Opinion – Tostão: Football is a sport of diversity, with different strategic visions

​The supporters of the teams that play at home have been great highlights in all competitions. The euphoria of Brazilian fans has to do with homesickness, the long absence from stadiums because of the pandemic, and also with the rebuilding of several teams, such as those that became corporations, and with the growing passion of fans. Several clubs, like São Paulo and Santos, are extremely superior playing at home than away.

As soon as the match ended with Botafogo’s victory over Fortaleza, businessman John Textor, owner of Botafogo, euphoric, cried, waving the huge club flag, in front of the crowd. Ronaldo vibrated intensely, as in the time when he scored beautiful goals, with the classification of Cruzeiro, on penalties, for the round of 16 of the Copa do Brasil.

John Textor looks like a mixture of a businessman looking for profits with a marketer who knows how to value his work and with a delusional human being, excited to rebuild Botafogo.

Botafogo, in Serie A, and Cruzeiro, in Serie B, are doing very well. I think that, at Botafogo, Patrick de Paula should play as a midfielder who scores and gets ahead, not as a midfielder who sets up and returns to score. Cruzeiro, unlike in previous years, is an organized, safe, vibrant team that plays each match as if it were the last.

It’s still too early to make predictions and have a definitive analysis on Botafogo, Cruzeiro and all the other teams in Serie A and Serie B. In balanced football, victories are very close to defeats. False truths change quickly. It is often impossible to accurately link tactical designs and strategies to performance and outcome.

This weekend, Brazilian teams play for Libertadores and Copa Sudamericana. Palmeiras, Atlético and Flamengo are, in the Brasileirão, below expectations, especially Flamengo. The ghost of Jorge Jesus continues to haunt Gávea and the coaches. On Friday, the 20th, the deadline that Jorge Jesus gave Flamengo to rehire him ends. Everything is possible.

Regardless of Tuesday’s game (17), for Libertadores, I think Bruno Henrique, with Jorge Jesus, was another left midfielder who entered diagonally to finish and double with Gabigol, while Arrascaeta was the midfielder on the side, with freedom, who set up and returned to score. Now, it’s the opposite. Arrascaeta is the attacking midfielder, in the center, close to Gabigol, while Bruno Henrique acts as a winger, attacking and defending. It got better for Arrascaeta, but worse for Bruno Henrique and the team.

Atlético, with Cuca, was also a little different. The coach usually selected midfielder Zaracho and left Nacho in reserve to enter the second half. The team had another fast forward on the side, who returned to score alongside the two midfielders, forming a line of four. With Turkish coach Mohamed, Nacho and Zaracho work together, both centralized, without scoring from the sides. The team gets more tangled up in the middle and more unprotected on the sides.

Unlike what happens in the individualistic structure of football and the country, polarized and impoverished, in every way, in which people only hear, see and understand what interests them, playing on the field is a sport of diversity, of different visions. strategies, a theater of emotions, of encounters and disagreements, as is life.