I can’t take it anymore. Nowadays, to play at certain levels, you have to be a superman. I watch many matches and wonder where the talent has gone, the real, sincere, magical one… I have the feeling (not just me) that two components are killing the imagination: prevailing physicality and exasperating tactics. Most players have a sculpted physique and know exactly what they have to do on the pitch. He repeats, countless times, what he has to do in the match in training sessions in which more and more space is given to tactics to the detriment of technique. Let it be clear, the average quality level of today’s player is very high but, my dears, I miss Ronaldinho…
While wasting time on social media, I came across a clip with Ronaldinho’s best plays in the Barcelona shirt. I watched the clip several times, enraptured by the Brazilian’s infinite class. We’re talking about 20 years ago (so not very many), yet I no longer see that magic on today’s football pitches. Or rather, every now and then there is some flash of pure talent that materializes in some player but these are rare moments and isolated cases. Imagination is almost separated from football and this hurts for those who, like myself, have fallen in love with this game for the “pure class” plays and not for the formations, pressing, physical resistance and so on…
Obviously, I have some guilt too. When I see a player attempt a dribble and lose the ball, I get angry, even going so far as to harshly apostrophize the unfortunate person in question.
I probably forgot that Ronaldinho, in order to achieve the magic admired in the clip, made mistakes many, many times on the pitch. Do we want too much? Absolutely yes and, above all, we believe that the mistake is not possible “because they play in Serie A”… All it takes is for Vlahovic to miss a goal in front of goal and the insults start… just to give a good example…
Players, even talented ones, risk the play less because they know that if they make a mistake, the public will turn up their noses. Better to do your homework without mistakes, so as not to end up caught by the fans. But that’s not good!!! This is how we kill football. Why do we keep thinking about the great champions of the past? There isn’t a day that goes by that champions like Diego Armando Maradona, Michel Platini, Roby Baggio, Ronaldo Il Fenomeno, Francesco Totti, Alex Del Piero and many others are not mentioned… We miss them very much because they were free to be imaginative on the pitch. This is why I spent so much time reviewing Ronaldinho’s plays on a loop. He was one of those in whom magic flowed richly in his veins. Do you remember him from his time at Barcelona? Dry, snappy and with poetry in his feet. Take a look at one of his clips and you will feel lacking in imagination… Don’t hold it against me, but it seems to me that the current phenomena, from Mbappé to Bellingham, have other talents but not the right amount of imagination. It’s not their fault but the evolution of the game that led us to enjoy more…
