of athletes with more skill and creativity. In adolescence, young people went to the base categories of clubs, where they learned positioning and collective play.

Today, it’s different. Many boys go to schools early, with good lawns and teachers, and learn the rules and behavior on the field. They arrive more ready to the base categories of the clubs. On the other hand, there is a debatable criticism that today’s boys learn the technique very early, without adequate psychomotor development, which would harm the formation of superstars.

It is obvious that technology is essential in the formation of children and in the development of football, but we should not deify academic science as an explanation for everything that happens in the game. In the same reasoning, we have to demand improvement in the structure of Brazilian football, but this does not diminish the outdated concepts and conduct of many coaches, from the base categories.

Just like managers and coaches, we analysts have to evolve, relying less on the audience and social networks.

It is not enough to have scientific knowledge about the preparation of players, from the basic categories. It is necessary to know how to teach.

In sports and in all activities, especially those linked to art and inventiveness, great talents begin to impress in childhood. In soccer, the biggest stars repeat, in the main teams and in the stadiums of the world, what they did when they were children, in the games and in the street naked.

insensitivity

There was no agreement. The company that manages the Cruzeiro says one thing, and Fábio says another. If the goalkeeper continues to play well and is important to the team, I don’t understand why they want a contract only until the end of the State season. Fábio wanted to stay until the end of the year, to help Cruzeiro return to the first division. The conduct of the new company is a mixture of inefficiency and insensitivity, in the face of the biggest idol of the club.