Imaginary scene: Ancelotti watches the first half of the Brazil game and goes to sleep – 10/21/2023 – Tostão

According to the CBF, Ancelotti will take over the Brazilian team in June 2024, when his contract with Real Madrid ends. The technician neither denies nor confirms. If the signing is right, will he follow the team and watch the games?

Let’s imagine a scene: he watched the match against Uruguay alongside an assistant. 20 minutes into the first half, he got up from the sofa and vented. “I don’t understand anything. The game is very bad. All of Brazil’s most advanced players are on the left side, even right-winger Rodrygo. I’ve never seen that in my career. They hinder Vinicius Junior, as he runs out of space.”

The first half ends, and Ancelotti says he is going to sleep. The next day, the assistant says to the coach: “You didn’t lose anything, it was still very bad and the same way”. The assistant explains that putting all the players on one side is a strategy that only Fernando Diniz uses in the world. They say in Brazil that he is a genius. The assistant takes the opportunity to praise Messi and Argentina’s performance, a game he saw shortly after Brazil’s defeat.

The columnist is speaking now. Argentina plays with a trio in midfield, in addition to Messi, and with just one open, fast and dribbling winger. This strengthens ball possession in midfield. Messi moves back to receive it, touch it first and get it back in front, closer to the area, unlike Neymar, who returns, holds the ball and facilitates the recovery of the marking.

Argentina, France and England, the three teams that stood out most in the 2022 World Cup, continue to be the best, as recent qualifying games for the World Cup and the European Championship showed.

The three have many things in common. They bring players closer together and try to exchange passes and control the ball from the defense. They are compact, alternate the most advanced marking with the most backward, put a lot of pressure on whoever has the ball, vary short passes with long balls towards the goal, and other details. It’s modern football. Many other teams, like Fluminense, try to play this way.

I repeat, the strategy used by Fernando Diniz of bringing together many players on one side of the field, including the wingers, is more negative than positive. When the team plays well and wins for countless other reasons, they praise this tactical stance as if it were decisive. In the second half against Corinthians, in the Brasileirão, Fluminense shone with Arias on the right and Keno on the left. It’s much more logical.

Nilton Santos said that, when Garrincha received the ball on the right wing, no teammate could approach so as not to disturb him in dribbling the marker or several others. Football has changed, Vinicius Junior is not a Garrincha, but he deserves a strategy to help him, not harm him.

Just as many teams have deficiencies in victories and strengths in defeats, better-prepared coaches may be less successful than others with less knowledge. It also takes a long time to correctly evaluate the performance and number of titles won by coaches.

After the Brazil and Uruguay game, someone, probably a reporter, before asking, praised coach Bielsa for his work and titles won. Bielsa, unique in that he is well known as a great coach with rare titles, said, in his own way, with a frown and looking down, that the interviewer was mistaken or wanted to please him.

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