Thread by @IJaSport

European football taught us to worship space.

Find the deepest man. Break the line. Stretch the field, but maybe that’s not all football is.

Brazilian football is reminding us: football is about us.

Associative football lives 🧵👇

Five passes. Two players. Never more than 7 yards apart.

They beat four Chelsea defenders, without needing space, switches, or stars.
Just rhythm, feel, and trust in the next action.

Flamengo’s third goal is pure street football.
📽️👇

At 18 seconds, four Flamengo players are packed within 7 yards of each other, right on the sideline.

They don’t stretch Chelsea. They collapse the space, then burst through it.
One touch. Third man. Behind the line. Shot created.
📽️👇

Six Flamengo players. Fifteen seconds. Every touch in tight space, provoking Chelsea to bite.

Then?

Boom. Laid off. Laid off. Slipped through. From the sideline to the center of the box.
Another shot. Another moment of pure football
📽️👇

If you’re thinking, “Wait… this feels familiar,” you’re not wrong.

This is exactly what we saw from Barcelona between 2008–2012.
Same rhythm. Same overloads. Same magic.
Here’s an example:
📽️👇

Everyone called it “Spanish football.” Barça 2008 felt like the peak of a new era, but look closer.

Dani Alves. Messi. That wasn’t just Spain, it was South America pulsing through the rhythm.

We saw tight spaces, wall passes, constant movement… and thought: this is the Spanish way.
But maybe all that fluency didn’t come from Europe.

Maybe it was the South American flame, burning inside the system.

One difference stands out the more I watch:
Support distances.

Most European coach education, FA, UEFA, etc., teaches us to find the deepest free player.

Progress through space. Skip lines. Stretch the field.

But South American football flips that. Forget the deepest option.
Brazilian football says: come closer.

“I’ll be just far enough for you to reach, and we’ll play in this zone, together.”

It’s not about finding the space out there.
It’s about creating the rhythm right here.

European logic says: “Break beyond.”
South American logic says: “Come closer.”

Here’s Dani Alves describing a pass Guardiola hated.

A wide, lateral ball into midfield—seen as safe, directionless, But Dani played it anyway because he saw more in it.

📽️👇

It didn’t break lines, but it broke rhythm.

It pulled defenders. It connected teammates.

Dani said, “I had to get him the ball. I didn’t care if it looked wrong.”

That pass was an invitation, not an instruction.

Most models treat passes as tools for space.

Forward = good. Lateral = neutral.

But in associative football, the pass is also a signal.

It connects. It attracts. It builds a shared moment between players.

Not every pass needs to be vertical.

Some passes are played to find each other, to say: “I’m here, with you.”

That’s the beauty of associative football, it’s not just what you do with the ball, it’s what the ball does to us.

Some of the best football I’ve seen lives in tight, chaotic spaces, 2v2s, 1v2s, 3v3s.

It’s where feel matters more than form. Where players adjust, read, relate.
That’s where intuition comes alive.

Not the perfect pattern, just pure presence.

That’s why I keep coming back to those moments in training. Not as a rule, but as a rhythm.

3v3, 2v2, 2v1, not because it’s neat, but because it's the game.

Players don’t need a blueprint. They need a space where communication becomes skill.

If this thread stirred something in you, I write like this every week.

Stories, training ideas, and reflections on coaching, learning, and football that feels.

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