Culture truly matters

[Robert KleemaierParticipant]

Hi everyone,

For the better part of the past 12 months I’ve been reading & contemplating what Brian & Gary have been promoting & criticizing. Their positions & coaching course have been thought-provoking to say the least. Irrespective of the extent to which anybody agrees or disagrees with them, the greatest contribution they have made on this site is that they force you to think, to truly contemplate and/or re-evaluate how the game should or should not be played.

But it wasn’t until this morning that the penny finally dropped for me as regards how impactful their assertion is that culture truly matters. Two news items this morning helped crystallize my thoughts in this regard:

1) The comment of Fabian Coito, technical director of the Uruguay under-20 team, regarding Diego Fagundez’s recent decision to play for Uruguay instead of the US: “He’s a player brought up with a different game, and aspects of his game are hard to find in Uruguayan players,” Coito said. “He is always linking up, plays the short pass, repeating those passes up the pitch. It’s different to our style. We are very vertical, direct and looking to quickly put the ball in an attacking position. ” (TSN report; underlining added)

2) The comment of Orlando City SC’s Adrian Heath at a press conference at the start of OCSC’s training camp: “I think we’ve got a tremendous batch of young players and we have to make them believe that they can actually go and succeed in men’s football now… But I honestly believe that with the athleticism some of our guys have got, we’ve got nothing to fear. And that’s the one thing I want to impress on the players. ” (video clip to MLS report, starting at about the 2′ mark; underlining added)

The contrast in these two views of how the game can and should be played speaks volumes. Consider, for instance, the avalanche of references to ‘athleticism’ in North America and the relative dearth of such comments on the European mainland. I am able to access/review game reports/interviews from the German, Austrian, Swiss (German), Belgian (Dutch) & Dutch leagues at any given time, and I can tell you with confidence bordering on certainty that such references are explicit here yet implicit in those leagues. Why? Because your cultural background determines the lens through which you view the game, give priority to certain aspects thereof and define how to appreciate/approach it.

This is not to say we can’t evolve in our thinking or learn to appreciate a different way of approaching the game if we are willing, but our cultural background(s) – plural for those of us with/from multicultural families – will determine our starting point and how long we ascribe to those initial starting points. And this explains to a small extent why (a) there is reference to ‘jungle ball’ here and not on sites like MLS AFAIK and (b) underestimating the impact of culture on our view of the Beautiful Game is so unwise.

Looking forward to reading your feedback, especially those who can access other cultures that I cannot.

Cheers,
R.

• This topic was modified 9 years, 9 months ago by  Robert Kleemaier.

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