If, as expected, the two teams meet in the final of the World Club Cup, it will not just be Santos who are taking on Barcelona. It will be all of Brazilian football.
The emergence and consolidation of the Catalan school has shaken Brazil, robbing it of something seen as a birthright – Brazil’s place as the spiritual guardians of the beautiful game. Be honest now – who would you prefer to see – the Barcelona of Messi, Xavi and Iniesta, or the Brazil of Gilberto Silva and Felipe Melo which Dunga took to the last World Cup?
Last week Rio played host to the eighth annual version of Footecon, an annual conference of coaches organised by Carlos Alberto Parreira. As a veteran of all eight, I can confirm that this one was different.
Last year Parreira gave a splendid lecture dissecting the football of Barcelona – inspired by the excitement the team generated in the players he had been coaching with the South African national side. This year Barcelona’s presence was not confined to one lecture. Their shadow hung over the whole event – a process enhanced by the fact that one of the club’s directors had crossed the Atlantic to explain their philosophy of youth development.
It was a lecture that packed the hall, and to which Brazil coach Mano Menezes paid special attention. The debate afterwards – indeed much of what followed over the two days of the event – focused on similarities and especially differences between approaches in Barcelona and Brazil.
There is clearly a chasm in terms of continuity. Barcelona have implanted a philosophy of life and football over the long term. No club in Brazil has managed to do something so extensive as a consequence of the constant changes of coaching personnel. Where Barcelona have a collective project, things in Brazil tend to be much more individual.
In large part because of this, one of the central tenets of the Barcelona approach is entirely foreign to the Brazilian mentality. From the youngest of their youth sides all the way up to the B team Barcelona stress that results are not the priority. They are seeking to develop players in the long term. Mano Menezes was quick to make the point that, rightly or wrongly, Brazilian football cannot survive independently of results, even at youth level. Youth coaches are usually looking to win trophies in order to attract attention and move on up to more lucrative positions in senior football.
In the midst of this battle for survival there is little time to address one of Barcelona’s main concerns – to impart values and ensure the development of their youngsters in human and educational terms. This is not only because the harsh mathematics of football prove that the majority will not make it as top class players. It is also to ensure that those who do become stars do not behave as stars in the dressing room. Parreira was quick to comment that Brazilian football could learn much from this.
In terms of football on the field, some coaches argued that Brazilian football had no need to copy or look up to Barcelona, since Mario Zagallo’s national team were playing similarly scintillating football in the 1970 World Cup. Others pointed out that the type of high pressure marking carried out by Barcelona has never been part of the DNA of the Brazilian game – a fair point, since one of Zagallo’s key ideas in 1970 was to bring the team behind the line of the ball when Brazil lost possession. Rather than press high to win the ball back, all bar centre forward Tostao dropped deep when the move broke down.
In all of this Barcelona related discussion, perhaps two basic points were overlooked – points that have been regarded as self-evident truths in Brazilian football over recent years.
The first is that the central midfielders should be tall, an argument put forward forcibly by Rubens Minelli when he was coach of the hugely successful mid-70s Internacional side.
The other – one I have frequently heard advanced in previous versions of Footecon- is that the chances of a goal are reduced if the move contains more than seven passes.
Put these two together and it becomes relatively easy to explain why Brazilian football has not been producing Xavis and Iniestas. Because before anything else comes the idea. And if you are wedded to the two ideas cited above then you will not be looking to groom players who contradict them.
And then along come to the Barcelona midfield pair giving weekly demonstrations of the value of little, technically gifted midfielders whose game is based on extensive passing moves.
Who is the nearest Brazilian equivalent? I can think of one – a former Barcelona player. Deco has come of the attributes of his former team-mates, and was such a joy to watch with Fluminense when he finally got fit towards the end of the Brazilian Championship.
His example gives us some food for thought, however. Deco is a Portuguese international, a man who naturalised as a consequence of building his career abroad. As a youngster, the future Barcelona star could not find room in Brazilian football. He did not fit the mould of what clubs were looking for in a midfielder. Will that mould change now that Xavi and Iniesta have worked their magic?
