Photo: Cris Sille.
Soccer is the only sport where it is intended that the team that defends well is obliged to give explanations: under this exceptional premise, there is a good part of the rejection and bad mood with which those who are not Boca fans process their way to the final of the Copa Libertadores de América.
It is not about making common cause with the basic necessities that the Xeneize flock usually puts on the table: “We are the only great one in Argentina”, “the only one that did not go down”, “the most popular”, ” the one who grows the most in difficult ones”, “the player number 12”, etc.
Even if this rosary of pride is worthy of veracity and even unappealably true, these lines take a deliberate and They focus on their specific statement: the art of defending.
From the round of 16 until Thursday night at the Allianz Parque he scored just three goals: Miguel Merentiel and Luis Advíncula against Nacional de Montevideo, plus the brand new one from Cavani
Mouth, a Mouth off in local leagues and more motivated and more combative in the Libertadores, he has not been able to reach high football peaks, understood as the ability to stand out in the central Five Ps: position, possession, progression, depth and firepower.
(In that sense, Boca’s rival in the very final that will take place at the Maracaná on November 4 is a couple of steps above: in Fluminense the ball circulates round and perfumed in the 105 by 70 meters of the basketball court).
From the round of 16 until Thursday night at the Allianz Parque he scored just three goals: Miguel Merentiel and Luis Advíncula in the Bombonera against Nacional de Montevideo, plus the brand new one from Edinson Cavani.
Of course, that hard data implies a kind of counter-data: he made three… but he also received only three. If there we do not find a reference capable of being appreciated and praised, then where?
Among other things, football is attack and defenseendure the moments of low tide, adversity, combine a cold head and a warm heart and, of course, grow according to the entity of the adversary that is more populated with values and, why not, even fearsome.
What did the vast majority of the football community deduce?
That Palmeiras was the great candidate to win the Libertadores, that his home was an impregnable stronghold, that going to Allianz meant bowing your head and preparing to receive the worst football punishment.
Photo: Cris Sille.
None of that happened on Thursday, nothing, despite the fact that Boca could be hit by the bitterest rod of its detractors: that it does not play well or pretty or, dsaid in a quasi-derogatory key, which plays badly and ugly.
(The curious drift of technical director Jorge Almirón would be part of another analysis, whose crest of the wave dates back to 2016 with an open Lanús, varied creative and winner of three titles. It seems, when entering the Boca facilities, Almirón tore up the manuals of an inferred reference, such as Marcelo Bielsa, and another of whom he is a confessed admirer, Ricardo La Volpe).
But the truth is that he withstood Palmeiras’ best moments and that playing ten against eleven for half an hour due to the expulsion of one of his mainstays, the veteran defender Marcos Rojo.
Afterwards, it is history, the immeasurable gravitation of the missionary Sergio “Chiquito” Romero, who became a Guinness archer.
He withstood the best moments of Palmeiras and that playing half an hour ten against eleven due to the expulsion of one of his mainstays, the veteran defender Marcos Rojo
Then, that occasional, exceptional instance, with built-in drama, that of penalties, which have nothing of a lottery, which have nothing of chance. There is expertise and there is inexperience, there. There is velvet booty or mocho booty. There are nerves of steel or nerves of cardboard. There is intuition or there is nebula.
To reach the penalties, be it against Nacional, be it against Racing and not to mention now against Palmeiras, the cup-bearing Ribera team defended between well and very well. By the rule of a homogeneous, rocky collective, and by the rule of proper names that lived up to the task. The already mentioned Rojo, but also Advíncula, Jorge Figal (a real revelation), also Nicolás Valentini, even the Paraguayan Bruno Valdez and the youngster Ezequiel Fernández in his key of hustle and bustle, short and clear pass.
And good luck? What will we say about Boca’s good luck?
Well, gentlemen. Let’s admit it, with a hand on our heart. A dose of good fortune is necessary in any order of life. Even when we go to the supermarket and it turns out that we have the fastest line and the most helpful cashier.
2023-10-06 13:27:30
#art #defending
