“Bomb”, “bombshell”, “surprise”, “bump”, “humiliation”, “campaign…” The headlines of the media compete to measure the defeat of flamenco before him Al Hilal, from Saudi Arabia, in the Club World Cup.
What the headlines do not reflect is that, on the field, there was no illogicality, Al Hilal was clearly superior, they won well and were able to increase that meager 3-2 final.
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Let’s clear it up from the start; Flamengo played the second half with ten men due to the expulsion of Gerson, although that is not the crux of the matter: they were already losing 2-1.
It is also necessary to locate the reader: Al Hilal, the most popular club in the Saudi league, has 9 players in the national team that beat Argentina in the World Cup in Qatar, among them Salem Al-Dawsarithe number 10 who scored the winning goal for Scaloni’s team and who scored the first two against Flamengo, both from penalties.
Let us say, incidentally, that the league of Saudi Arabia is considered by many trainers as the strongest of Asia.
Surprise?
The Government seeks to promote it and does not want the footballers to leave the country. For this they pay very high contracts, as has been seen with Cristiano Ronaldo in it Al Nassr.
The technician of Al Hilal is Ramón Díaz and it has some foreigners of merit such as Luciano Vietto, who appeared in Racing as a possible star and then stayed, although he has high technique.
The two penalties were committed on him and finally he scored a great goal to make it 3-2. So Al Hilal is not a piece of cake. Say what they say about the Arab league, he was a careful rival. Football is no longer an exotic issue in any part of the world, everyone knows what it is about.
The column is motivated by a fact that left us stunned: of the last 15 club world cups, Europe won 14 and South America 1. An ugly win. And we’re out of this one too.
The only one who stood up for the continent was Corinthians in 2012, who took advantage of a Chelsea less than discreet and beat him 1-0 with a goal from Peruvian Paolo Guerrero.
But ten editions have already passed. Now there were well-founded illusions because Flamengo was going, the top team of the top country in terms of South American clubs. No one had ever won the Libertadores like the rubronegro last year: 13 games, 12 wins and one draw, 33 goals for and 8 against; a cyclone.
It was the occasion. But she was slapped in the face and rolled down the Arabian slope.
Fla”s defeat fell like an iceberg in Brazilian soccer, completely unexpected. And to the criticism for the elimination was added the fact that, after winning the brazil cup and the Libertadores at the end of last year, the leadership decided to fire the champion coach Dorival Junior, and put the Portuguese Vítor Pereira in his place. Nobody got it.
It is clear that the football distance between Europeans and South Americans at the club level is a correlate of the ocean that separates us, immense. In clubs, the financial factor rules, for a long time we were reduced to the role of soccer factories for external consumption.
The words of Eduardo Galeano resonate in Las venas abiertas de América Latina: “America became impoverished by producing coffee, Europe became rich by drinking it”. But lo and behold, the Europeans no longer beat us because we didn’t even get to play with them, we lose first.
We start to remember and we see that it is not an isolated event, there were already half a dozen of these ‘flamengazos’. In 2010, perhaps the most unusual of all occurred: Inter de Porto Alegre, with D’Alessandro, Tinga, Rafael Sobis, Oscar, Indio, fell against the unknown Mazembe FC, from the Democratic Republic of Congo, 2-0.
The case of 2013
A more modest rival could not touch him, there is nothing less powerful than the Mazembe. Had they reached the final, they would have collided with their namesake, Inter Milan.
In 2013 it was Atletico Mineiro -with Ronaldinho— the one that took the rain: they fell 3-1 against Raja Casablanca, from Morocco, and did not get to face Bayern Munich. Ronaldinho precisely scored the only goal for Atlético. Hard fall.
Nacional de Medellín, in 2016, was the next victim, at the hands of the Kashima Antlers, from Japan. You can lose against a Japanese club (also with a national team) given the evolution of Japanese football, but it was 3-0, a bloody, merciless result, as well as unexpected for the team. Reinaldo Ruedawhich overflowed with good football at the Libertadores level.
Nine days after defeating Boca 3-1 in Madrid for the 2018 Libertadores final, drunk with emotion, perhaps relaxed, Marcelo Gallardo’s River debuted in the Club World Cup in the United Arab Emirates, being eliminated by the local team, the diminutive Al Ain. They tied 2-2 and through penalties Al Aín went through to the final with Real Madrid. At least River was the only one of those cast that did not lose.
with portuguese Abel Ferreira in command, the rocky 2020 champion Palmeiras, who had scored 33 goals and conceded only 6 in the Libertadores, went to the Club World Cup in Qatar and fell 1-0 with Tigres de Monterrey, champion of the concacaf. This slap received by Flamengo is now added to all of them.
The last South American triumph with an honorable mention was that of Boca in 2000, when they knocked down Real Madrid 2-1 with two goals from Martin Palermo. Robert Carlos He had fixed the partial tie. It was the solid Boca by Carlos Bianchi with Riquelme as orchestrator and the Colombian trio Córdoba, Serna and Bermúdez. But it was still the Intercontinental Cup, not the Club World Cup.
Two pearls are reflected in the count: 1) the Brazilians have imposed an almost tyrannical dominance at the Conmebol, but they fail against those of other continents; 2) it is no longer losing to the Europeans, but to rivals from Asia, Africa and North America.
As anticipated by Fifa, this was the last Club World Cup with 7 participants. From 2025 it will be an expanded tournament with 32 animators, although no further details were given. If it was the last one, it better be over.
Reflection in discount time: when the bumps occur so often they stop being bumps.
(Dani Alves receives a strong blow: the main evidence against him is filtered, video)
(Shakira and Piqué gave themselves a second chance, which didn’t work out)
last tango
Jorge Barraza
For the time
@JorgeBarrazaOK
#longer #hits.. #tango.. #Opinion
