Handsome Dutch football ace striker van Basten, led the Selecao won the 1994 World Cup champion Pereira, a white-haired "old fox" Milutinovic... The World Cup technical research group, composed of these former ace stars and coaches, faced the global football media at the Luzhniki Stadium on the 12th to discuss the new features of the 2018 Russia World Cup and explore the future development trend of football. The Golden Globe Award, Golden Boot award, Golden Glove award, fair play and other weighty awards of this World Cup, voting power and decision-making power are also in the hands of these big guys.
Pereira: Success is built on talent
In the 1994 World Cup in the United States, Brazilian football played samba rhythm, Bebeto and Romario strike combination was perfect. At the time, the coach of the Brazilian team was the 75-year-old Pereira, who also holds the world record of coaching teams in five countries to six World Cups.
As the leader of the technical research group of this World Cup, his most important task is to lead the members of the group to hand over a research report on the development trend of football skills and tactics to professional coaches around the world in October.
In Pereira's view, this is a World Cup belonging to talent, "compared to the past, football has changed too much, the pace is getting faster, the defense is getting tighter, the goal is getting harder and harder, including the use of VAR video assistant referee system for the first time in history, also changed the World Cup."
However, Pereira is blunt: the only thing that hasn't changed is the talent of the players, the coach and the team: "The team that wins the championship, the success is built on talent." If you don't have talent, you can't win the World Cup no matter how hard you work.
Pereira pointed to his home team Brazil as an example to show that winning the World Cup is not easy. "Even if you have enough football talent, you have to have the hunger to succeed." Pereira pointed out that the 2006 Brazilian national team, which had talented stars such as Ronaldo and Ronaldinho, did not perform well because they won the 2002 World Cup in Korea and Japan, and their sense of honor and hunger decreased.
"In this World Cup, the Brazilian national team has talent, hunger and discipline, but what is missing is some luck and World Cup experience, many of the players are playing in the World Cup for the first time. Maybe four years from now, things will be different."
Pereira also believes that the first use of VAR video assistant referees has also allowed more talented players and teams to be protected. "Overall,VAR was quiet and didn't create too much controversy. You can see that with VAR, defenders don't dare stand in the box to pull people or kick people for a foul, which is a protection for talented attacking players."
Van Basten: A French win could be bigger
As one of the 100 biggest stars selected by FIFA, Van Basten's fame and influence should not be doubted. The star, who scored an incredible zero-angle goal against the former Soviet Union, constantly lamented how difficult it is for strikers to score goals these days.
"From this World Cup, it is much more difficult for strikers to score goals than it was for me!" Van Basten said that a prominent feature of this World Cup is that almost all teams have a solid defense, "although Costa Rica did not qualify, but their defense still left me a deep impression."
Even world-class stars like Messi and Neymar have not scored too many goals for only one reason: the current tactics give too little space for strikers to play. In the past, maybe we had 10 square metres to play, now the strikers have less than one square metre to play freely."
For the host Russia, Van Basten gave praise, "The Russian team almost reached the final four, playing football in line with their national character." More importantly, Russia, as the host country, put on a wonderful event that impressed everyone and left a deep impression on the world. And this World Cup has been almost perfect without any problems so far."
Looking ahead to the final title, Van Basten gave his answer cryptically, "Croatia is not a big country, can enter the final is to create history, they show the fighting power of football." As for the final, France have good players and coaches and are very competitive. Historically, big countries like England, France, Argentina and Brazil have won the World Cup, so let's see if that changes this time."
Milu: Happy football will never go out of style
Milu, who is usually a casual dress, appeared in front of the media in a gray suit, and the reporter was not adapted to it. But when it comes to football, he reverts to being a master of mental conditioning. "Of course the technical and tactical training of football is important, but in my opinion, in the end, you have to train and play with the mentality of enjoying football," he said.
Milu, 74, was originally a technical adviser to the Qatar 2022 World Cup organizing committee, and FIFA chose him to join the technical group because of his extensive coaching record.
Milu is the most experienced coach in World Cup history, having led five nations to five consecutive World Cups and the first to lead four different nations to the knockout stage. His opinion is important to FIFA.
Perhaps Croatia belongs to the former Yugoslavia, as Serbia's coach Milu is happy about this, "Belgium, England and Croatia are very strong teams, and finally Croatia reached the final, which is closely related to their fighting spirit." I don't think there has been much of a technical revolution in football, and the mental dynamics of the game cannot be replaced by technical tactics."
