Your friends @cambi3.bsky.social and @passevertical.bsky.social basking in the horror of that Kovačić cameo.

medium.com/p/09c72dccfaa3 first drop on medium! plan on using it for more personal musings and felt like this would be a good place to start.

hope you enjoy it :)

if anything, this is what helps me get to the bottom of an issue (intuitively) even before opening a book that explains it to me

kinda following up from what i said last week, i really believe in the universality of sensitivity as a concept.

only those who have it and value it properly (through empathy and good ol’ pattern recognition) are able to see it in others — and in everything around them.

happy new year ceus azuis :)

and aesthetics vs effectiveness has always existed in football, that’s not my issue. what is egregious to me is the ahistorical nature of the many arguments i’ve read in disregard to aesthetics

but as i’ve argued somewhere else, we might’ve made a mistake in letting people who suppress their feelings have a relevant say in the art field… or in anything that requires emotional sensitivity overall

idk, it’s intriguing how the sentiment over aesthetic appeal in playing styles has decayed in the last decade

merry christmas ceu azul people

lost the book on the plane but still catching gems

final week before the break from work is the hardest. my head is not here i swear

Raphinha is playing more like a second striker, and is making excellent runs 17 goals and 8 assists in all competitions before the new year is an excellent return for Barcelona’s Raphinha. Not really playing as an out and out winger in this system for Barca, more so like a …

I wrote about Raphinha's movement against Dortmund. It was not always picked out by Barca's midfielders, but he was importantly picked out en route to Barca's first goal.

theconventionalplaymaker.wordpress.com/2024/12/13/8...

i read all of these 3 excerpts, 3 nights in succession this week which led to more assuring epiphanies.

pursuing knowledge through sheer passion is cool :D

that point of difference is what i try to engage with when analyzing all things angolan football, on times where the norm is happily embracing the self-fulfilling narratives

and even then, his overall passing is still one of the most inventive in football atm. but either way, chukwemeka coming in would complement what he lacks almost perfectly.

and i repeat — someone definitely knows what they’re doing at Milan rn

if i’d put any weakness on Leão’s game it’d be the timing of his releases. it’s really hard to have pausa when carrying with so much pace anyways, but he often drives with his head down.

and the consequences often (and still) look like an african football that is a shell of how its felt and interpreted culturally. shaped by the demands of european football.

this is what makes me empathize with the issues Brazilian football faces today

many clubs are looking for the same physical and technical features when scouting for players, yes, but one thing i found interesting is that just like many other ills of capitalism african football, players and culture were perhaps the first to feel the consequences of this!

following up on my talk on slow wingers, david moyes speaking on technical and physical cloning feels vindicating, specially for attacking positions.

this is very flagrant across the Red Bull model, and in a way, this (sadly) kinda falls into what we like to call good scouting too.

It‘s great to see more teams (Inter, Girona, Arsenal, Real Madrid) using longer horizontal and progressive dismarking movements.

with neto or madueke and jackson still being the lynchpin as well 😂

the slander didn’t deserve a reaction fr

also, enzo’s box crashing isn’t really news. it was prominent at Benfica in the first 3 months before the goals dried out.

and he’s always gotten to great positions at CFC but never with as much luck as now. great moment.

very nice to be playing the entertaining football without yet a single cloud of pragmatism. enjoying it while it lasts

another thing abt chelsea frm this week:

it’s always to see what talented and resourceful footballers can do together, specially when lending mostly to ‘natural’ attacking balance amongst them.

slow wingers will play this sport wonderfully with the right balance above all.

United just asked of him what he never did. Madueke and Neto are the perfect counterweight profiles for both him and Estevão in the future

still on the Sancho discourse i started on the other app, i honestly think that the sport never really moves past a certain kind of player. and even i got carried away with that conversation

no more “if i see it you see it too” :D