If football is a methodological issue, the midfield is a strategic issue. There is an anecdote that still circulates in the corridors of Madrid. Apparently, Santiago Bernabéu went to a match and when he went to sit down he found his seat occupied by a minister and he looked for a seat somewhere else. An employee approached him worried about the situation and Bernabéu calmed him down with the logic of a giant: “The president of Madrid is where he sits, not where his seat is.”
What does this have to do with central midfielders, you might ask? Quite a lot when the central midfielder is a star. Because on the field of play there are also specific places reserved for specialists. Very well-defined positions, such as that of the central midfielder, which in its very name expresses precisely the place that he should occupy. He even has a drawing that contains it and is, with some exceptions, his postal address: the central circle.
But Madrid had known for many years that Kroos did not play in the position that the central midfielder should occupy, but that the central midfielder was the place where Kroos was. It could have been, for example, in the left-back position, a place that became his centre of operations to move the team. So his departure did not leave an empty place, but a concept, a function, a way of being collectively. Today everything seems empty. Time and Carlo Ancelotti will solve the problem, but in the meantime not even the imposing Mbappé attenuates the concern. The central midfielder is accused of not being a decisive player. A suspicion that, I suppose, football did not know how to properly distinguish the strategic intelligence of Busquets, a genius who simplified the difficult for a long decade in the ignorance of the award-givers. He was never among the 30 best in Europe in the Ballon d’Or votes.
This week, misfortune meant that Barça lost a Busquets star for a long time: Marc Bernal. He still has a long life ahead of him and he has plenty of talent, so let’s hope that the future holds more recognition for him than his mentor had. Now there are attempts to devalue Rodri because his role as a distributor is considered bureaucratic and does not bring him closer to scoring. It’s true, but what he does is nothing less than take over the game and, from further back, set the conditions for the forwards to take charge of the danger with more advantage.
Players must be judged by what they do when they are there and by the consequences they leave when they are not. Only then will we make a correct assessment. Kroos’ nostalgia is a testament to this idea, but there is no better example than Rodri, who went 73 games without losing (65 with his club and eight with the national team). If we only consider the games he played with City, it is 74 games without losing in a total of 475 days unbeaten. But the acid test is that last season City lost only five games and in four of them Rodri was not there. How those who say that his role is administrative make me laugh.
It’s time to ask ourselves what’s more important: scoring goals or winning games? Speed and strength are taking over football, but there are functions in which intelligence, judgement, thinking well and thinking quickly are important, with and without the ball. All of this is in the head, then it goes down to the feet, which need to be precise. Then, yes, everything starts to work and even seems easy.
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