The poetry of the Brazilian people: When the functional attack of Grêmio and Flamengo recalled the magic of the great teams
The first decade of the century was marked in football by what I called in previous texts the “space boom”. Football seen mainly from the angle of rationalization of the space of the field before any other aspect of the game. This wave came first with very rigid zone defenses, which often gave up putting pressure on the ball carrier in the construction of the play. With spaces seeming to be scarce, came the hegemony of the positional game as a synonym for “beautiful”, aesthetic, purposeful game. The positional game also rationalizes spaces, as it uses offensive zones to widen the field and rationalize offensive spaces.
In Brazil, positional play began to be chanted as a doctrine to be followed since 2010. The reasons were simple: triumph for Pep's Barcelona and Spain, criticism of Dunga's style of play. The base divisions underwent a revolution, the specialized critics began to cry out for baseless mimesis, and the coaches began to organize their teams offensively and defensively with rigid sectors.
However, the positional game may have its logic and aesthetics, but it never contemplated the spirit of the Brazilian game. On the contrary, coaches who are adept at positional play (such as Van Gaal) have always been very uncomfortable with Brazilian and South American players such as Rivaldo, Ronaldo, Riquelme, among others, due to their anarchic disposition.
According to the teachings of Lillo, Guardiola, Cruyff and Perarnau, positional play can be defined as:
A tactical training model - It helps players understand the concept of the offensive zone and profile the body orientation for the continuation, hence, Lillo calls it a “location game”;
A game process - Grouping, pressing, recovering, installing a new opponent's field, opening the field, playing from the offensive zones;
A game of interpretation - Search for positional superiority, for unmarking, for attraction, for the third man behind the defensive line.
There is no positional game without the division of the field into zones, as there is no defense by zone without this. One of Rinus Michels' intentions, drawn from his war studies, was to give spatial dominance to ball possession. So, you could from possession have positional superiority without having to gather many players on one side. For Rinus, it would be a rational domain of spaces. The ESSENTIAL characteristics of the position game are:
Maximum amplitude;
Fixed winger (can be a full-back in this offensive zone) in a 1 x 1 situation after previous passes;
Scaling within zones;
Search for the third man of a triangulation as a player behind the defensive line;
Protect themselves with possession of the ball;
Respect for game positions, encouraging exchanges between players within the offensive zones;
Pressure after loss of possession;
Intensity in all actions.
There is no positional game without the use of positional attack. Example of positional attack are:
However, the typical Brazilian player, who has fertilized his creativity in the unexpected resolution of life situations, of chaotic and conflicting contexts, feels the game in another way. His game is one of positional freedom, of seeking to be close to the ball all the time, of betting on the spontaneity of bodies and not on their discipline, of betting on surprising movements, on unexpected and miraculous understandings.
Due to the characteristics of its players, Brazilian football has always favored the logic of bringing players together in the ball sector. We created — under the influence of Danubian School — a game where we joined players in short spaces in the ball sector, empty spaces in the opposite side, and tables in the ball sector or inversion to the empty space. In other words, Brazilian football organizes its possession based on the position of the ball and at what time everything will be done. Thus, dominating the spaces will be a consequence of the good realization of this. Brazilian football did not organize its possession based on spaces as in the positional game. The fullback on the ball side get through the corridor, the fullback on the opposite side makes the defensive diagonal.
Expanding the player's scope grants freedom and demands the best interpretation (the role of intuition). The Brazilian player gained great positional freedom in relation to spaces to be able to express his talent over larger areas of the field, but this redoubled his responsibility. He needed to interpret well what his companion was doing and everything very quickly. This required technical refinement and a lot of intuition to get close without messing up the game.
In summary, the functional attack is the offensive organization through the ball sector, with asymmetries and without offensive zones. It aims to bring together players in the sector where the ball is located, and each player must play a role.
The great Telê Santana's São Paulo played like this:
Vanderlei Luxemburgo's mythical Palmeiras 1996 (like all his teams) had the same functional attack:
Brazilian football has always been one of magical encounters, of positional freedom, of the large area to play, of the incessant search for the ball to show its technical skills and submit time and space through it. Various European teams play with different types of functional attack. Ten Hag's Ajax and Simeone's Atletico are good examples:
Renato Portaluppi's Grêmio:
In Brazilian football, after a long period giving value to rigid sectors, teams that sought more a transition game than offensive organization, and robotic and static teams, a figure rose and created the most fun team of the decade in Brazil: Renato Gaucho and his three-time Libertadores semifinalist Grêmio.
Renato's Grêmio plays in a 4–2–3–1 base system. With the ball, the 3 midfielders are always looking for the sector of the ball, and the fullback on the side of the ball getting in to the corridor. In some games, the sixth player to participate in the offensive system is the fullback of the opposite side, the only one who is sectored in an area of the field. When this occurs, the two volantes are always at the base of the play, behind the ball line, but always in the ball sector:
However, in other situations, the fullback on the opposite side of the ball makes the defensive diagonal to avoid counterattacks, and the sixth player to participate in the attack is the second defensive midfielder. In this situation, the team attacks without amplitude:
More than that, the beauty of Grêmio lies in spontaneous football, in unexpected and miraculous encounters, with great technical refinement. Renato trains one player after another, gets the best out of each one, creates mental power, encourages audacity, trains the boy's intuition and interpretation. Each player has a role within the ball sector. One winger is the third middle man, the other winger is the second striker. And Cebolinha is a typical Brazilian second striker, the type that moves throughout the attack, attacks the opponent with dribbles, and doesn't bother with the mistake. It's pure audacity. He remembers Bebeto, Paulo Nunes, Edmundo, etc. The attacking midfielder is always a striker. It is the poetry of the Brazilian people.
Jorge Jesus' Flamengo:
Flamengo attacks in a similar way. With the previous manager, the team was already making a functional attack. Jorge Jesus won Gerson, Rafinha, Filipe Luis, improved the team's post-loss pressure, and gave the players even more positional freedom with the ball. Flamengo attacks like this:
In the game against Palmeiras, Flamengo played a beautiful poem. A poetry that recalls the best of the Brazilian game, when our culture redeems itself through art. The movement of bodies, independence, and technical refinement created in those who watched that feeling of smelling our great teams from the 80's and 90's.
Bruno Henrique and Gabriel Barbosa are an almost perfect attacking duo. Gabriel is the movement 9, simply lethal in small spaces and close to the finishing zone. Bruno knows how to receive the ball with his back to the goal, has a good pass, speed, dribble, moves on both sides, enters the area to score, plays from the right wing, from the left wing, etc. Everton Ribeiro is the typical third middle man in Brazilian football. He connects the sectors, controls the rhythm of the attacks, has an almost perfect pass. Arrascaeta is the fourth man, the attacking midfielder. He is always stepping into the area, scoring goals, being aggressive coming from behind the two forwards. Gerson has become an amazing 8 with Jorge Jesus. He is always coming from behind, from the base of the play, with physical strength, a lot of technique, and a refined left-hander in decisive passes. It has improved a lot since being adapted to the new position. Rafinha and Filipe do wonders for the double function of the full-backs in the functional attack: they attack the corridor, build from behind, and do well on the defensive diagonal. They interpret everything wonderfully. Flamengo by Jorge Jesus is also a poetry of the Brazilian people:
Grêmio and Flamengo played two great games for Libertadores. They recalled the great clashes between Brazilian teams in the 90s. The two teams are poetry of the Brazilian people, they wonderfully capture the essence of the Brazilian game.
I know that with a HB role i could make one of they drop between the CBs but it has some disadvantages. First of all, it's rare to find a left footed center back nowadays, and if you have two right footed central defenders who left foot ability is pretty useless that movement in build up with a left footed central midfielder will help them. So, as i said before, i could have that with a half back role but it doesn't seem that i could get them to drop in the side of the center backs.
