Star players shine when they are supported by a great team – 10/17/2023 – Tostão

During the long time that I have followed football, as an athlete, commentator, columnist and observer, I have never seen a country with an average technical level become a world power.

Some teams like Croatia came close, but I think it’s a passing glow, of a generation, led by Modric, that is approaching sunset. Furthermore, Croatia is part of the former Yugoslavia, which had a lot of football tradition. In the 60s, the world was enchanted to see, somewhere in the world, the frequent friendly matches between Santos de Pelé and Estrela Vermelha, the great team from Yugoslavia. Santos won more than they lost. Today, Red Star is an average team in Europe.

The United States and Japan learned the game strategies, formed excellent professional structures with the hope of becoming world powers. They evolved, but got stuck in the middle of the road. There’s a lack of stars. Zico, who was a coach in Japan, said that it was very difficult to convince the disciplined Japanese that they could, at the right moment, improvise. Football is a sport of strategies, technique and improvisation.

The United States, the country of basketball, invested in volleyball and became world champions. They thought they could do the same in football. The stars were missing.

In the 1994 World Cup, I saw Nigeria with great players enchant the world. They were eliminated by Italy in a game in which they were much better. In 1996, the Nigerians won the gold medal at the Olympics, after victories over Brazil in the semi-finals and Argentina in the final. Brazil had almost all the same world champion players in 1994.

At the time, I thought that Africans would become protagonists of world football. This did not happen, although they have excellent players spread across Europe. They say that the evolution of Africans was not as significant as expected because they imported a large number of European coaches, who did not have the vision of football that Europeans have today. At the time, the coaches would have adopted brutal, physical, defensive football, which blocked African talent.

This week, I watched some European Championship qualifying games. Spain, as always, showed exceptional midfielders, led by Rodri, who put on a show of exchanging passes, controlling the ball in midfield, but having great difficulties in reaching the goal in the 1-0 victory over Spain. Norway. In Spain’s eliminations in the last World Cups, the ready comments were always that the short exchange of passes and possession of the ball had no objectivity. It’s not there. Spain lacks highly talented attackers.

If they combined the exchange of passes, possession of the ball and the individual quality of Spain’s midfield with skillful, fast attackers, dribblers and finishers, such as Vinicius Junior and Neymar, who would not need to retreat to set up plays, it would be an exceptional selection. .

Regardless of the performance and result of the duel between Brazil and Uruguay, on Tuesday night (17), the Brazilian team needs to evolve, individually and as a group. We cannot deify the team, players and coach in victories nor destroy, cancel, in defeats. We shouldn’t be analysts on duty. The team needs stars and a good collective strategy. Stars often shine when they are supported by a great team. However, great teams cannot be formed without stars.

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