El fútbol, como complicar lo simple (SPA-ENG)

Soccer, how to complicate the simple

A few days ago, I had the opportunity to watch a video whose protagonist was Néstor Lorenzo, current technical director of the Colombian soccer team that has just finished second in the Copa América held in the United States, showing an excellent game and leaving rivals in the way. with the best world ranking and greatest scrolls like Brazil and Uruguay.

In that video, Lorenzo recalled an interview with Ricardo Bochini, that exquisite number 10 of Independiente de Avellaneda who made an extraordinary duo with another great player called Daniel Bertoni, both starters in the 1973 team when they won their first Intercontinental Cup. against Juventus of Italy, winning the final played in Rome 1-0. In the aforementioned interview, Bochini was asked how he managed to play so well and he responded: "I try to place myself in sectors where I have no mark and I pass it on to the one who is free."

Another video that is circulating on the networks has Scaloni as its protagonist, traveling in a vehicle through the streets of Qatar after the defeat of the Argentine team against Saudi Arabia, there he says that the competition has victories and defeats and that you have to know how to live together. with both and that when we accept that reality, football will be more sport and less drama. He was not justifying himself because, in that same video, he warns that this painful and unexpected defeat could become an overwhelming force if it resurfaces and wins are achieved.

How simple football would be if the actors only dedicated themselves to playing and the rest of the protagonists just watched and enjoyed! Like many other things in life, such a simple and beautiful sport has become unspeakably complex.

This makes me remember my beginnings in computing, at that time there were only a handful of languages ​​to manage computers and obtain results very similar to those observed today, for those who do not know the details of computing, I can tell you that the number of languages, operating systems, development platforms and other issues in the field have multiplied, at least by dozens. In those years we saw the first symptoms of complexity, it was mentioned that IBM, the main computer company of that time, had an inalienable axiom: "so we are going to make it simple if we can complicate it."

Something similar has happened in football, not only have physical preparation techniques, training, and strategies changed, but also other aspects that have little to do with sport, now information travels very quickly, and we have satellites, the web, and social networks; Now exhibitionism, vedetism, histrionics and all the isms that occur to them are more important and not only in the players but also in many technical directors, leaders, journalists and of course in the public, who are infected by so much verbiage and demonstration of preeminence, real or fictitious.

We all see players who are more movie actors than protagonists of a sporting event, with exotic hairstyles and colors, jewelry, tattoos, and clothing, to attract attention, exclusively. Few realize that the best thing would be to be noticed for good play, not for whether the tattoo is prettier and bigger than that of the rival or one's teammate. All players fake fouls that leave them on the verge of being admitted to intensive care when they did not exist or were only a light touch in a contact sport. The coaches grandly exaggerate any referee's failure as if that were the reason why they lost the game, highlighting injustices and other people's mistakes while hiding their own. Journalists rant or make high-sounding predictions without caring if they are going to come true or not, prestige is no longer the central axis, now it involves exhibitionism, regardless of the content. The leaders, well, I would give more to write a book than an article.

Many of the protagonists in the soccer world interfere in topics that are not their own, talking about politics, racial and social issues, and advertising of all kinds, including betting sites. They are all millionaires or aspire to be one. Everyone talks about the rest, without observing that they also have a dirty kitchen in too many cases, to put it elegantly.

Meanwhile, ordinary people, those of us who love sport and candidly observe the spectacle, forgetting about the bad things that surround it, are the ones who keep the wheels turning.

Amid the joy and celebration of winning a new America's Cup, Bocchini's words, remembered by Lorenzo, led me to leave my enthusiasm for a while and reflect on how it came to this; I have no answers, not even a diagnosis, I am only describing the symptoms of a disease that these simple words made me notice.

There is hope, we need more people like Lorenzo, Bochini, and Scaloni to rescue the simplicity of football.

What if we return to the idea of ​​occupying free spaces to pass the ball to whoever is free? How nice everything would be again.