Opinion – Tostão: Chelsea had total control of the game, as expected

Before the 1958 World Cup, Brazilian football was already known for its skill, fantasy and improvisation. It lacked a great title to show that it was also efficient. After the World Cup, the mystique of the beautiful game, of football-art, was created. Some moves have become the mark of a style, a way of being, such as curve passes, curl passes, trivela passes, dribbles, elastic bands, hats and so many other special effects.

Brazilian players were called artists of the ball. But it wasn’t just that. Artists only become stars if they have great individual technique, collective vision and the lucidity to make the right choices. Special players imagine, understand and dominate time and space, everything that happens around them, teammates and opponents.

Garrincha was not just the greatest dribbler, the ball magician. He also had a lot of technique and a broad vision of the game. Garrincha was more than an artist. He was a sage in the field. Not just him but so many other great players.

The winning teams of 1958, 1962 and 1970 and others that enchanted and did not win, such as the one in 1982, combined improvisation and special effects with organization, the concatenated, linear game. In the same reasoning, the victorious Brazilian teams of 1994 and 2002 combined pragmatism and the principle of reality with pleasure. Great stars of those times, such as Romário, Ronaldo, Ronaldinho and Rivaldo, were elected the best in the world.

Many say that the origin of so much skill of the Brazilian player was in the fields of naked, of dirt, without rules and without teachers. Not quite. In the world, soccer fields are increasingly rare and the formation of superstars is increasingly common.

Miscegenation was an important factor in Brazilian creativity. Some thinkers have linked, in the past, talent with relaxation, irreverence, playfulness and the lack of commitment of the Brazilian citizen.

Despite modernism, the union of pragmatism with the beauty of the spectacle, which was already happening in the 1960s, the dichotomy is discussed a lot, as if there were two footballs, that of result and that of performance. Just as there is a fetishization of the beautiful game, without compromise, there is also a fetishization of the linear, programmed game, with a beginning and an end.

Regardless of the performances and results in the Club World Cup final, between Palmeiras and Chelsea, even though the two teams are not the greatest representatives of world football, the two teams tried to play a game of construction and invention, with two very different strategies.

Chelsea had total control of the game, as expected, with Palmeiras scoring far back, with a line of five defenders and with ten players on their own field, to try to win on the counterattack, in an unexpected move or in a ball. stop. Almost made it 1 to 0 in a goal lost by Dudu. Chelsea’s chances of scoring were also few. In extra time, the English team deservedly won the world title.

Despite the fact that Chelsea did not have a great game and drew 1-1 in normal time, the match confirmed the clear superiority of the great European teams over the main Brazilian teams.

Palmeiras’ strategy was the expected one, the correct one, as it had the most chance of succeeding, but lacked more individual quality when the team recovered the ball and a little more exchange of passes and daring on the counterattacks.