When we think of Brazilian Football there is a strong tendency to fall back on deep-rooted stereotypes of wider Brazilian society. People speak of Samba Football (whatever that is), carnival and silky skilled players whose joie de vivre shines through above such trifling concerns as winning.
Of course there is an element of truth in stereotype. There is an incredible level of flair and invention in the Brazilian game, which has been an ever present throughout its football history. Unfortunately, however, the panorama is rather more complicated than the stereotypes suggest.
Winning has always been a habit in Brazil, and each time they don’t win there are recriminations, inquests and a scapegoat (the manager, of course). For that reason, and many others, such as the financial consequences of winning or losing, the obsession with results has reached its zenith in Brazil.
Club managers often have a shelf-life of a few weeks if their sides don’t produce or if the manager can’t get on with big name players, and thus there is a tendency towards highly negative formations, high levels of professionalism (systematic professional fouls, simulation, time-wasting etc) and very set ideas about the physique of the player who is most likely to succeed in the modern-game.
All of this is a million miles away from the exoticised image of laid-back relaxed Brazil and its football that most Europeans lazily buy into.
The push towards futebol força (a catch all term for a more physical style with set roles meaning more positional discipline with less freedom for players to express themselves) has its roots in Brazil’s reaction to the development of European Football, from Pelé being kicked out of the 1966 World Cup to the emergence of tactically refined totaalvoetbal (Total Football) which triggered a real soul-searching in the Latin American game.
Advocates of futebol força within Brazil point to Brazilian World Cup triumphs gained in 1994 and 2002 using a more functional less aesthetically pleasing style, as opposed to the quarter final exit of the much lauded futebol arte class of 1982. Indeed, given his options, it is clear that current incumbent ‘Big Phil’ Scolari will look to re-create the functionality of the 2002 squad rather than adopt a more cavalier approach that would better suit the European stereotype of Brazilian football.
Santos coach Muricy Ramalho
The recently sacked Santos manager Muricy Ramalho is fairly representative of the reformist tendency at work in the Brazilian game. He makes no secret of the fact that he feels no responsibility to entertain the paying punter or to play beautiful football.
Ramalho famously declared after a particularly dull routine victory ‘A torcida paga ingresso para ver o time vencer. Quem quiser ver espetáculo que vá ao Teatro Municipal (The fans pay to see the team win. If you want entertainment you can go to the theatre.’). The brutally honest Paulista went on to compare football to war. Ramalho is widely respected in the Brazilian game having won a string of trophies at a number of Brazil’s main clubs, latterly with Santos of course.
However, hotly-contested debate about the futebol arte-futebol força dichotomy is never far around the corner. The performance of the national team in South Africa and the result of a match that is used far more often as a yardstick in South America than in Europe, the World Club Cup Final between Santos and Barcelona, have re-opened all wounds.
The Brazilian collapse to historical bête noire Holland in South Africa, coupled with the abject humiliation experienced by Ramalho’s Santos side by Guardiola’s imperious Barcelona side, brought into question the route they have started to go down.
The Barcelona game, in particular, saw small dynamic players dominate the game with guile and possession football in a way Brazilians used to do for so long.
The rationale for futebol força suggests that a team brimming with creativity, invention, movement and tricks like Barcelona would be overrun by brute force, tactical nous and sheer discipline. This clearly didn’t happen in Yokohama.
Brazil’s production of exportable players remains prolific, but the type of player Brazil is producing, depressingly, appears increasingly homogenised and mass-produced to suit the demands of the European market.
Of course a multitude of sins are forgiven when a team is winning, and this is where the resurgence of Scolari comes into play. The scheming World Cup winner inspired a Brazilian victory at the Confederations Cup, with a comfortable victory against Spain. Whether they can repeat the feat next year in Brazil will go a long way to deciding whether Brazil considers a shift back to producing the compact flair players of the past (Jairzinho, Garrincha Zico, Pelé et al) or whether it continues to mass produce larger more functional players like Hulk and Gilberto Silva.
Clearly players like Messi, Pirlo, Iniesta and Xavi have usurped the Brazilians as the standard bearers of the beautiful game. The soul-searching in Brazil is inevitable given the way they have abandoned their widely admired style in the pursuit of winning at all costs.
The nation is split between those who like Ramalho are only concerned with results, and those who question whether following the pragmatic approach indeed yields the best results. All this makes the emergence of a player like Neymar all the more interesting. Neymar seems a blast from the past in the modern Brazilian game, offering glimpses of the Brazil of old.
The broad argument that is known in Brazil as futebol arte vs futebol força is often heard across the border in Argentina, albeit in a slightly different guise as Menottismo vs Bilardismo.
The two larger-than-life characters are synonymous with two styles of Argentine football which are easily discernible watching today’s Argentine Football and its considerable diaspora playing and managing in Europe and Latin America.
Cesar Luis Menotti, Argentina’s 1978 World Cup winning coach
The country’s two World Cup winning managers provide two contrasting models to follow. On one side, is chain-smoking philosophical liberal left-wing idealist Cesar Luis Menotti, and on the other scheming tactician and ‘master of the dark arts’ Carlos Bilardo.
El Flaco Menotti triumphed on home-soil in 1978, much to the pleasure of the incumbent Argentine Military Junta. This triumph was a landmark in Argentine football, as until 1978 the Argentine players had failed to produce on the national stage. Menotti ignored players from champions and historically favoured Boca Juniors, choosing players from unfashionable sides, like Huracan’s Oswaldo Ardiles. He was also brave enough to leave out a young Argentine player who idolised him. Diego Maradona was capped under Menotti, but was left out of the World Cup squad.
Menotti imbued his players with a sense of his own confidence telling them that ‘”Se puede perder un partido , pero lo que no se puede perder es la dignidad por jugar bien al futbol (you can lose a game, but what you cannot lose is the dignity earnt by playing good football)”. The emphasis on the way the game was played was central to Menotti’s style.
Menotti’s commitment to entertainment was so extreme that victory was almost secondary as expressed in the following phrase: “Tu obligación no es ser campeón del mundo, tu obligación es saber cuál es la idea de juego (Your obligation isn’t to be world champion, your obligation is to know what the game is about)”. Especially in the environment in which football is played today Menotti sometimes seems to be a last link to a bygone era.
Menotti spoke ideologically of imbuing the national side with a spirit of ‘left-wing football’, an artform which offered the beleaguered people an example of self-belief and dignity in the face of military oppression, providing them with relief from the travails of everyday life. Menotti openly opposed the incumbent dictatorship, and told his players to focus on the swirling mass of Argentine fans in River Plate’s Monumental Stadium on the day of the final, rather than on the Generals who sought a propaganda victory for a truly sinister dictatorship.
Menotti saw football as art, as a medium for inspiring the masses with its beauty. His successor Bilardo, on the other hand, was reared on the anti-futbol of Zubeldia’s Estudiantes in the 1960s, an infamous side that would stop at nothing to win a game of football.
An uneasy alliance: Bilardo and Maradona
Estudiantes, became champions of the world when Juan Veron (senior) rifled a crucial away goal against European Champions Manchester United in a particularly ugly game.
Bilardo, like Muricy Ramalho, set out his blueprint early on “El fútbol profesional es ganar y solo ganar. Yo soy como Muhammad Alí: durante la competencia no tengo amigos, y a los contrarios, si puedo, los mato y los piso. (Football is about winning and nothing else. I’m like Muhammed Ali : during the fight I have no friends and if the opportunity arises I tread all over the opponents and destroy them)”.
If the manager’s work sets the tone for what his team does, then Bilardo would surely have to take his share of the blame/credit (delete as you feel appropriate) for Maradona’s infamous first notable contribution to the Quarter Final showdown with England in Guadalajara. The second goal that day, of course, showed the inspired individualism of fútbol criollo could never be completely hampered by any form of ideological rigidity. The most emblematic goal of the World Cup elevated Maradona to another plateau in the minds of Argentines.
The nervy, inhibited, cagey Argentina which defended their world title at Italia 90 personified Bilardo as they scraped through each round by the slightest margin with any entertainment for neutrals derived only from watching the once great suffer. Mercifully they lost in the worst final in living memory to a strong German side.
The difference between the two standpoints couldn’t be starker, and the resulting antipathy is never far from the surface. The influence of both is there for all to see in every Argentine side that takes to the field.
The following generations of Argentine managers, like Bielsa and then more recently Bielsa disciple Jorge Sampaoli, owe a debt of gratitude to Menotti, whereas others like Nery Pumpido, Jorge Burrachaga and Sergio Batista are self-confessed disciples of the Bilardo school.
The larger picture for Latin American Football, is deciding which route to go down, if indeed it is a case of choosing one over the other. The crude dichotomisation of the two terms seeks to create a good vs evil black & white simplification of many complex issues. Levels of fitness are higher than ever before, as is tactical awareness and discipline (evidenced by the defensive masterclasses and discipline of Jose Mourinho’s Champions League winning sides amongst others). A no-stone unturned tactical analysis of each opponents strengths and weaknesses has become a must, something which in part must be credited to the often demonised Oswaldo Zubeldia.
However, the triumphs of Barcelona under Guardiola, Universidad de Chile under Jorge Sampaoli and of the Spanish national side at the last World Cup and European Championships (to name but three random examples) show that, though many deny it, there is a place for flair, creativity and downright exhilarating football. Despite all the interest groups at work, some of the most effective football played is also the best spectacle for the watching millions. The mythical Futebol Arte is alive and well in the 21st century.