Futevôlei: Is this why Brazil is better than England at football?
I’ll be honest from the start, I like football a lot – I used to play a bit and I think it’s a great game. I’m not obsessed with football though; I don’t love it. If anything, my interest in the game has faded a bit over the last 15 years. I certainly don’t think football is a matter of life or death (or even more important than that), so if you’re looking for insightful and up-to-date football analysis, you should probably check out some proper blogs.
Did anyone stick around for the second paragraph? OK, so now that we’ve established that I’m no expert on the subject, let’s talk football! I have a premise so deeply ingrained in my footballing psyche that I doubt I’ll ever be able to shake it: Brazil are better than England. For most of my life this had been an indisputable fact. The fact that this is now a matter for some debate (sadly due to a slump in Brazil’s form rather than a surge in England’s) is something I still struggle to get my head around.
But why are (were?) they so much better than us?
Brazilians play a lot of football. But then so do the English!
On my first trip to the beach in Rio I saw something that made me go “Ah! So that’s why they’re so good!”:
This is Futevôliei (sounds like footch-VOL-ay). The little bloke doesn’t have much luck does he? Still, you have to admire their skills (View on Vimeo).
Octávio Moraes in his younger days and later on in life.
Futevôlei was invented on Copacabana beach in 1965 by Octávio de Moraes. Octávio had played for Botafogo in the 1940-50s but clearly still liked a game on the beach after he retired. During the 60s there was a ban on playing football on the beach, so when the cops showed up, Octávio and his friends moved over to the volleyball courts and took their football with them.
The rules seem pretty self-explanatory don’t they?It’s basically beach volleyball using a football and without the hands. I’m also pretty confident that the guys in that video were making this look much easier than it really is!
So did playing futevôlei (and Altinha) make Brazil better than England? I’m sure that’s taking it too far. I think a more valid statement would that for a long time, Brazilians have excelled at close control and skill while England seemed to overlook those elements in favour of strength and speed. I will tentatively say this must surely have been at least part of the reason Brazil were/are a better side.
Tom, I’m less of a football fan than you are so I’m really just talking out of my ass but I don’t think futevolei has that big an impact either. Mainly because it’s a very Rio-specific thing. The rest of the country doesn’t play futevolei nearly as much as Rio.
The thing I think does make a difference is futsal. The ball stays on the floor more than in regular football and players learn better ball control that way. In particular, I think it’s more productive for small children than running up and down a full-sized football pitch (or even a five-a-side) barely having a chance to kick the ball. It’s a shame no one’s even heard of it in England. I mean, don’t get me started on how much better suited it would be for the weather over here. It’s indoors for crissake! :-)
Interesting you say that Andrew – I read somewhere (maybe Wikipedia) that apparently many of the best futevôlei players come from Brasília of all places. Ah, I just found it – can this be true?:
“In the history of footvolley, Brasília (the capital of Brazil) has the highest number of high quality players nowadays. This city has played a big role on bringing the best players in the sport’s history.”
I’m sure you’re right about Futsal and as you say, perfect for our wonderful climate :)
I have no idea about futevolei but in some ways Brasilia is an extension of Rio so that doesn’t surprise me. When the capital moved to Brasilia in the sixties, a lot of public sector workers moved as well. That explains certain things like the accent which definitely doesn’t come from Goias…
This is interesting, and perhaps has something to do with the observations you put forth in the post.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_ball
“The long ball strategy has often been criticized as a method that has held back the England national football team. Hughes became the head of coaching at the FA in the 1990s, and used this position to promote his theory of long ball, which followed on from the work of Reep. Hughes and those who defend the tactic claim that time and time again, teams playing direct play have more success.[7] At the 1994 FIFA World Cup, for example, the winning Brazil team scored the most goals from three or fewer passes, while the team to score from a move involving the most passes – the Republic of Ireland – were eliminated in the second round.[7] While multi-pass moves such as those by Brazil against Italy in the 1970 FIFA World Cup Final or Argentina versus Serbia and Montenegro at the 2006 FIFA World Cup are widely lauded as brilliant examples of football,[8] it is partially the rareness of success for such long moves that results in their appreciation and makes them ineffective tactics to attempt to replicate.[”
Btw did you catch the Corinthians vs Boca Juniors match (1-1 final score). Man, Corinthians got ripped off big time. Crap referee if there ever was one (and I don’t even care much for Corinthians, I just have a sense of fairness).
http://www.foxsports.com.br/videos/30407235648-simon-analisa-erros-da-arbitragem-no-duelo-entre-corinthians-e-boca
Ah yes – I remember hearing the story of some nerdy guy who did a whole lot of number crunching and concluded that the perfect number of passes before scoring was 3.1 or something. That wikipedia article is pretty interesting actually – I see it says that longer, passing moves are more effective against a higher standard of opposition. But of course you’d have to be a better standard yourself in order to perform a move… Interesting.
Funnily enough I did catch that game. The referee appeared to be at least slightly unhinged. The way he brandished his yellow cards was scary!
Yeah, that ref has some issues to deal with methinks.
Off topic: check out the caption used under the offshore oil rig pic featured in the link below. LOL!
http://www.economist.com/news/business/21578095-strong-bidding-exploration-rights-ends-industrys-long-dry-spell-back-business
Ha ha! Ipanema indeed! That was clearly taken from Flamengo/Botafogo!
Hey Tom
I hope you’ll be pleased to hear that your former team have a Group Cup final to play on Sunday morning. It’s not like the old days…
Hey Al!
Very happy to hear it! Go Clissold Thistle! (are they still called that?) Still wearing the sky blue? Do they still have that big Scottish guy up front? ;)
p.s. weird how they started winning after I left… :-?
Sorry, coming to this a bit a late as I hadn’t had a chance to check my feeds whilst I hopped back to the UK. I agree with Andrew, I think futsal is the big difference. I play football every Thursday with a bunch of Brazilians and there are some guys amongst them who played to a very high standard. What sets them apart from the rest of the guys (and me) is their close ball control. Coincidentally, they all played (and still do) futsal.
I know from when I was running a youth footy team back in the UK that there was real push to get kids to play futsal, but having been out of the scene for a while I’m not sure how that progressed. But, if you look at the England team these days its embarrassing how poorly we keep possession of the ball.
RE your last sentence, I know exactly what you mean – I cringed through the entire first half of our recent friendly with Brazil… :-/