Chapter 28: Tang En’s Manifesto Of Victory Part 2
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
All of them seemed to be deep in thought. Tang En stared at the empty bottle. "What were we talking about just now?"
"The essence of professional football," Walker reminded him.
"Good, the essence of professional football is victory." Tang En took Walker's bottle and finished drinking the remaining beer. Burns saw the table had many empty glasses and stood up to get more drinks.
"Eh, you don't sound bad, Tony. However, why can't the beautiful offensive football achieve victory and championship?" Walker still had an opposing opinion.
Tang En nodded his head. "All right. I will use the facts to convince you. Let me take the most represented World Cup as an example and look at it from long ago to now and ignore those that were too far apart. Since the powerful Brazil national football team won in 1970, what teams won next? In 1974 it was Germany. Were they thought to play well? Did German players ever have nice tactics? Netherlands national football team was the one that displayed art football. They played total football and had started a fresh genre. The great Michels, the great Cruyff and the great Netherlands. However, what was the result? They were the runner-up. In 1978, Netherlands national football team persisted with total football and continued to be the runner-up that lost to the host, Argentina. Can you say that Team Argentina played better than Team Netherlands? In 1982, at Italy, similar to Germany, the Italian players used their unstable defending skill and a player that used to fix the match to get the championship. Would you say they played a good match? Did people treat the Italian team as the representative of offensive football? Certainly no. Then follow the World cup in 1986…Well, that was somewhat a weird one."
There was logic in what Tang En said, and Walker would certainly agree with him. This is because the Mexico World Cup had some bitter memories for Englanders, as Maradona's hands of God and he went across five times and constantly remained an unforgettable disgrace in an Englander's heart. Although Maradona might be considered lofty by many Chinese and people from other countries, he was just a cheater in most of England's eyes.
"…that championship belongs only to Maradona, not Argentina. Let us recall a more recent year. For the World Cup in 1990, Argentina was the runner-up and the championship belonged to Germany. Penalties, penalties, penalties… and that is what I remember. What does this show? Do penalties represent offensive football?" Tang En started to laugh. "In 1994, how is the Brazil Team referred to in their country? 'The most conservative and ugly team out of all Brazil's past national teams'. Pereira was never a manager that advocated offending, and Santana was the true godfather of Samba football. However, what was the result of that World Cup? He helped Brazil bring back the World Cup that had been lost for 24 years. No matter how ugly the finals turned out to be, he was still the manager of the champions! His position and status were stable, which proves the point that people only recognize champions. Next, in 1998, without the presence of Zidane, would the French National Team be the champion? Apparently the answer is no. Can the French National Team be called the most elegant team with Zidane's existence? Ronaldo and Brazil would never approve that. By the way, the French National Team getting into the finals was not even due to Zidane. Ok, the last one will be 2002…" Tang En looked at Walker's excited face, and he was about to say something. "What do you want to say?"
"Nothing much, I just want to remind you that the Brazil National Team got the championship at last with 3R and offensive football!" Walker has finally found some useful evidences to refute Twain's whole set of strange thinking. "Ronaldo, Rivaldo, Ronaldinho, Roberto Carlos, Cafu. Look at their names and the football that they played."
Tang En laughed aloud. Burns was holding two big glasses of beer as he asked Walker strangely, "What happened to Tony?"
Walker shrugged his shoulders. "I have no idea. I only said that the champions of the 2002 World Cup was the Brazil National Team that played offensive football."
Burns smiled and handed the beer to Walker, and put the other in front of Tang En. "Are you two fighting about this?"
Tang En stopped laughing once he saw the beer. He sat straight and took up the glass and drank at least one fifth of the beer in one go. He then wiped away the froth on his mouth and decided to give Walker a lesson since he had reached the main point.
"What you have said is true. In that year, the Brazil Team was very strong and their attacking formation was considered the top. 3R was an excellent kind of offensive tactic, and with their wonderful performance, it was indeed perfect. Their reward was the glittering trophy. Ronaldo even broke his curse of six goals. It all looked like proof of them to breaking through and bee the champions."
Walker nodded his head to show agreement, and he smiled to see how Tang En would rebuke this.
"However… do you know how the Brazilian National Team got the 18 goals?"
Walker was speechless, as he had not paid attention. At that point in time, all he did was to cheer for the English Team.
"Ok, I would tell you that 70 percent of the goals did not even exceed five passes. The number was very reasonable, more would be too tedious and may even miss the chance." The number "70" was randomly made up by Tang En, but it was close enough. Tang En had read some professional football magazine detailing how the National Team of Brazil attacked. The article used data from some British investigating organization. Tang En could not remember the exact numbers, but he was sure about the five passes.
"So what does that mean?"
"What does that mean?! Oh god… this is the classic example of modern football! Any goal that exceeds five passes would be too tedious… low productivity and futile. The beautiful art football emphasis is on more traps and passes right? However, the National Team of Brazil used the actual actions to tell us that there is no need to trap the balls under the feet all the time, and there is no need to have more passes. Brazil's possession percentage at that World Cup was not at the advantage side at all. The goals from Brazil at the 1970 World Cup were classic, but it is not suitable for all the matches and all the teams. That was a special penalty under that circumstance." Twain always felt dismissive about that goal from Argentina after the incessant 24 passes at World Cup in 2006. Despite the outside view this goal, he persisted his opinion. "More passes just mean that the team has low attacking productivity. With 50 continuous passes and in between displaying players' excellent footwork and moves. Also, the team would make sure that the opponents would not touch the ball at all and then shootout which would give you the score of 1:0. What about my team? During your 50 passes, my team could shootout after every 5 passes and then the score would be 10:0. So which one do you think is better?"
Walker was speechless again. He opened his mouth and was not sure what to say. Actually the answer was indeed obvious, everyone would choose the latter. However, Walker just could not accept Tang En's theory and his logic. He found it somewhat strange, but he was unable to identify which part did not make sense.
"You think the Brazilian Team was very offensive, and I do agree with you. However, this offensive football was somewhat different from what we understood as offensive football. Scolari's National Team of Brazil was very different from the traditional Samba football. It is more toward European style, more modern, more direct and more detrimental. Modern football emphasizes productivity, as it has always needed to change constantly from attacking to defending and vice versa, and it is much faster as well. Long periods of continuous trapping and passing actually do not satisfy the requirements of modern football." Actually, Tang En wanted to use Brazil's Kaká as an example to explain why he was called modern frontal, and difference of playmakers such as Rui Costa and Riquelme. However, Kaka was still playing at Sao Paulo in Brazil and the Europeans knew nothing about him. Thus, using him as an example did not apply.
"More traps and passes mean a higher chance of making mistakes. Modern football tactics require making minimum mistakes and causing the opponents to make more mistakes. We go through tight defences to snatch the ball, and this means that the opposing team has the same chance of snatching our ball from the time when we started possessing it. So just by using three passes and two traps to shoot into the goal is the most economic, practical, and productive way." Due to the effect of alcohol, as an "amateur
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