Now it begins Milan-Liverpool, do we see it…?
According to the criteria of
-The truth is…? I can’t stand a whole game, it bores me-, says Edu, my oldest son, a big football fan. -I watch Independiente, even if they play badly, they’re my team. At most, the national team, the rest doesn’t interest me-, he adds, laconic. He gets up and continues with his things.
I understand. We are not seeing anything. Just results. After the Barcelona Guardiola, after the dismantling of Barça Messi, Neymar and Suarezeverything seems prosaic, the ceiling seems to have given way and is collapsing. The show is shaky due to its lackluster nature. It may be temporary, but that’s how it is.
What there is
What did we have left…? Manchester Citywho they now want to blow up for his financial irregularities and millions celebrate it. But we must thank him for the football festivals he has given in recent years. And nobody plays well because of financial irregularities. There are no forwards called “Asset”, “Passive”, “Depreciation”… We had Klopp left at Liverpool, he has always been a breath of fresh air, Jurgen, but he has been given a break. They continue Xabi Alonso and Florian Wirtz at Bayer Leverkusenalthough it is a small club. It belongs to the pharmaceutical giant Bayer, the company that makes Aspirin and Redoxon, but Bayer does not give it a penny for signings, the club must manage with its income. Or rather with sales.
Luis Enrique’s performance at Paris Saint Germain is very commendable, as now, without Mbappé, he plays much better. You no longer have to give all the balls to Mbappé by decree so that he can shoot at goal and increase his personal numbers. You have to pass it to the best-placed teammate. PSG has noticeably improved its performance, it attacks for 90 minutes and is a candidate for everything, but no longer due to economic arrogance, but due to its game. There is a player who is a pleasure to watch: Bradley Barcola (pronounced with the last a accent). He plays in the exact position that Mbappé left, he faces, he dribbles, he does nice things, he has something different to most. And he also scores goals. He just turned 22.
I want to see this one Bayern Munich by Vincent Kompany, That Herculean City defender who, having become a coach, already has a medal: he won promotion to the First Division with Burnley in England. Now, as the brand new coach of Müller and Beckenbauer’s team, he has scored 20 goals in four games. He scored 6 on Saturday in the Bundesliga and 9 on Tuesday in the Champions League. It arouses curiosity, there must be something there.
real Madrid
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There is always the Premier League, with its frenetic, back-and-forth football. Switching attack after attack gives it a beauty, it generates excitement in the spectator, but with performers who are not the best. Chelsea spent £1.2bn and have Nkunku, Madueke and Jackson up front, which is like saying Larry, Curly and Moe. Note that all three show a lot of enthusiasm, but a club that makes such a colossal expenditure should field three phenomenal players. But where is there one?
We have mentioned the exceptions. Few. When we talk about watching football, it is not just about one’s club, something that will always interest you, but about watching other teams. If a team arouses our interest even though we are neutral, it is because it has something interesting.
At his press conference on Friday, Carlo Ancelotti He made an unfortunate comment: “We don’t like to waste too m
uch time trying to get to the opponent’s goal. The fans like rock and roll football.” Obviously, to justify how badly his Real Madrid, champions, play. They dominate them, they dominate them, then they counterattack and take advantage of the speed of Rodrygo, Vinicius or Mbappé and score. On Wednesday, Stuttgart, like Mallorca, Betis or Real Sociedad before them, played around with them for almost the entire match and created countless goal-scoring opportunities. In the end, the white team won 3-1, as almost always happens, without anyone really understanding why. Presumably because of their efficiency.
The Brazilian will be present at the Champions League final on Saturday
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A good player, to be one, must be effective. Madrid players are. And they also have Courtois. And God, who is a Madrid fan, even if he doesn’t say so. It’s not his fault that Stuttgart misses ten or twelve clear chances in front of the opponent’s goal. Madrid is a White Shark always hunting for titles to feed its ego, but it doesn’t give football, look for that somewhere else. Let’s pay attention to Sebastian Hoeness, The young Stuttgart coach (42 years old). His team plays the ball wonderfully. They are coming off the Bundesliga runners-up, leaving Bayern third. “We are disappointed with the result, but proud of the work done,” he said after giving an exquisite display at the Bernabéu. There is something there too…
As a general rule, we see flat football, without any relief. We saw it in the Copa America. If we wanted to choose three memorable matches out of the 32 that the competition had, we might not get to two. And those two, thanks to Colombia, we would say against Brazil and Uruguay, although the latter was more war than football, but it ended dramatically and that is also liked. We see it in the tedious Libertadores and in the very boring Copa Sudamericana, where fans usually ignore the results. Every day there is more marketing, but less quality in the product.
Poor level
“The level of the Copa Libertadores is generally discreet, often poor,” says Ricardo Vasconcellos, a brilliant journalist from El Universo, in Guayaquil. He adds: “I include in this assessment the robotic and lackluster Brazilian teams, which are ‘reinforced’ with semi-retired veterans like Hulk, David Luiz, Marcelo or with some players who return from Europe without having made a name for themselves. In the Club World Cup in Brazil They land it. In our region, in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.”
We also see it in Argentine football, 80 percent fighting and 20 percent playing. It is saved by the public, which fills all the stadiums in the First and Second Division. It is, yes, an excellent market for young people with skills from other countries who arrive and spend a year or two before going to Europe. Let them experience the pressure at the limit, the friction, the intensity, the heat and the speed with which the game is played. If they pass that filter, they are ready to cross the ocean.
There are thousands of matches on offer, but the vast majority are dull, with ordinary players, without any amazing stars. That is why transfers of normal footballers are made for a hundred million dollars or more. Any mediocre player costs fifty or seventy. It is not that they are worth it, the market and the agents have distorted it. Manchester United paid 100 million euros for Antony, 73 for a very finished Casemiro and now 70 for Ugarte (no more questions, Your Honor).
Vinicius Junior
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The same thing happens with the Golden Ball. We all know that awarding it to Mbappé, Vinicius or Bellingham does not correspond to the merit. For football, for class, for performance, the winner should be Rodri.
However, the hot candidate, already an imminent Ballon d’Or winner, is Vinicius, who lost 18 balls against Costa Rica and 17 against Paraguay. Mbappé has scored 5 goals in 7 games for Madrid, two from penalties, two from drives, but it is perceived as an international desperation to label him “the best player in the world”. There is no best in the world, it is a vacant title. “Mbappé is Usain Bolt with a little more ball control”, Vasconcellos says.
We named it plain. Flatness was also a possibility.
Jorge Barraza
For THE TIME
@JogeBarrazaOK
#Football #plain.. #Tango
