THE MUTANTS
Tropicalia, Malmo FF and the hybrid identities of Relationism in Europe
My aim is to bring about a psychic state in which my patient begins to experiment with his own nature — a state of fluidity, change and growth, in which there is no longer anything eternally fixed and hopelessly petrified
Carl Jung
EXPOSURE
In many ways it seems like we have reached a moment of significant transition. I was first exposed to the football of Fernando Diniz’s Fluminense almost exactly a year ago. And throughout the past 12 months I have tried to develop my understanding of this alternative football and what the possible implications of its (re)emergence might be for the wider football ecology.
I wrote and tweeted as a means of documenting what has been a process of intoxicating transformation. During this period my understanding of what was happening shifted and changed on an almost daily basis. By bringing my existing footballing worldview into intense dialogue with this radically alternative dimension I found myself having to deal with the rapid erosion of beliefs I had previously held as solid and robust.
And as these old truths broke down and disintegrated new ones sprouted and grew. At times it felt as if I had absolutely no control over where or what my attention would be drawn to next. Fresh roots would appear from the most unpredictable of origins.
These were chaotic times. I garnered praise and interest for the research I was undertaking. But simultaneously I was also receiving criticism from sceptics (including professional coaches and analysts) who rejected the ideas I was promoting.
I believe much of the criticism came as a result of my own inability to articulate what it was I had come into contact with. I must have sounded like a madman preaching in the streets, tweeting into oblivion in a desperate attempt to show others glimpses of what I had seen.
But over time — and with much help, guidance and tutelage from those well versed in this alternative football language — I was finally able to make a coherent attempt at translating and describing this ‘Football of the Other’. That attempt was the article ‘What Is Relationism?’
In the months since that article, it feels as though the initial waves of scepticism have receded. That the term ‘Relationism’ seems to have been largely accepted into the contemporary footballing lexicon is a vital part of this sea-change.
Relationism now sits in close proximity to firmly established European football concepts such as Positionism. But perhaps even more critically, Relationism is now in intimate contact with localised national and regional modes of football.
It is precisely this proximity which makes reaction inevitable. Relationism is — quite literally — about fusion and mixture. It is about ‘relating’ to and interacting with others in intuitive and spontaneous ways. It is about the primacy of the relationships between things.
Relationism as a concept is unpredictable, unstable and inherently open-ended. It is a chaotic agent. The very nature of its football reflects these dispositions. And when a substance of this chaotic nature enters into a new eco-system a chain of emergent interactions is certain to be triggered.
FUSIONS
The coexistence of different lineages of game analysis greatly enriches the way in which the game can be observed
Luis Cristovao
‘Tropicalia or death’. This was the proposition offered by Portuguese football commentator and writer Luis Cristovao in his article Language, functional play and Tropicália: understanding what we are, what others are, what we can be together.
But what is the meaning behind Cristovao’s analogy between ‘Tropicalia’ and the current discussion around football’s tactical landscape?
Tropicalia or ‘Tropicalism’ was the name given to a new musical movement which emerged in Brazil in the late 1960s. In the decades leading up to Tropicalia’s arrival Brazilian music was largely defined by various forms of traditionalism.
Throughout the 1950s, the musical style of ‘Bossa Nova’ was seen to represent ‘Brazilian values’. Bossa Nova was championed by many on the left as an authentic expression of Brazilian identity. But - thanks to popular portrayals of Brazil as sophisticated and idyllic — it also fell into favour with the Military regime who had overthrown socialist leader Joao Goulart in the coup d'état of April 1st, 1964.
But, as the 60s progressed, the growing power of international rock music was becoming impossible to ignore as the spiralling popularity of bands like The Beatles and The Rolling Stones touched all corners of the globe. This international movement, with its electric guitars, rhythm & blues structures and rock ’n’ roll aesthetic, was opposed by traditionalists at both ends of the Brazilian political spectrum.
On the right there were the all-too-familiar concerns about foreign influences polluting the regime’s carefully curated nationalistic ideological purity. And on the left, fans of folksy, rustic Brazilian music sensibilities recoiled at Tropicalia’s adoption of electric guitars and bad-taste Americanised rock postures and motifs.
In 1967 a shocked audience booed as Gilberto Gil (who spearheaded the Tropicalia movement alongside Caetano Veloso) had the audacity to collaborate with the amplified sound of Brazilian avant-garde rock band Os Mutantes (The Mutants).
Alongside Veloso, Gil and a disparate assemblage of alternative Brazilian artists, Os Mutantes would come to embody Tropicalia and the principles the movement stood for.
But what were these principles? ‘There were three types of people’ remembers Tropicalia musician Tom Ze, ‘those on the right, those on the left, and those who were innocently won over by aesthetics, curiosity and innovation’.
Tropicalia sought to embrace an aesthetic diversity which rejected the conservative puritanism of traditionalists on the right and left.
The musicians of Tropicalia didn’t want to simply replace Brazilian musical heritage with the noveau fashions of a new global order. But nor did they want to isolate and preserve Brazilian music in its current form.
Instead, Tropicalia was focussed on the integration and mixing of new and novel forms into the Brazilian musical eco-system. The aim was to bring the diversity of indigenous Brazilian music into dialogue with the alternative forms propagating from the West and further afield.
By engaging in this project of musical syncretism, Tropicalia became synonymous with a kind of multi-cultural experimentalism.
Through this process new forms of ‘Brazilian’ music emerged. But it wasn’t an abandonment of the past. It was a re-conceptualisation of what art could be as an expression of what it meant to be ‘Brazilian’. Any attempt to completely define and preserve a concept as fluid and diverse as a nation’s identity is doomed to end in catastrophe.
The same can be said of ‘football tactics’. The irremovable human aspect of football renders any tactical paradigm as always-already incomplete — no system can ever be total. But despite this fundamental truth there are those ‘analysts’ who insist on framing all football within the narrow confines of their own localised understandings.
If there is no symmetrical, evenly distributed organisation on display these analysts will chastise the coach for having ‘no system’. Positional arrangements like the 2–3–5 have been fossilized in real time, hardened into numerical dogma before our very eyes. These structural blueprints are used as cheat sheets — any analysis must conform to the requirements of these generalised laws. Working 3–2–5, what a way to make a living.
And it is here that we can locate the crux of Luis Cristovao’s analogy between Tropicalia and football. It is Cristovao’s argument (an argument I support) that traditionally Positionist quarters of Europe’s footballing community can also engage with Relationist tactical systems — such as Jogo Funcional — in the spirit with which Brazilian Tropicalistas engaged with international music.
The purpose is not to replace Positionism with Relationism in Europe, but nor should European Positionism entirely reject the validity of Relationist systems. Rather, an environment must be nurtured where these contrasting strains of football tactics can be studied, merged and cross-pollinated.
Relationist tactics propose that new and unpredictable connections emerge from within the chaotic interactions between players. The routes of ball progression are not pre-meditated through set patterns and repeated automations. New orders emerge from the instability of disordered environments.
This is the essence of Tropicalia. To create environments where the disorder and chaos of meetings between foreign bodies leads to strange fusions and amalgamations, wild mutations and hybridity.
There can be no novelty without this mixing.
Like Cristovao says: its Tropicalia or death.
MUTATIONS
Unfortunately, my taste in music is typical of a white, heterosexual Western male. Music is so much fun, I would like to be more Caribbean and queer
Henrik Rydstrom
Malmo FF Head Coach Henrik Rydstrom used to write music reviews for Swedish publication Barometern. And perhaps — given his explicit desire for a relationship with the music of The Other — it’s no surprise that the most notable emergence of contemporary Relationism in Europe is happening under Rydstrom’s guidance.
During the post-match interview following the dramatic late winner at Halmstad, ex-player turned pundit Nordin Gerzic addressed Rydstrom directly about Malmo’s unorthodox playing style.
‘In the first half I saw your team tilting a lot to one of the sides. You’re doing something new in Swedish football. I don’t know where the inspiration is from, although I suspect its Fluminense, its Relationism, its new in Sweden’.
Gerzic’s observations about Malmo’s tendency to ‘tilt’ were accurate. From the first day of the season against Kalmar, Malmo would often abandon any notion of maintaining some evenly distributed symmetrical team organisation.
Instead of occupying the area of the field ‘rationally’, the Malmo players would gather together on one side of the pitch leaving huge areas of the playing field empty and unguarded.
At times as many as nine Malmo players would gather in close proximity to create the chaotic conditions for Relationist ball progressions to emerge. In the example above we also see an additional tactical benefit of tilting — when the ball is lost Malmo are able to counterpress aggressively using the numerical overload and the sideline as an auxiliary rest-defender.
Against AIK we can see another example of Malmo’s extreme asymmetry. Nine players occupy a narrow strip of the field on the right side. Left back Busanello provides security with the defensive diagonal before attacking the open space to receive the switch of play.
Gerzic’s comparison with Fluminense is appropriate as tilting is a common feature of Fernando Diniz’s team’s tactical repertoire.
Escadinhas have also emerged as a repeated motif of Malmo’s playing style. These diagonal ‘staircases’ or ‘ladders’ have long been recognised as features of Brazilian Jogo Funcional and are now beginning to find conditions to grow organically within the tactical systems of European coaches.
When he was recently asked about the influence of Relationism on Malmo’s style, Rydstrom was happy to give his perspective on the issue.
‘First, it should be said that I don’t do anything just because it is sensational or strange. Everything that I do and we in the coaching staff do is “How can we make it even more difficult for the opponents and better and get even more out of the players that we have?”. I look for inspiration here and there.
Then it’s fun, partly for Malmö’s sake and partly for Swedish football’s sake. You can get a little attention, but also inspire a little in that there is not only one way to play. The way we play is one way. You can discuss what is right or wrong, but what you can say is that there is no one in the Allsvenskan who plays like us. We’ll see if anyone follows suit or is inspired.’
It seems as though Rydstrom’s Malmo are re-discovering the spirit of Tropicalia some five decades after the counter-cultural musical movement emerged.
Rydstrom’s idea is not to blindly copy/paste Jogo Funcional or to parachute Dinizismo into southern Sweden. Instead, the idea is to find ways of using these alternative concepts to help maximise the potentials within the Malmo group. Swedish football with a Brazilian twist by way of cross-cultural aesthetic fusion.
What differentiates Rydstrom from many other coaches is that he seems willing to look for inspiration from outside the increasingly myopic tactical paradigm of European Positionism. He is comfortable working with ideas from other parts of the footballing world and adapting them to the localised constraints of the Swedish eco-system.
And the results so far have been encouraging. Malmo sit on top of the AllSvenskan with 11 wins from their opening 13 games.
Peruvian international Sergio Pena is becoming more and more comfortable with the new rhythms of the play.
Former futsal player Taha Ali is tailoring his incredible 1v1 ability to suit the various collective tactical principles of Rydstrom’s Relationism.
Stefano Vecchia’s link-up play has become a feature of Malmo’s attacking combinations.
And Sebastian Nanasi’s role as a roaming, ball oriented attacker has taken on increased significance in the wake of news that captain and playmaker-in-chief Anders Christiansen won’t play again this season.
And Rydstrom is all too aware of the difficulties that Christiansen’s absence could lead to. With Hugo Larsson also leaving for the Bundesliga, the heart of Malmo’s midfield needs to be reformed.
‘We constantly evaluate. Maybe we need to turn it around now that Anders isn’t there. I do not know. Anders was absolutely central in this. We shall see. Maybe we need to have a period where it is more controlled and strict.’
So, perhaps in the short term a return to a more traditionally ‘Swedish’ approach may be necessary? Time will tell.
But we can see from Rydstrom’s response that his attitude towards the question of ‘team identity’ is not fixed or set in stone. And why should a football team be expected to have a fixed identity? Why not Positional in one phase and Relationist in the next? Already Malmo’s build up is often more De Zerbian than Dinizian.
Identity itself emerges in negotiation with the complexity of the environment. The nature of our identities are not fully pre-determined or entirely predictable. If the conditions are appropriate, strange mutations can occur through chaotic interactions and chance encounters.
So, what is the tactical identity of Rydstrom’s Malmo? Perhaps this is the wrong question. Why should their identity be singular or definable? Why should anyone’s?
