Opinion – Tostão: The great match between Atlético and Flamengo remains in my imagination

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Every week, football impresses me with its diversity, technical and tactical variations, the richness of details, the unexpected, the intensity and the emotion. There are no definitive truths or a single logic, as many intersect and complement each other.

The great match between Atlético and Flamengo, without riots, balanced, is not over yet. It remains in my imagination. It was very good, but there were also shortcomings.

As is usual in Brazilian football, both teams lacked pressure to recover the ball and there was a lot of distance between the sectors. The midfield was advancing, and the defenders were still there. Thus, Atlético exchanged passes freely, from one intermediary to the other, for Arana to finish from outside the area, with the defenders glued to the penalty area. In Bruno Henrique’s goal, Flamengo left with the ball from their own field, exchanging passes, until they scored from inside the opponent’s area, with the defenders very far back.

The uncertainty before each of the 24 penalties, which could generate 24 different stories, is a synthesis of the technical and emotional plurality of a football game.

There is a saying, which must be from the beginning of football, almost 150 years ago, and which is still current, that each game has its history.

PSG, who massacred Real Madrid, were cornered by Manchester City in both group stage matches of the European Champions League. The French team, after performing very well and beating Real, played very poorly and lost to Nantes in the French Championship. Real, who had played very poorly and lost to PSG, had a great performance in the victory over Levante.

Even the big teams, with the exception of Manchester City and Liverpool, who always play with pressure on the opponent, alternate the strategy of scoring further and further back. Flamengo and Atlético did the same. City and Liverpool know the risks of taking counterattacks. Thus, Tottenham beat Manchester City, who had not lost for four months, on the counterattack, thanks to the talent of Harry Kane. How good it is to see strikers like Kane and Benzema, who, in addition to scoring a lot of goals, move, articulate plays and give excellent passes for goals.

Teams around the world alternate good and bad performances. São Paulo, who was being criticized a lot for crossing 60 balls into the area and not scoring a goal, scored three against Santos, who left huge spaces in the defense.

Rogério Ceni justified, with some reason, that, against small teams that score far behind, the team ends up crossing the ball too much in the area, as the great teams in the world also do. It is true, but the crossings of São Paulo, which start from the intermediary, are much more frequent. The great European teams, against closed defenses, use triangulations a lot from the sides and crossings of the line and back, from the ground and from above. Statistics do not show this difference.

São Paulo improved when young midfielder Rodrigo Nestor came on in place of attacking midfielder Igor Gomes. The team had one in midfield and five in attack. With Nestor, it was better divided. Many people working in football are still unable to separate attacking midfielders, linking midfielders and midfielders. Put them all in the same bag.

Football is a game of planning and unforeseen events, constructed and invented. Science is fundamental, but the attempt to explain everything that happens is an illusion. The ball also enters by chance.

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