It is believed that Latin American football is not very intense. The truth is there, but still there are feelings of high speeds and episodes of beautiful feints, punches and passes enough. When you look at the matches of Latin America, you sometimes catch yourself thinking that the games are a little different, although they follow the same rules. Perhaps Latin American football is more romantic and entertaining, and European football is more scientific and athletic. Latin Americans do not have enough discipline, but not everyone is there. All eleven players in the team are well trained in the football game: drive the ball, pass, select, beat. This is with a filigree technique. Each player here can play independently. They play non-standard, use their own strengths and weaknesses of the enemy. Players are playing football, and do not perform the installation of a coach, as in European football.
The advantage of Latin American football is that there is more intrigue here and frequently changing the composition of teams. Therefore, it is difficult to make calculations to opponents. There are giants and failures. The level of the team of the country is quite close. Tactics in Latin America are built around existing players to defeat other teams. A key figure is used, when the player-conductor directs the game of the team, determines it. You can pay attention to fans and commentators. This is a theatre. Fans create a tense atmosphere and spectacle. Commentators are what you need for football, like a separate genre of oral creativity.
Experts have long paid attention to the phenomenon of football. Professor of the University of Nottingham Robert Hoffman published a number of works on the economics of football. He used the results of the championships and FIFA ratings. After studying its publications, the international news agency Washington ProFile singles out the following patterns: 1) the greater the population of a country, the greater the chances that it will have strong football; 2) the richer the country, the greater the chances that it will have strong clubs and the national team. “The talent that has appeared in a poor country will have less opportunities to use the sports infrastructure, the services of good coaches, the achievements of sports medicine, etc.”; 3) the level of the country’s wealth does not affect the success of its teams in the international arena, and the increase in GDP is not automatically converted into gold medals.
Experts note that wealth for the country even prevents to achieve success in football. First, football is an inexpensive sport, which makes it affordable for people with any level of income. Secondly, with an increase in the level of well-being, the population of the country inevitably gets new opportunities for self-realization and leisure; there are fewer children who want to “suffer” on the football field when there is a temptation of computer games and fast food. Roman Catholic phenomenon Richard Giulianotti in his book “Soccer: Sociology of the Global Game” analyzed the impact of football on culture. In his view, the popularity and extent of the impact of football depends on the place that it occupies in national cultures. As Washington ProFile experts write, “In the top ten countries, whose teams traditionally occupy the highest positions in FIFA rankings, there are eight states where the overwhelming majority of the population are Catholics. The remaining two countries – Protestant England and Germany – also have significant Catholic minorities (in England Catholics comprise 15% of the population, in Germany – 34%. “Football also flourishes in countries where they speak the Romance languages – Spanish, Italian, French, Portuguese and etc. According to Giulianotti, football success is based on two whales – Catholicism and romance.
This, in turn, is due to certain social causes. For example, Latin America has won more than half of all world football championships. Latinos differ in a number of features. They are more focused not on the result, but on the aesthetics of the process, they cultivate the image of the macho-noble, noble man, paying more attention to the informal than to formal submission. According to the expert, these factors, attached to football, give such an impressive result. Football-in-law Mark West, an economist at the University of Michigan, argues that good football is the result of good legislation. Football is strong, as a rule in those countries where people respect and honor the principle of the rule of law, “whose legislative systems are based on French traditions. Such states include, for example, Brazil, whose legislation is based on the Napoleonic Code.
Team Chile won the Copa America Centenario. In fact, this tournament was the Latin American football championship. True, it was extraordinary, since it was held in honor of the 100th anniversary of the tournament. The real, or, as the music lovers say, “Numbered” Copa America was held in 2015 in Chile. It was the Chile team who won it for the first time in history. Really, sport from the point of view of audience interest and advertising capacity will give a hundred points ahead to any collective entertainment event – which is what organizers of competitions use.
Therefore, in the final in New Jersey, the Chilean team defeated the national team of Argentina. After the main and extra time of the final ended in a draw 0-0, in the series of penalty shootouts the players of Chile were more accurate. Team Chile won Copa America for the second year in a row. In 2015, Chile and Argentina also met in the final, and the Chilean team also won in the penalty shoot-out series. It was such comparisons and almost literal correspondence to last year’s scenario that literally made the entire American football world. Yes, of course, the definition of dates for Copa America was almost demonstrative, clearly hinting that football in America claims to be superior to European football. Especially this topic became relevant after in 2014 the German national team became the first in the history of the European team, which won the world title in Latin America – and even in Brazil. True, we must understand that the basis of almost all the national teams of the United States is football players who are in favor of the strongest (and not so) European clubs that have long regarded American players as a kind of “personnel reserve.” Let us at least look at the “Barcelona”, who’s most powerful attacking trio is the South American “international” – Brazilian Neymar, Uruguayan Suarez and Argentinian Messi. In any case, the football dispute for the primacy between Latinos and Europeans looks like something unshakable and system-forming, it excites spectators, attracts the attention of the whole world and forces other teams – the countries of Asia, Africa, Central and North America – to do their best to reach this level , tighten up and develop football in their countries.
The former leaders is the teams of Brazil and Uruguay who could not even leave the group stage, and this means that new forces have come to the forefront of continental football
However, of course, it turned out to be so in many respects because of the finale. Interest in him was fueled by the simple fact that until now the leader of the Argentina national team Messi has not yet won with his team a single major tournament, except for the Olympic “gold” in Athens in 2004. However, Olympic football – a notion by world standards secondary, because at the Olympics are actually youth teams. In addition, at the adult level, the five-time winner of the Golden Ball did not win anything – neither at the world championships, nor at Copa America. It is clear that for Messi this situation is almost a “spit in the soul” – not from a specific participant in events, but let us says, from Her Majesty’s football destiny! In the end, there are not enough footballers who support teams that are not the strongest footballers in the world – they cannot win a major tournament by definition. Portuguese Cristiano Ronaldo, Swede Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Ukrainian Andrey Shevchenko, North Irish George Best … the list knowing the reader can continue independently. Sometimes great and achieved great victories – take at least goalkeeper Lev Yashin, who in 1960 became the owner of the first European Cup in the USSR national team. However, those who did not achieve such results, alas, are much more. Even the greatest at times “cut off” – the Brazilian Pele, for example, won “only” three world championships out of five, in which he participated, and the Argentinian Maradona – “only” one of three.
Returning to Messi, we note that he does not have such a title so far, although he held several second places. Apparently, this situation “finished off” him definitively, and after another blow of fate, after he did not score a penalty in the post-match final series, Messi, disappointed to the utmost, made the statement expected by everyone: “This is a very difficult time for analysis: First, that comes to my mind – the idea of completing the performance for the national team. For me, the performances for the national team of Argentina have ended, it will be for the benefit of everyone, and many want it. They are not satisfied with participation in the finals, and so are we. To win. E enough. Worried a lot of pain. ”
Well, Messi can be understood in a human way. However, he is only 29 years old, and I cannot believe that before the World Cup in 2018 he will not change his mind. 31 is not the age for a player of this level, and Russian fans still have the hope to see Lionel as part of the Argentine national team at the home world championships. Meanwhile, his entire awards – the Copa America Centenario silver medal and his inclusion in the symbolic tournament team – look to him more likes something unpleasant, reminiscent of a second consecutive continental setback.
By the way, I must say that the symbolic team of the America’s Cup included eight Chilean soccer players. This is Alexis Sanchez, recognized as the best player of the tournament; Eduardo Vargas, who became the top scorer with six balls; the best goalkeeper of the America’s Cup 2016 Claudio Bravo, as well as Jean Beausejour, Gary Medel, Mauricio Isla, Charles Arangis and Arturo Vidal. In addition to Messi, the symbolic team also included the Argentines Nicholas Otamendi and Javier Mascherano. Is such an overwhelming majority of Chileans in this virtual collective? I think it is about winning the national team of Chile. In the course of the tournament, the Argentines looked like a favorite; they defeated the same Chileans 2: 1 in the first round beat all the competitors with a clear advantage, and Messi, who did not play in the first matches, proved him excellent in the playoffs. However, in the finals she found a braid on the stone: the Chileans tightly closed Messi, playing against him alone, or even the three of them, without hesitating at times to rudely break the rules. In addition, neither Leonel could do anything, nor the national team had a backup strategic option to combat such a game. All the first half, the contestants literally fought each other, getting yellow cards, and the bright Brazilian judge Lopes removed one player from each side from the field, becoming almost the most notable figure of the final.
There, like last year, the Chileans won the continental championship, and now it is unlikely that anyone will say that for the first time the victory came to them by chance, thanks to “home” refereeing or for some similar reasons. The former leaders – teams of Brazil and Uruguay – could not even get out of the group stage, and this means that new forces have come to the forefront of continental football. Two consecutive victories in the final over the strongest in the world rankings of the Argentina national team is a factor that makes us talk about the national team of Chile as an undoubted new leader of Latin American football.
Works Cited
Kapuscinski, Ryszard. The Soccer War. Reprint ed, Vintage, 1992.
