They have decided to explain too much to modern football. And when a game needs so many explanations, it stinks.
Football is torn between those who prefer to attack or defend, score goals or avoid them, just as life has night and day, sea and land, rain or sun.
This theory of the absurd is sustained by the illusion of chained perfection.
Rain has its charm as much as a sunny afternoon. There are warm nights with and without stars. And games of spectacular offensive beauty like 5-4 between PSG and Bayern Munich and others who fight with penalty goals like el 1-1 between Atlético de Madrid and Arsenal.
The 5-4 was an outburst. A poem overflowing with science and soul. There was vertigo, lack of control, raw beauty. Goals like beats, electric dribbles, stampede races. It was football in its natural and pure state. An ode
PSG vs. Bayern Munich Photo:EFE
But “the football doctors,” as the Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano called them, panicked. and, horrified, they turned that living song of the game into a corpse of errors to perform a tactical autopsy on it. While the world celebrated exultantly, Frenchman Frédéric Hermel’s scalpel was already sharpened.
Said: “Any self-respecting coach would say that conceding goals like that is a shame. I am sure that, deep down, any coach will say that it was not a good game (…) Football is a goalkeeper, a defense, a midfield and an attack. Here, we only had attack from each side. Three quarters of the players did not exist (…) In the end, what we saw is the symbol of our TikTok era, where everything must be a succession of intense and fast content, where pauses and reflection are prohibited. Poor football. “Poor world.”
PSG vs. Bayern Munich Photo:EFE
A true tactical neurosis, an epidemic of overanalysis and excessive worship of the technician. It has reached the point of absurdity of ensuring that the ‘perfect match’ is 0-0 because it leaves no room for error. This theory of absurdity is based on the illusion of chained perfection: the perfect shot is responded to by the perfect save; to the perfect dribble, the perfect takeaway; to genius, rejection or kicking. But football—like life—is made of mistakes and successes, of virtues and failures, of beauty and scars. In that imperfection lies its truth.
Luis Díaz, goal against PSG Photo:AFP
The coach has been overestimated to the point of believing that the game can only be looked at with a tactical magnifying glass. And not. I, without posturing, am left with football alive and not in the tactical morgue. And I hope that Bayern and PSG play another poem next week, imperfect if they want it, but brutal and beautiful.
Gabriel Meluk
EL TIEMPO sports editor
@MelukLeCuenta
