Except this isn't true. This is the problem. You thinking that this is the problem is the problem. It's why they lost today. Lost in 2010. Lost in 2006, each loss more alarming and damning in the process. Ranging from merely disappointing in 2006, to appalling in 2010, to an outright debacle on this very evening.
You name Ronaldinho as some sort of past solution. Ronaldinho is like a grandmothers herbal remedies. You remember some random leaves poured into boiling curing you of so many ailments but forget to consider that it was something so simple as a days worth of rest and balanced meals that actually did the trick.
Ronaldinho was there in 2006. As was Kaka. Two of the absolute, just, most BRILLIANT players ever. They were there. I know it's hard to remember. A defensive midfielder combined with a metronomic passer (granted, two of the very best at each position) rendered them invisible.
Ronaldinho is the issue. He symbolizes it, epitomizes it. We call Ronaldinho a great many things but have never paused to consider and call him unfortunate?
The game changed. Dramatically, and almost suddenly. I'm not breaking any new ground here. The death of the trequartista has been chronicled endlessly, but it's true, and it's what has spelled doom for Brazil. Because for the rest of the world that position dying meant it was time for something else, for Brazil, it meant their game had died.
Ronaldinho, like Brazil, retreated within himself, held onto his game, whilst on the opposite end of the very same midfield the modern standard began to blossom.
The world, and even worse Brazil, grew to believe there bread and butter wasn't bread and butter at all, but instead some beautiful delicacy worthy of a michelin star.
It wasn't there forwards taking over the game. It was that, before zonal marking and gegenpressing and defending dodecahedrons with angles of varying degrees, Brazil's midfield could take over the game on class alone.
But the definition of class has changed.
This result is every bit as telling, forboding, and apocalyptic as that day in London when Puskas forever placed a hand around the heart of English football. He didn't rip it you. You can never do that. Children will always dream, and eleven of those children grow up to be men who play for their country. He didn't rip the heart out, but his fingers remain clasped around it never allowing it to beat the same way ever again.
You can change a football team. You can change strategy.
You cannot change identity.
At their very core Brazil's footballing ideals are wrong.
Their religion is wrong.
@ how this reads like a long soap opera. first there were the brits who really did nothing except get receipts from the early cup games. then come the proper-americans who wanted to grow the game everywhere, they end up fighting and merging. and despite a dedicated pioneer (tom cahill) creating the ASL and advancing the game the in-fighting and disorganization was so vicious the game never solidified itself.
) when you post like this.
