Artigos de opinião, blogs, podcasts, sobre futebol

[noikeee]

Nos últimos tempos tenho andado a ler muitos artigos de jornalistas estrangeiros sobre futebol, seguindo podcasts e mais uma série de blogs interessantes. Este é o tópico onde vou "despejar" aqui tudo o que ache porreiro, para o ppl que curte este tipo de cenas.

 

Estão à vontade para colocarem tudo o tipo de coisas também. Agradecia é que tenham o mínimo de bom senso para colocarem coisas porreiras e não puro spam para blogs vossos ou de amigos.

 

Começo hoje pelo blog novo do Miguel Delaney, um jornalista irlandês que escrevia para o Sunday Tribune: The Football Pantheon. Este blog dedica-se a listas dos "melhores de sempre". O que não seria muito original se não fosse baseado em... fórmulas matemáticas. Basicamente o gajo percorreu a história toda do futebol e aplicou umas fórmulas maradas que ele inventou para tentar descobrir quem foram os treinadores com mais sucesso de sempre, as equipas de clubes mais fortes, as selecções nacionais mais fortes...

 

O autor vinca que não pretende acabar com os debates sobre os melhores de sempre, pois por mais fórmulas que se aplica, será sempre subjectivo, mas sim fomentar o debate.

 

The 50 greatest managers of all time

1. Alex Ferguson

2. Helenio Herrera

3. Ottmar Hitzfeld

4. Giovanni Trapattoni

5. Brian Clough

6. Bob Paisley

7. Valeri Lobanovskiy

8. Miguel Munoz

9. Jose Mourinho

10. Jock Stein

 

The 30 greatest international teams of all time

1. Brazil 1970-73

2. Spain 2007-10

3. Brazil 1958-62

4. France 1998-2001

5. Italy 1934-38

6. West Germany 1970-76

7. Hungary 1951-54

8. Brazil 2002-06

9. France 1982-86

10. Netherlands 1974-78

 

The 50 greatest european club sides

1. Ajax 1965-73

2. Real Madrid 1953-60

3. Liverpool 1977-84

4. Barcelona 2008-11

5. Bayern Munich 1971-76

6. Benfica 1959-68

7. Inter Milan 1962-67

8. Celtic 1966-75

9. AC Milan 1991-95

10. Torino 1945-49

 

As listas completas, incluindo um texto longo para cada equipa, cada treinador, com a sua história e a explicação sobre porquê ficaram no lugar em que ficaram, está nos links. Tudo em inglês mas infelizmente não encontro este tipo de conteúdos em português nem tenho pachorra/tempo de traduzir...

Editado 10 Julho 2011 por noikeee

[Bugno09]

Essa lista das selecções, meh. Como é que Portugal de 66 está atrás da URSS, Polónia e Camarões?

[noikeee]

Essa lista das selecções, meh. Como é que Portugal de 66 está atrás da URSS, Polónia e Camarões?

 

Tá lá a explicar porquê. O método de cálculo baseia-se muito no desempenho ao longo do tempo, e embora Portugal tenha feito um Mundial de 66 soberbo, foi um caso completamente isolado, sem aquela equipa conseguir se qualificar para mais nenhum torneio antes ou depois.

 

The teams who missed out and why

 

Portugal 1965-67

 

The reason: their brilliance was all too brief as they failed to qualify for the next two tournaments after electrifying the 1966 World Cup

 

Os Camarões também me surpreendeu que entrasse na lista, aparentemente o que lhes dá pontos suficientes é terem ganho a Taça das Nações Africanas em 88, 2 anos antes de surpreenderem no Mundial. A URSS dos anos 60 entra com todo o mérito apesar de ter perdido o tal jogo do 3º e 4º lugar contra Portugal em 66, por este palmarés - aquela equipa ganhou um Euro e tudo:

 

Tournament record: Euro 60 winners, 1962 World Cup quarter-finals, Euro 64 finalists, 1966 semi-finals, Euro 68 semi-finals

 

A Polónia dos anos 70 já não vejo razão evidente, tem um registo muito semelhante a Portugal'66, provavelmente terá a ver com o facto de aquilo contar todos os jogos internacionais do período considerado, incluindo amigáveis etc. Pode dar uns pontinhos extra suficientes à Polónia.

 

Faz-me mais confusão que a selecção portuguesa do Scolari não entre, com uma final do Euro e uma meia-final de Mundial logo a seguir. Deverá ter a ver na mesma com um registo de jogos fraco fora das grandes competições - lembro-me de resultados muito maus nos amigáveis logo antes do Euro 2004.

[SAS_Robben]

1. Alex Ferguson

3. Ottmar Hitzfeld

4. Giovanni Trapattoni

5. Brian Clough

6. Bob Paisley

9. Jose Mourinho

 

:carinhoso:

[Su1]

Clough :prayer:

[Ibrahimovic_9]

Boa ideia este tópico, noikeee. Vai actualizando, que é para isto não passar como um tópico daqueles em que só se discute o ranking.

[Bugno09]

Tá lá a explicar porquê. O método de cálculo baseia-se muito no desempenho ao longo do tempo, e embora Portugal tenha feito um Mundial de 66 soberbo, foi um caso completamente isolado, sem aquela equipa conseguir se qualificar para mais nenhum torneio antes ou depois.

 

 

 

Os Camarões também me surpreendeu que entrasse na lista, aparentemente o que lhes dá pontos suficientes é terem ganho a Taça das Nações Africanas em 88, 2 anos antes de surpreenderem no Mundial. A URSS dos anos 60 entra com todo o mérito apesar de ter perdido o tal jogo do 3º e 4º lugar contra Portugal em 66, por este palmarés - aquela equipa ganhou um Euro e tudo:

 

 

 

A Polónia dos anos 70 já não vejo razão evidente, tem um registo muito semelhante a Portugal'66, provavelmente terá a ver com o facto de aquilo contar todos os jogos internacionais do período considerado, incluindo amigáveis etc. Pode dar uns pontinhos extra suficientes à Polónia.

 

Faz-me mais confusão que a selecção portuguesa do Scolari não entre, com uma final do Euro e uma meia-final de Mundial logo a seguir. Deverá ter a ver na mesma com um registo de jogos fraco fora das grandes competições - lembro-me de resultados muito maus nos amigáveis logo antes do Euro 2004.

 

Sim eu vi a razão, mas não compreendo. A prestação de Portugal nesse Mundial foi soberba, acho que merecia estar no top30. Ainda para mais eles conta a selecção de 65-67, ou seja, não podem estar a contar com o apuramento para outras competições.

Editado 11 Julho 2011 por Bugno09

[noikeee]

Clough :prayer:

 

O que ele fez foi surreal, parece FM: pega numa equipa da 2ª divisão e 2 anos depois tá a ganhar Taças dos Campeões Europeus consecutivas. Dizem é que tinha uma personalidade complicada.

 

Agora vou falar de podcasts.. os que tenho ouvido ultimamente:

 

• TSF - Jogo Jogado - único decente que encontrei em português até agora. Tem o Luis Freitas Lobo e um outro bacano que costuma comentar na TV que não me lembro o nome. Pena ser um bocado para o maçador, muitos termos técnicos, poucas piadas. Fala quase exclusivamente do futebol português.
   
  
• Football Weekly (The Guardian) - o melhor que apanhei até agora. Debate focado mais sobre o futebol inglês mas dedicam sempre no mínimo um quarto de hora, às vezes mais de metade do tempo até, ao futebol europeu/internacional. Debate inteligente mas entretém pa crl, pq os gajos conseguem ser bué engraçados.
   
  
• European Football Show - este é novo, só saiu um episódio mas promete bastante. Tem jornalistas conceituados como o Michael Cox (que faz o site Zonal Marking) e o Jonathan Wilson que é tipo um guru da táctica, os livros dele são muito bons.
   
  
• PortuGOAL.net Portuguese football podcast - Podcast de estrangeiros sobre o nosso futebol, o que oferece uma perspectiva diferente e interessante. Tem a presença regular do Ben Shave (do blog Cahiers du Sport) que acho que vê mais futebol português que todos nós juntos aqui no fórum.
   
  
• GibFootballShow - Não sei muito bem aonde fui buscar isto. Cada episódio parece ser por temas, e ultimamente têm falado do Mundial feminino.. antes era do Euro Sub-21. Podcast razoável.
   
  
• The Bundesliga Podcast - Fui subscrever isto mais-ou-menos por desespero por isto ser Verão e a maior parte dos podcasts estarem parados. Pena ser exclusivamente só sobre o futebol alemão, porque é muito bom. Tem a presença do Raphael Honigstein que é um guru da Bundesliga.

 

Mais dicas de podcasts porreiros em português, agradecia.

[noikeee]

Artigo outra vez do Miguel Delaney, o mesmo autor do blog dos rankings dos melhores de sempre. Defende que um dos maiores chavões errados do futebol é que não se pode treinar penaltis:

 

Link

 

Spot the difference

 

17:18, 11 Jul 2011

Miguel Delaney

 

Miguel Delaney argues that penalty shoot-outs should never, ever be described as a "lottery"

 

For England fans, it must have all been so frustratingly familiar. As another of their teams – this time the women – got ready for an ultimately doomed penalty shoot-out on Saturday, BBC commentator Guy Mowbray asked a rhetorical question.

 

“Is it finally time to win one of these?” he pondered, as if it was some kind of tombola or lottery.

 

In the studio with Martin Keown, the analysis went along identical lines. And then, after defeat, came the customary coup de grace.

 

“You can’t practice penalties.”

 

Unlike so many international teams, we’ll get to that. Beforehand, let’s tackle the first assumption.

 

If penalties actually were a “lottery” – as everyone from Diego Maradona to Johan Cruyff has argued – then, statistically, every country would have near identical records. But, since the likes of Germany have converted a massive 26 from 28 kicks and not lost a shoot-out in 35 years, while Holland have missed eight shots across five defeats out of a total of six. As such, there’s very clearly a large difference beyond luck.

 

Many are far too willing to lazily put it down to unattainable ‘innate’ qualities (or clichés) such as the German mentality. And, perhaps surprisingly, Jogi Low was willing to play up such theories ahead of the 2010 World Cup semi-final.

 

That might have explained why Lukasz Podolski became the first German to miss a World Cup penalty in 28 years during their opening-round game with Serbia.

 

Or it might have been a bit of psychology from Lowe. Because there is plenty of other evidence that the Germans were as rigorous as ever. Just like Jens Lehmann in the 2006 World Cup, Manuel Neuer had a massive database of where thousands of players like to put their kicks.

 

And if the German outfield players genuinely weren’t practising so much under Low’s stewardship, they still had an entire culture to fall back on. One former coach who worked in Germany told this site that he had witnessed scores of clubs there getting players as young as eight to practice penalties for half an hour after every training session. Given that background, a month off at an actual tournament isn’t going to make too much of a difference.

 

Of course, the old pro’s usual response to all of this is to argue that “you can never recreate the pressure of a big match”.

 

But let’s flip that proposition on its head. In a big-match shootout, who is the likelier to succeed?

 

1) The player who is maybe taking his first proper kick for two months

 

2) The player who has been mechanically honing his penalty technique through rigorous training?

 

Without wishing to regurgitate the old debate about pilot simulators, snooker shots and golf putts, one old quote from Ben Hogan on why he always sank tricky 10-footers should suffice: “the more I practice, the luckier I get.”

 

But, even beyond that, it’s not just about how much you practice. It’s about how you practice.

 

For instance, when a keeper is at the centre of his line for a penalty kick, he can physically only reach a maximum of 72% of the goal. Unless he stands right by the post on his tip-toes – which is, of course, highly unlikely in an actual shoot-out scenario – the top corners are unreachable.

 

Given that hitting those top corners is a guaranteed goal, then, it should be a no-brainer to train your players to hit those areas. There is no reason why this shouldn’t be the case. Rugby kickers do it. All it takes is meticulous monitoring of technique and training to get it near-perfect.

 

The irony, perhaps, is that if all teams did adopt this approach then the current myth about “mentality” would be much more relevant to football. If every player were capable of hitting the top corners over 90% of the time – as they should be – then the tiniest flaws would start to have a pronounced effect. They would genuinely be battles of wills and even inches.

 

As it stands, though, penalty shoot-outs are not a lottery, Russian roulette or even an issue of “character”. They’re a case of the majority of players training in an unprofessional manner. Until that changes, it will always be time for the less prepared team to lose.

[Ibrahimovic_9]

O José Neto defende a mesma teoria.

[noikeee]

Hoje vou buscar um texto novo num dos meus blogs preferidos, The Equaliser. Nos últimos tempos este blog tem se dedicado a uma década do futebol por mês, desde os anos 30, e este mês é o dos anos 80. Artigo da autoria do convidado Gaurav Dar, sobre o mundial de 1986 e as selecções dinamarquesas e uruguaias, que deram nas vistas por razões completamente distintas durante a fase de grupos - mas que iriam a cair ambas nos oitavos.

 

Link

 

1980s Month: A Tale of Two Teams

 

 

by Gaurav Dar

 

Prior to Uruguay’s encounter with Denmark at Mexico ‘86, coach Omar Borrás had already condemned their group – which also comprised West Germany and Scotland – as “El Grupo de la Muerte” or “The Group of Death”. Nowadays the term is thrown around all too regularly, often being attached to any conglomeration of recognisable international names, but when Borrás employed it it was more than fitting. Eventually three of the four teams progressed to the knockout rounds, but in that group each team epitomized a style of play so distinctive in relation to the others that one could not help but feel that the teams wouldn’t be able to survive in the presence of one another: such complete competitors simply could not coexist.

 

Indeed, that proved true as the Danes crushed the Uruguayans in a match which was very much a clash of opposites. Denmark fielded a mouthwatering attacking line-up of Lerby, Elkjær, Laudrup and Arnesen, and by running out 6-1 victors the Danes achieved a result which thrilled everyone who had the pleasure of witnessing it. As Michael Caine narrates in Hero, the match “created a wave of Danish popularity” as they comprehensively defeated a Uruguayan team noted for taking “the foul to new heights of expertise”. Denmark’s six goals could not have come more easily, with one seeing Laudrup seemingly to evade the entire Uruguayan defence on a whim. Uruguay also did themselves no favours by gathering an early red card, and the match seems to have embedded itself into the collective consciousness by virtue of the lore surrounding both teams.

 

The Danish national team, fondly called “Danish Dynamite”, was a new source of pride for a nation which had little sporting pedigree. Danish football lacked full professional status there until 1979, and without the pressure of avoiding defeat teams were allowed to express themselves as they chose. This gave rise to an easy-going approach towards their football which also echoed certain aspects of the Danish lifestyle. Winning mattered less than enjoying yourself on the pitch, and that sentiment did not fade even as Denmark were gifted their greatest generation of footballers, one of the finest the world has seen.

 

They retained their image as underdogs and underachievers, and instead of focusing on results the Danes sought to score goals in extraordinary fashion, often eschewing more pragmatic options on the pitch. Even facing inferior teams the Danes played football as though there was a consistent need to prove their ingenuity and style. Their play seemed to affirm that even as football became an increasingly commercialised sport, for them it would never become an obligation or a chore.

 

This mindset was one that national team coach Sepp Piontek would have to temper if Denmark were to achieve international glory. “Danes don’t like the word ‘discipline’. Nobody bosses us around. We’re no good anyway,” Piontek rued. Piontek was exactly the sort of hard-nosed German coach Denmark needed. He constructed a boot camp before the ’86 World Cup where the players were engaged regularly in all aspects of preparation: tactical meetings, practice with the ball, and fitness training. Still Piontek retained a consideration for the Danish player’s habits, allowing occasional nights out as he encouraged kinship amongst the team. Morten Olsen recalls that Piontek “came with a lot of German discipline but also knew he had Danish players – they also need some of their own responsibility, and he found a good balance between discipline and freedom.” Piontek knew that the only way to harness the Danes’ rebellious nature was to have them take certain lessons by their own volition rather than by having those imposed upon them. After a tragic loss against Spain in the Euro ’84 semis, for the first time Denmark was left with a stinging disappointment they sought to rid.

 

Similarly, Uruguay was a nation with much to prove leading in to the World Cup, but unlike the Danes their impetus derived from the weight of a nation’s expectations on their shoulders. As legendary Uruguayan coach Ondino Viera once proclaimed, “Other countries have their history. Uruguay has its football”. Football and history are not so separate in the minds of most Uruguayans. They proudly won the first World Cup in 1930 and, even after boycotting the early European World Cups, would again claim the title in an upset against Brazil in 1950. It was hard-edged victories like those which came to signify a certain irrepressibility in their play.

 

Still, the Uruguay side of 1986 was far from a glittering reflection of the rich footballing heritage from which it was hewn. Not qualifying for the ’78 and ’82 tournaments was unpalatable for the public, and they began their ’86 qualifying campaign in an unpromising fashion. The team philosophy was perverted so that it no longer carried the same spirit of resilience but rather one of ruthless, underhanded play. At the same time they lived under the delusion of still being rightful champions, and it only further fostered the antagonizing persona they came to hold. Failure on the biggest stage was not an option for Uruguay, and the fans failed to notice even when their team offered genuinely promising performances if they ended with defeat. The modest emergence of a generation of attacking players like Francescoli and da Silva only increased unrealistic expectations, rather than being taken as a sign of steady progress.

 

When Uruguay delayed their first match in the Cup by asking the referee to have West German defender Thomas Berthold’s cast on his right arm “looked at”, it was typical. With a tenacious showing which bordered on brutal, they secured a 1-1 draw. After their 6-1 drubbing against Denmark they redoubled their defensive efforts, and an increasingly cynical trace in their play would come to fully dominate in their final group match against Scotland.

 

Uruguay only needed a draw to progress, and in full knowledge of that fact they fully committed to disrupting Scotland’s attack. Sergio Batista nailed Gordon Strachan after an early throw-in, but the red card the referee produced may have been the worst thing to happen to the match. Instead of the card calming the match, Uruguay delved farther into the dark arts: shirt pulling, hair tugging and spitting were all on atrocious display. Ultimately they achieved the 0-0 draw they desired and Scotland coach Alex Ferguson damned the Uruguayan players going as far as to say, “It’s not just a part of football, it’s the whole bloody attitude of the nation. You can see that attitude there. They have no respect for other people’s dignity. It’s a disgrace what they did. Their behaviour turns the game into a complete farce.”

 

If the Uruguayans were now the bane of international football, the Danes were assuredly the saviours. The confidence from their 6-1 victory allowed them to defeat West Germany 2-0 in their final group match earning them a tie against Spain in the last sixteen. Jesper Olsen earned Denmark a penalty in the 33rd minute through which they led 1-0, but Denmark would ultimately lose to Spain 5-1 in what has been described by journalist Rob Smyth as “football’s saddest, maddest thrashing”. Smyth diagnoses that “Denmark completely lost their discipline. A nominal 3-5-2 formation was more like a 3-1-6.” The Danes were grounded after a superb group showing in the worst possible manner.

 

In honesty, Denmark’s 6-1 victory against Uruguay was something of a false dawn. The match captivated the world through its sheer peculiarity, but the score line resulted from the incidental meeting of two very different football teams. It should never have been taken as evidence that Denmark could cruise onwards through the World Cup, and an early lead against Spain only confirmed their corresponding hamartia. The 6-1 result was enchanting to the public as it exaggerated notions of a morally superior way of playing football, but it was never taken in the proper, objective eye it should have been. Uruguay also did not benefit from the paranoid approach they adopted after their heavy loss, and abruptly they exited to eventual champions Argentina in the first knock-out round.

 

What is certain is that the match exemplified the two contrasting mentalities of the teams. Only Denmark’s blithe, optimistic attitude could open up combinations and channels that other teams had never even considered, and Uruguay’s stuttered response reflected the challenges facing a nation which hadn’t been able to understand its own history and build from it. 6-1. It was a truly astonishing and revealing result, only it revealed what the audience failed to see.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czt_GaCReX0

[Ibrahimovic_9]

Não sabia muito bem onde comentar isto, mas julgo que fica melhor aqui, até de forma a dinamizar este excelente tópico.

 

Li na imprensa inglesa um artigo, sobre a possível saída do Meireles do Liverpool, que pode suscitar várias interpretações. Dizem eles que o Meireles fez uma excelente época, mas que na maioria das vezes não era batalhador e que, por isso, o Gerrard e os seus colegas de meio-campo tinham de correr muito mais. Deram até um dado estatístico curioso: em toda a época, o Meireles ganhou 38 tackles e perdeu perto de 50. Em comparação, o Charlie Adam, recente reforço do Liverpool, ganhou perto de 150.

 

Agora, o interessante é: será que o Meireles se "baldou" durante a época, ou por ser um jogador mais latino não tem o entendimento de jogo que os ingleses tanto gostam? E esta aposta recente do Liverpool em britânicos (Carroll, Adam, Downing) poderá ser uma boa opção tendo em vista a conquista de um campeonato que já lhes foge há mais de 20 anos, ou mais um tiro no pé?

[noikeee]

É isso, vão pondo coisas aqui.

 

Epá, gostava de saber fazer futurologia mas sinceramente não faço a mínima ideia se vai dar resultado ou não. :mrgreen: Eu gosto bastante do Adam e mais-ou-menos do Downing, são bons jogadores. Apenas me parece um bocado falacioso a ideia de que o Meireles não serve porque faz poucos "tackles". Em Inglaterra é costume diferenciar-se as intercepções de bola (basicamente estar no sítio certo para interceptar passes) dos tackles que são basicamente entradas de carrinho ou meter o pé a tentar roubar a bola. Tenho lido vários artigos de que cada vez mais no futebol compensa mais as intercepções de bola do que propriamente entradas para roubá-la... e o Meireles é um jogador com um sentido posicional muito bom. Gostava de saber as estatísticas dele de intercepções.

Editado 17 Julho 2011 por noikeee

[noikeee]

Artigo do Sid Lowe (guru do futebol espanhol) sobre como a rivalidade Real-Barça se tá a tornar ridícula ao ponto de os jogadores não poderem dizer nada:

 

Link

 

Fernando Gago's case shows the perils of players speaking their mind

 

Fernando Gago signed his death warrant recently. Real Madrid's Argentine midfielder told ESPN on July 24 that Barcelona was one of the best sides in history, better than Real Madrid and that beating it was impossible. The problem, he said, was that the fans do not want to accept that. They certainly don't: within minutes Gago was, to use the Spanish phrase, being called everything but beautiful. Mostly, he was being called out.

 

Forums and social networking sites had their knives out, a virtual angry mob with virtual pitch forks and flares. Soon some in the media followed suit. He was a traitor, bitter and ungrateful. He was a disgrace, breaking every rule there was. He was not worthy; he was rubbish, a fake, a charlatan. They never did like him anyway. He had forgotten that Real Madrid was the greatest club on earth, the most successful in soccer history. He had to leave. He had to be kicked out. This was unforgivable.

 

Others suggested that it had been a deliberate ploy to force an exit: he wanted to go, now the club wanted him to go too. It couldn't possibly keep him after that. Nor should it. Goodbye and good riddance.

 

Gago's words were not especially wise. Perhaps he should have been aware of their potential repercussion and in black and white they looked pretty stark; any comments, stripped of intonation and context, do. But were they really so bad? Here was another outcry, a social panic based on ... on, what exactly?

 

Gago hadn't said anything that was not true, but then the first casualty in footballing wars is so often the truth. Soccer is about passion and identity. For fans at least, it is about loyalty -- blind loyalty, mostly. Anyone who says anything against you is immediately the enemy. And if he is one of your own he is a traitor. Everyone else is biased; even though bias, like beauty, is often in the eye of the beholder. In a crowd, rivals are easily denounced too; on forums and online, attacks are easy, launched with impunity and anonymity.

 

All of which is normal. Meanwhile, the attacks are also virtual and not real. Not normally, at least. Nor should they worry us unduly. And yet the reaction was still over the top: any sense of perspective had been lost. In doing so, it revealed a problem.

 

Gago had not said anything offensive toward his club. In fact, the most offensive thing he did say, even if he did not intend it to sound that way, was probably the remark that was not picked up and reported or commented on. The remark in which he noted: "I was lucky I didn't play in the clásico; I just saw it on the television."

 

The tone of the interview was relaxed and light hearted; Gago talked for some time about a whole series of issues. But few bothered to listen to the original. They simply took the comments and ran with them. The words were taken out of their conversational context: not just by the media but also -- and this is the point so often overlooked -- by the fans. Besides, even reading the words in black and white should not have been sufficient to cause such outrage.

 

Gago said that Barcelona is one of the best teams there has been in history. Which is true and which far from denigrating Real Madrid could be read as a eulogy because it was a side able to take the Copa del Rey off Barca. He noted -- and this, which might have irritated the fans who can think of nothing worse than admiring their opponents, was not picked up either -- that Barcelona is the kind of side that you admire. "You look at them and think: 'I want to play like that'," Gago said. And he noted that four games in 18 days was "too much" for everyone, which it certainly was.

 

He then said that Madrid could not beat Barcelona. Which is true -- that's "could not (did not, past tense)", not "could not (it was impossible)" or "cannot (we are incapable)." And in the Champions League they could not. "That must be hard for the fans," Gago was asked. "Do they see the difference between the two sides?"

 

"It's hard," Gago replied, "so, no, the analyst or the player can but the fan doesn't." If anyone doubted that was true, the reaction proved as much. So fans can't see the difference, because they want to win so much. And the problem is? Again, what Gago had said was no big deal. Again, he was right.

More right, in fact, than he perhaps intended: one of Madrid's problems over the last six or seven years has been the failure to see that soccer is a sport and that in a sport you can lose. A club like Madrid must always seek success but that refusal has seen it throw out projects and change coaches, managers and even sporting directors prematurely, destroying stability and turning sporting principles on their head -- which rather than guaranteeing the success it craves makes it harder yet.

 

Gago had not really offended anyone yet he had succeeded in offending many. He had simply told the truth and not exactly an earth-shattering truth either. He had done so in a calm, rational and non vindictive manner, too. Yes, he was ill-advised to do so, but did it really warrant the backlash? Has the game, those who follow it and report on it, really become that precious, that touchy, that easily offended? Have people really taken leave of their senses?

 

Quite possibly. Gago's words reinforced something that had already been revealed by Thiago Alcántara in the previous few days. The Barcelona player had been attacked for admitting -- quite naturally -- that he did not know many of the England U-21 side and that -- shock horror -- he hoped to win the European U-21 Championships (which, by the way, his team did, having dominated England in its first game). He was accused of being arrogant, a "cocky" so-and-so who'd "slammed England's nobodies." He was taking the mickey. The England player Marc Albrighton responded sharply, noting: "the Spanish are obviously good at mind games."

 

No one seemed to want to accept that maybe, a few days before the tournament and therefore before the in-depth briefings had been held, far from pushing an agenda, Thiago was responding to a question, simply being honest. He didn't know many of the England players. Not yet. And why would he? He was happy that Arsenal's Jack Wilshere wasn't playing -- and why wouldn't he be? How many of the Spanish players would the English players have known, even though Spain's team had 750 first division appearances between them?

 

A few days after that, Thiago was in trouble again for saying that his dream had not been to play for Barcelona necessarily, but simply to play professional soccer. Again there was trouble. How dare the Brazilian born in Italy not declare his undying love to the Catalan team; how dare he countenance the idea of playing for another club? He was even forced into an apology, forced to announce: of course it's my dream to play for Barcelona. The truth, it seems, hurts. Far more than it should. Every time a player says something remotely worthwhile, he is set upon.

 

None of which would matter but for one thing: the fundamentalist and sensationalist agenda does have an impact which impoverishes the game, impoverishes access to it, and certainly impoverishes coverage of it.

 

With every pathetic protest, every overblown, one-sided sense of hurt pride and moral outrage, players become more and more aware that everything they say can and will be taken down and used in evidence against them. Even when it is not evidence of anything. And we complain when footballers' remarks are desperately dull, almost unbearably anodyne. And we moan when they lie and then act surprised and cheated upon when they leave. And we wonder why they would rather not talk at all.

 

Fernando Gago should indeed leave Real Madrid. Not because of what he said, which wasn't much. But because of what he did on the pitch, which wasn't much either.

Editado 18 Julho 2011 por noikeee

[noikeee]

Artigo radical a sugerir uma possível abolição do pagamento das transferências de jogadores aos clubes:

 

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/sport/rorysmith/100018526/why-its-time-to-abolish-the-transfer-fee/

 

Why it's time to abolish the transfer fee

 

By Rory Smith

 

Tapping up is dead. The clubs are not bothered. The players are not bothered. We have all finally accepted it goes on.

 

Wesley Sneijder, a contracted Inter Milan player, admitted last month that Manchester United had been in touch this summer. “There have been contacts,” Sneijder admitted, promiscuously. “But I have contacts with everyone.” And yet the subsequent days were not taken up with a tapping-up storm.

 

Everybody knows, too, that Samir Nasri will happily sign a £185,000-a-week contract at Manchester City, once Arsene Wenger finally lets go of his countryman’s arm and stops pleading with him to stay. And yet nobody has alleged that City have tapped up the player.

 

What a blessed relief it is, too, to be rid of this nonsense once and for all, this human act dressed up as cardinal sin, this prompter of countless inconclusive Panorama documentaries.

 

Who cares about tapping up? Nobody, that’s who. And why don’t they care? Because we all have a basic right to find out what other employers might pay us. And all employers have a basic right to find out whether we are interested in working for them.

 

But then it’s not surprising that football should be behind the times. It has, after all, been as slow to shake off its anachronistic Victorian mores as David Cameron is to end a Tuscan sunshine break when presented with a national emergency.

 

It was not until 1963, with the case of George Eastham, that the astoundingly repressive retain and transfer system was partially abolished. That had been set up in 1888 or so, by a group of men in coat-tails and moustaches, as a good-natured attempt to instil a bit of fair competition into football. It had long since turned into a cruel, abusive, feudal system used to shackle working class men to institutions who barely supplied them with sufficient money to feed and clothe their families.

 

Two years previously, the maximum wage – not something which took into account things like inflation, cost of living, or the profits being made by clubs – had gone. 15 years later, players were finally granted freedom of contract when their deals ran out. That’s right: it took 90 years for football to recognise that a working man might be able to join another company of his own choosing when he wasn’t bound contractually to anyone.

 

It took another two decades, of course, for anything approaching normalcy to be introduced, with the Bosman ruling, allowing players to move at the end of their contracts for nothing. 2011, and the death of the tapping up accusation, is not nearly as seismic as 1995. But it’s a step in the right direction.The journey, though, will be a long one. Next up: the transfer fee. What’s that about? In what other sphere do companies have to pay other companies to recruit their staff?

 

There would be some logic to it if it was a figure reflective of the time left on a player’s contract, the wages they were due to earn, the potential loss to the club, that sort of thing. But an arbitrary sum plucked from an oligarch’s imagination? An amount a local baker decides he desires for a teenager with a season’s mediocrity under his belt? Nonsense. Victorian nonsense. It’s people trafficking in Baby Bentleys. It’s a Roman slave market.

 

The transfer fee is the final, lingering representation of the vision of the game’s founders, the feudalistic image of the working man as chattel. It has always been held up as a way of seeing money diffused through the game, and it some cases, that is true, though Blackpool will be waiting a while for their Charlie Adam-funded Academy. In most cases, it is money frittered away on replacements, on more transfers, or money handed to agents for greasing wheels and oiling gears and spitting on saddles. It stays in the game, but it is congenitally wasted. Abolish it, and bring football into the 21st century. Fine, the players may get paid a bit more. But perhaps, as those Victorian gentlemen failed to recognise, that is their right.

 

Poderia ter o benefício de acabar com as percentagens ridiculamente altas que os empresários de jogadores ganham com cada transferência. É preferível ter mais dinheiro do futebol com os jogadores, do que com os empresários. Mas a tentativa de comparação dele dos futebolistas super bem pagos da actualidade, a escravos ou trabalhadores da era Victoriana, parece-me forçada!

 

Gostava de saber a opinião do pessoal mais de esquerda aqui do fórum. Isto é uma liberalização do mercado, seria mais um passo em direcção à morte dos clubes mais pequenos? Ou dar aos futebolistas um direito que todos os trabalhadores de todas as outras áreas têm?

[noikeee]

Não é um artigo, mas um dado curioso do Twitter das estatísticas da Opta:

 

Opta Sports

61% - Swansea's PL possession avg is 61%; in the top 5 leagues only Barcelona (73%) & Bayern (62%) recorded higher in 2010-11. Control.

 

Já tinha reparado há dias no jogo contra o Man City que o Swansea tentava sempre sair a jogar a partir da defesa. Deve ser o estilo de jogo que lhes rendeu tanto sucesso no Championship que subiram de divisão. Já o Blackpool fez o mesmo, e depois acabou por se dar mal na Premier League (apesar de quase, quase se ter safado com um plantel muito abaixo da média). Cada vez tou mais convencido que "jogar à Barcelona", priorizando a posse de bola como elemento fundamental do jogo, é um estilo de jogo válido para qualquer equipa com qualidade técnica acima da média para o escalão que se encontre - mesmo em escalões mais baixos. Se tiverem uma equipa abaixo da média é que se calhar podem se dar mal. Vamos ver o que acontece ao Swansea este ano...

[noikeee]

Comentário do Jonathan Wilson a um estudo sobre as idades dos jogadores e o seu desenvolvimento nas principais ligas europeias:

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2011/aug/30/youth-crucial-european-success

 

Youth is crucial to success – but don't write off experience

A new study shows that in football age isn't everything when it comes to success

 

The Annual Review of the European Football Players' Labour Market produced by the International Centre for Sports Studies was released last week. Covering the top flights of the big five leagues (England, Spain, Germany, Italy and France), it is by some way the most detailed study of its kind. Amid a host of findings, the most significant seem to relate to age and player-development.

 

Can experience be a hindrance? Mircea Lucescu, the Shakhtar Donetsk coach, has always claimed that he prefers to work with young players because as soon as they start to gain experience they begin to feel fear and so doubt the high-tempo, high-risk game he favours. It is a view probably only relevant to managers who play a high-pressing, possession-based game, but Borussia Dortmund's success last season perhaps suggests Lucescu had a point.

 

Dortmund had the youngest squad of any side in the top flight in the big five with an average age of 23.5. That's the youngest figure for any side to have won a big five title in the six years the report has been running. By contrast, four of the 10 clubs with the oldest squads in Europe were newly-promoted sides while two of them were relegated. Manchester United, it might be noted, have started this season superbly with a team whose average age is around 23.

 

Yet experience does mean something. Over the five years studied, Germany is the only one of the big five in which the champions fielded players who had played an average of fewer than 150 matches in one of the big five leagues. The least top league experience for championship winners was 85 games in Germany, 152 in France, 177 in Italy, 188 in Spain and 196 in England. Lille, perhaps significantly, won the French league last season having seen the average numbers of top-five league matches played by their side rise from 84 in 2006-07 to 186.

 

Average age has remained remarkably constant over the five years the report has been producing this data, falling steadily from 26.83 to 26.76 over that period for players on the pitch and hovering between 26.00 and 26.07 for players in the squad (at 26.02 this season). Dortmund's average last season beat the record of 24.5 set by Bayern the previous season (although Bayern's on-field average was 27.0). Arsenal had the youngest squad in England (fourth youngest among the big five leagues) at 24.89 while Fulham, with an average age of 29.92, had the oldest squad among the big five leagues.

 

The Bundesliga generally was more prepared to give young players their chance, with 19.4% of pitch-minutes played by players aged 22 or under, the highest of the big five. Perhaps not surprisingly, Italy scored lowest in that regard; just 6.7%. Italy is also the only league in which the average age of foreign players was lower than that of local players (25.86 years as opposed to 27.57). That hints at a real problem in Italian youth development; the average age of local players across the big five is 25.75. In England, worryingly, the average minutes played by players aged 22 or under has fallen in each of the past five years, from 14.3% to 8.6.

 

The "English premium" on transfer fees – seen in the deals for Phil Jones and Jordan Henderson among others – had already suggested regulations on homegrown players were having an impact; the report proves it, with home-trained players (that is, those who have spent at least three years at the club between the ages 15 and 21) making up 22% of squads playing 16.6% of the minutes players by all players. Those figures have risen over each of the previous two seasons, but the effect of the regulation should not be overstated; they still lower than they were five years ago.

 

Spain, perhaps not surprisingly, has the highest percentage of home-trained players, something not only attributable to the Basque strongholds of Athletic Bilbao and Real Sociedad, who last season fielded an average of 7.03 and 6.50 home-trained players respectively. All Spanish champions over the past five years have fielded an average of at least three home-trained players per match, with Barcelona fielding 5.72 last season, the third-highest figure in Europe. Arsenal, with 4.91, fielded the most home-trained players in England, the sixth-highest figure in Europe. Seven clubs – Chievo, Bolton, Parma, Palermo, Brest, Almeria and Lecce – fielded no club-trained players last season.

 

Real Madrid produced the most players to play in the big five last season - 42, although only 10 played for them. Barcelona were second with 35 (17 playing for them) and Manchester United third with 33 (12). That suggests either that the biggest clubs are the best developers of talent, or that a premium is placed on players who have come through those teams' academies.

 

The biggest producers of talent from outside the big five leagues were Atalanta and Le Havre (both second-flight sides in big five countries) with 16, then Ajax, Boca Juniors and Hertha Berlin with 14. It's impossible not to feel an ache of sadness at reading the first two: great clubs still producing talent but unable in the prevailing economic climate to hold on to them and take advantage. If the biggest, wealthiest teams are also those producing the most young talent, it's hard to see how, without the sort of investment Manchester City have enjoyed, football's prevailing hegemony can ever be challenged.

 

All data taken from the CIES Football Observatory Annual Report. For more information see www.eurofootplayers.org

[Ibrahimovic_9]

Não deixa de ser uma proposta de jogo muito interessante, a do Swansea, sobretudo tendo em conta o país em que está inserido.

[noikeee]

Eu tenho que me levantar daqui a 4 horas e meia pa ir trabalhar, mas tinha marcado este artigo pa por aqui, um ctrl+c ctrl+v não custa nada:

 

Artigo do James Horncastle para a FourFourTwo: http://fourfourtwo.com/blogs/eurovision/archive/2011/08/31/the-rise-fall-and-re-birth-of-davide-santon.aspx

 

The rise, fall and re-birth of Davide Santon

 

Wednesday 31 August 2011 11:34

 

The night of February 15, 2009 seemed like a watershed moment in Italian football.

 

Milan and Inter were lining up in the tunnel at San Siro awaiting kick off and the cameras focused on the old man and the young boy stood across from each other. Paolo Maldini, now 40, was reflecting on his last ever Derby della Madonnina while Davide Santon, still only 18, was contemplating his first.

 

To those in the press box, it was destiny that they should meet, a passing of the torch from one great full-back to another.

 

Barely a month earlier, Santon had made his first team debut in a Coppa Italia tie against Roma and convinced José Mourinho that he deserved to keep his place in the starting XI the following weekend when Inter hosted Sampdoria. He successfully ousted Maxwell, a player deemed of a high enough calibre to earn a move to Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona, and soon afterwards was almost unanimously tipped for greatness.

 

Lest we forget, it was Santon who was given the responsibility of marking the reigning Ballon d’Or winner Cristiano Ronaldo when Inter met Manchester United in the last 16 of the Champions League that year. “The fact that José decided to play him is a sign of the confidence he has in the lad,” noted Sir Alex Ferguson. “He is a fantastic footballer,” added Ronaldo.

 

 

Previously not known for nurturing young talent because of the short-termism that has always appeared to underline his ‘win-now’ coaching philosophy, Mourinho developed a real soft spot for Santon. To him, he was simply known as the Bambino, a fresh faced kid with a willingness to learn who offered a stark contrast to Mario Balotelli, the club’s other star academy graduate already renowned for his bad behaviour.

 

“I’m willing to bet on one thing,” Santon told La Gazzetta dello Sport. “I will keep my feet on the ground. I will keep looking forward to getting home and eating the lasagna that my mother and grandmother make, I will keep listening to my father, who repeats to me every day: ‘Davide, you've done nothing yet’.”

 

Not meaning to pour cold water on his son’s achievements, Santon senior had a point. A former amateur footballer himself, he used to bang in the goals as a striker for Mazzocco. He knew first hand how fickle the game could be and preached caution.

 

Up until the previous summer, his son had not been a defender but a midfielder. The change of position had been thrust upon Santon during a Primavera match when Marco Filippini, the team’s right-back, was sent off and a replacement was needed.

 

Far from looking out of his depth, he thrived and never went back. Gianluca Zambrotta had evolved in exactly the same way tactically at Juventus under Marcello Lippi, but once established in Inter’s first team Santon’s assured performances began to draw comparisons with other, more revered names from the annals of Italian football history.

 

“Davide is a great player and in 10 or 15 years time when he has made 400 or 500 appearances for Inter like Giacinto Facchetti and Javier Zanetti, who knows, he might remember me,” Mourinho smiled.

 

Suitably pleased with himself, the former Porto and Chelsea manager looked on like a proud dad as his young charge made his Italy debut in a friendly against Northern Ireland on June 6, 2009. It was then that Lippi caught the Santon bug too. “I always thought he was a person destined for great things and now that I’ve seen him up close I can confirm that this is absolutely the case,” he declared.

 

With the ink not yet dry on his school exam papers, Santon was on his way with Italy to the Confederations Cup in South Africa. Meanwhile, his teammates back at Inter’s training ground were also getting carried away. “If you don’t go to the 2010 World Cup you should go over to the balcony and throw yourself off,” Marco Materazzi joked.

 

 

Lo and behold, when Lippi named his 23-man squad in the alpine resort of Sestriere a year later, Santon’s name wasn’t on the list. There was no misprint, no oversight. He had disappeared.

 

If, as Mourinho had frequently suggested, “we must no longer talk about Santon as a great talent because he is already a great footballer”, then what had happened to the player he called the “White Maicon” or “the Next Maldini”? When and how did his fall from grace occur?

 

The turning point came in late October 2009 when Inter played host to Palermo in Serie A. Samuel Eto’o and Mario Balotelli had put the home side 4-0 to the good at half-time and with his team cruising, Mourinho decided to throw on Santon after the interval.

 

It was then that he received a lesson, as the marauding Palermo full-back Mattia Cassani proceeded to run rings around him. By the 67th minute the score was 4-3 and Mourinho was furious. A late Diego Milito goal put the match beyond the visitors, but it wasn’t enough to save Santon who felt the full force of his manager’s anger in the dressing room. He was seen leaving San Siro that night in tears, a broken young man.

 

Out of favour, Santon lost confidence in himself. He had fallen in with the wrong crowd too, dating Balotelli’s ex-girlfriend, Sofia. Matters only got worse when he tore the meniscus in his right knee while playing for the Italy Under-21s against Luxembourg in November. The injury was much graver than Inter’s doctors first thought and there were complications. Two operations later, Santon was brought back to reality.

 

It seemed the curse of the left-back at Inter had struck again. With the exception of Facchetti, Andy Brehme and Roberto Carlos, the position has always been a poison chalice. Santon was now no longer considered worthy of their company. He was unfairly lumped with the flops like Fabio Macellari, the defender Lippi played when Inter were knocked out of the Champions League preliminary stages by Helsingborg in 2000. Then there was Vratislav Gresko, the hapless Slovak, at whose door the blame for losing the title on the final day of the season in 2002 had been laid.

 

“It’s been really tough psychologically,” Santon revealed. “It was hard having all those eyes on me, giving me for a phenomenon. Then it was even tougher to get back after the injury knowing that I had to show everything I was worth straight away. But the worst has past. Now I am thinking with optimism.”

 

Although Santon got back on the straight and narrow, dumping the showgirl for the girl next door, and swapping nights out in Milan’s clubs for fishing trips with his dad, he still struggled to rediscover his form and recapture the imagination of Mourinho’s successors. In January, he begrudgingly accepted a loan to Cesena as part of the deal that saw Yuto Nagatomo join Inter.

 

 

While it would be wrong to suggest Santon saw the move as below him, the new recruit’s initial sulky attitude frustrated the local supporters who rather cynically thought he was more preoccupied with picking the No 46 shirt in honour of Moto GP legend and Inter fan Valentino Rossi than actually sweating for it.

 

Belatedly, Santon’s talent flickered again. Buoyed by Ciro Ferrara’s decision to give him the captain’s armband when the Italy Under-21s played England in February, he began to turn a corner at Cesena with a series of steady rather than sensational performances.

 

“I have learned to suffer,” Santon admitted once his loan ended.

 

Asked about his future, he added: “Like everyone, I don’t like being on the bench. I’d prefer to play a season as a regular in the first team somewhere and then perhaps return as a protagonist at Inter.”

 

Santon won’t get that chance now. On Tuesday, he left the club for Newcastle in a surprise deal said to be worth £5 million. “It’s never easy to leave any country, never mind Italy,” he told nufcTV. “It was a difficult decision but I’ve only been here for a short while and I feel very comfortable. There are some good people here, it’s a beautiful place, therefore, I am very, very happy.”

 

Photographed on the pitch at St. James’ Park, he held the No 3 shirt aloft - the number Santon could never wear at Inter because it had been retired in honour of Facchetti. The question for Newcastle fans this morning is have their club signed the next Paolo Maldini or the new Alessandro Pistone?

[Ibrahimovic_9]

Excelente artigo.

 

Lembrei-me um pouco da cena do miúdo do Hércules, que quase se borrou todo em campo, e que agora está no Barça B.

[Castle]

Não sabia muito bem onde comentar isto, mas julgo que fica melhor aqui, até de forma a dinamizar este excelente tópico.

 

Li na imprensa inglesa um artigo, sobre a possível saída do Meireles do Liverpool, que pode suscitar várias interpretações. Dizem eles que o Meireles fez uma excelente época, mas que na maioria das vezes não era batalhador e que, por isso, o Gerrard e os seus colegas de meio-campo tinham de correr muito mais. Deram até um dado estatístico curioso: em toda a época, o Meireles ganhou 38 tackles e perdeu perto de 50. Em comparação, o Charlie Adam, recente reforço do Liverpool, ganhou perto de 150.

 

Agora, o interessante é: será que o Meireles se "baldou" durante a época, ou por ser um jogador mais latino não tem o entendimento de jogo que os ingleses tanto gostam? E esta aposta recente do Liverpool em britânicos (Carroll, Adam, Downing) poderá ser uma boa opção tendo em vista a conquista de um campeonato que já lhes foge há mais de 20 anos, ou mais um tiro no pé?

 

Nada a ver. Não é por ter 30 britanicos no plantel que vai ganhar o campeonato. Até porque, o Meireles, foi de grande importância nesta foi.

[Alhos Moles]

Um podcast semanal CMPT com um representante de cada grande e convidados rotativos de outro é que era :carinhoso:.

[noikeee]

Um podcast semanal CMPT com um representante de cada grande e convidados rotativos de outro é que era :carinhoso:.

 

Olha que...

[andriy pereplyotkin]

Não é um artigo, mas um dado curioso do Twitter das estatísticas da Opta:

 

Opta Sports

61% - Swansea's PL possession avg is 61%; in the top 5 leagues only Barcelona (73%) & Bayern (62%) recorded higher in 2010-11. Control.

 

Já tinha reparado há dias no jogo contra o Man City que o Swansea tentava sempre sair a jogar a partir da defesa. Deve ser o estilo de jogo que lhes rendeu tanto sucesso no Championship que subiram de divisão. Já o Blackpool fez o mesmo, e depois acabou por se dar mal na Premier League (apesar de quase, quase se ter safado com um plantel muito abaixo da média). Cada vez tou mais convencido que "jogar à Barcelona", priorizando a posse de bola como elemento fundamental do jogo, é um estilo de jogo válido para qualquer equipa com qualidade técnica acima da média para o escalão que se encontre - mesmo em escalões mais baixos. Se tiverem uma equipa abaixo da média é que se calhar podem se dar mal. Vamos ver o que acontece ao Swansea este ano...

Não deixa de ser uma proposta de jogo muito interessante, a do Swansea, sobretudo tendo em conta o país em que está inserido.

O Pedro Emanuel, a poucos, está a tentar implementar isso na Académica. Se puderem dêem uma olhada aos jogos (na próxima segunda dá na Sporttv, salvo erro), e notem nesse aspecto. A posse de bola é tida como um objectivo agora, os pontapés de baliza são em 90% dos casos marcados de forma curta e o pontapé para a frente sofreu um bom corte. A coisa ainda não está perfeita, até porque os bons executantes técnicos não são em grande número na Académica e estão acima de tudo concentrados no meio-campo, mas nota-se um estilo diferente.

[noikeee]

Perep, por acaso não apanhei o Benfica-Académica, mas fiquei curioso, vou ver se vejo algum jogo mais para a frente.

 

Artigo do James Horncastle, especialista em futebol italiano, para a Fox Soccer - sobre o estilo de jogo duma das equipas mais interessantes do futebol actual, o Nápoles e o 3-4-2-1 de contra-ataque que eles usam:

 

http://msn.foxsports.com/foxsoccer/seriea/story/napoli-success-tactics-nostalgia-italy-edinson-cavani-walter-mazzarri-091911

 

Napoli success conjures nostalgia

 

A thumb rested on the top of a stopwatch. A finger on the trigger of a speed gun. Napoli’s midfielder Walter Gargano was on the run. He carried the ball 65 meters in 8.5 seconds, a dash from box to box, before creating space and laying it off for Edinson Cavani to his left. His teammate then scythed a confident first time shot past goalkeeper Christian Abbiati at a head-turning 99 kilometers-per-hour.

 

Milan didn’t even know what had hit them.

 

Once the journalists in the press box at the San Paolo had got their breath back, they were asking each other whether there is a better team on the counter-attack in Europe right now than Napoli? After all, this is far from an isolated incident.

 

Only four days earlier in their trip to face Manchester City in the Champions League, Napoli had done it again. Christian Maggio pounced on a mistake by Gareth Barry. The wing-back raced through the center of the pitch then, on approaching the box, side-footed an angled pass to his right, between Joleon Lescott and Vincent Kompany, for Cavani to sweep under Joe Hart.

 

Watching Walter Mazzarri’s side on the counter is one of the most beautiful sights in football right now, and they offer an interesting contrast to what we’ve become used to stylistically so far this decade.

 

While Barcelona feel it necessary to make a dozen or so passes before arriving at a shot on goal, Napoli’s belief that two or three will suffice is a reminder that there is more than one way to win a football game.

 

Their re-emergence has naturally generated nostalgia, not just for the Diego Maradona years, as has been well reported, but also for what they represent from a tactical perspective.

 

In recent weeks, Napoli have been described as a throwback to yesteryear, a Serie A team of old, one that sits back, soaks up the pressure then scores an opportunistic goal on the break before shutting up shop. Away at City, for instance, Napoli had 32 per cent possession. At home to Milan, they had 38 per cent.

 

Reading the statistics, they evoke the school of thought popularized for decades by the influential journalist Gianni Brera. Any attempt to play differently was doomed to fail, he wrote. This was the essence of Italian football. It became a stereotype, one that Johan Cruyff, among others, perpetuated by saying things like “Italians can’t defeat you, but you can lose to them.”

 

One man, however, decided to take a stand. Arrigo Sacchi didn’t agree with the notion and disproved it with his great Milan side in the late `80s, which secured its place in prosperity by playing as protagonists with Total Football and by retaining the European Cup, a feat no one has achieved since.

 

Veiled criticism of Napoli has unsurprisingly come from his direction. “They offer an interpretation of classic Italian football relying on a tight defense, rigid marking, counter-attacking and individual class,” Sacchi wrote in La Gazzetta dello Sport. “It’s a system of play that can get results in Italy but has its limits in Europe.”

 

Harsh words indeed; but can it really be considered a fair assessment? For one, postulating that if Napoli walk like a duck and quack like a duck then they must be a duck seems reductive.

 

Mazzarri doesn’t ask his side to relinquish the ball so 10-men can get behind it and defend like José Mourinho’s Inter did in their Champions League semi-final second leg against Barcelona at the Camp Nou in 2010. That would be a misconception. So too would be the idea that Napoli are like a boxer playing rope a dope, hoping to swing a lucky punch.

 

Fabrizio Bocca noted this in a thought-provoking piece for La Repubblica on Sunday.

 

“I don’t see a classic counter attack in Napoli’s play,” he suggested. “The classic counter attack is where a team defends and then starts [a move] by surprise every now and again. In Napoli’s play the transition is always rapid, but it’s not sporadic, it’s a real imposition of play: their speed is devastating and above all it’s constant, continuous and regular.”

 

That’s a difference which perhaps makes Napoli an elaboration on the gioco all’italiana of Brera’s time. They’re a proactive counter-attacking team, not a reactive one, and are protagonists by controlling the play, not the possession. Far from being retro-cool, Napoli are modern in several respects.

 

There’s little that’s one-dimensional about their game plan. Each goal of Cavani’s hat-trick, his fourth in Serie A this calendar year and the first scored against Milan since Gabriel Batistuta’s in 1998 for Fiorentina, came from a different area of the box: the left, the right and the middle.

 

Sacchi’s right of course. Without his individual class, Napoli wouldn’t be the same. The absence of a proven alternative is also a concern for their title hopes. But this, to use one of his best-loved analogies, is an orchestra, which only exalts the soloist when everyone else is playing in tune.

 

Napoli’s running, the like of which perhaps hasn’t been seen in Italy since Marcello Lippi’s Juventus sides of the mid-90s, also distinguishes them from the rest on the peninsula. They don’t necessarily play at a higher tempo, but certainly at a greater intensity than most other Italian teams.

 

Their movement pushes and pulls players out of position and Napoli’s fitness levels mean that, as their opponents’ legs tire, they’re often able to capitalize on the spaces that open up. No better was that demonstrated than in the number of goals Napoli scored in the final 10 minutes of games last season, a staggering 30 per cent of their total in Serie A.

 

Is that revolutionary? No, not in and of itself. But taken together it makes Napoli among the serious contenders for the title again. Right now it’s still too early to tell if they’ll last the course, even with greater strength in depth on the bench. “The most important match is the next one,” Mazzarri keeps repeating. That comes on Wednesday night in Verona against Chievo.

 

For now, Napoli have two wins from their opening two league games. The last time that happened of course was in the 1989-90 season, a campaign that lives long in the memory. Why? Because it was also the last time Napoli won the Scudetto.