A Glocal and Semiotic Analysis on the Rise of Catenaccio, Total Football, and Jogo Bonito
How Glocalization and Semiotics Explain the Emergence of Different Styles of Play in Football
Why This Article Exists
Pier Paolo Pasolini once described football as a language1.
Football is a system of signs, that is, a language. It has all the fundamental characteristics of the language par excellence, the one we immediately set as a term of comparison, that is, written-spoken language.
From Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Il calcio è un linguaggio con i suoi poeti e prosatori (Football “is” a language with its poets and prose writers)
He spoke of dribbling as poetry and saw Brazil’s expressive style as its purest form, while Catenaccio, defined by rigid defensive structures, was prose, functional, organized, and only capable of poetry in the counterattack.
Who are the best “dribblers” in the world and the best scorers of goals? The Brazilians. Therefore their football is a football of poetry: and it is in fact all based on dribbling and goals. The catenaccio and the triangulation (which Brera calls geometry) is a prose football: it is in fact based on syntax, that is, on collective and organized play: that is, on the reasoned execution of the code. Its only poetic moment is the counterattack, with the annexed “goal” (which, as we have seen, cannot but be poetic). In short, the poetic moment of football seems to be (as always) the individualistic moment (dribbling and goal; or inspired pass).
From Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Il calcio è un linguaggio con i suoi poeti e prosatori (Football “is” a language with its poets and prose writers)
In Pasolini’s view, football was not just a sport but a system of signs that reflected something deeper.
For decades, any football analysis that went beyond a performance-based perspective was dismissed as an unserious field of inquiry. Only later, through the application of semiotics and cultural analysis, was football viewed as more than just tactics and results.
Styles of play in football are not arbitrary inventions designed solely to counteract other prevailing football tactics. They are shaped by historical processes, cultural narratives, and socio-political conditions.
This article began as an inquiry into how different socio-cultural factors influence the emergence of different styles of play. My initial premise was simple: football is not just a sport, it is shaped by the world around it. But something kept lingering.
What did Pasolini really mean? Was Catenaccio just a “prose” football, or was there something deeper? The more I read, the more I questioned the simplistic explanations that reduced styles of play to singular causes.
This article is a product of that intellectual tug-of-war. What began as a standalone section in a broader study of different football tactics evolved into an exploration of how styles of play emerge as cultural texts shaped by both local traditions and global influences.
Catenaccio, Total Football, and Jogo Bonito will serve as my case studies to demonstrate that styles of play do not emerge in a vacuum. They are cultural phenomena shaped by semiotic processes and the forces of glocalization.
A glocal and semiotic perspective provides a deeper understanding of these styles of play because the global game is always filtered through local conditions and in the process produces styles that are never entirely indigenous nor fully imported.
The invention of the W-M formation, the impact of rule changes such as the 1925 and 1990 offside adjustments and the standardization of football’s laws in 1876 all reveal how global influences shape the local game.
Semiotics allows us to decode these shifts by treating football as a semiotic system in which styles of play carry meaning beyond the pitch. In this way, football ceases to be seen as merely a mechanization of running and kicking.
Football becomes a system of signs that reflects the cultural and historical contexts from which it emerges. By examining styles of play through the lens of semiotics and glocalization, we can better understand how they are formed and evolve over time.
This article does not claim to provide definitive answers. It is an attempt to theorize how styles of play emerge in football. It is about recognizing that football is more than just a game. It is about seeing football as a reflection of the societies that shape it.
A Glocal Perspective
The First Theory of Glocalization: Roland Robertson
Before we can define glocalization in its full depth as a point of reference for the article, we must consider how the term glocalization emerged, how it gained traction in social-scientific literature, how it has been theorized, and how it has evolved over the years to reflect the interaction between the global and local2.
The term "glocalization" is a portmanteau of "globalization" and "localization." It first gained prominence in the Japanese business community during the late 1980s, where it was used to describe strategies for adapting global products and services to suit local preferences.
The concept originates from the Japanese word dochakuka (土着化), which initially referred to adapting farming techniques to local conditions but was later adopted by Japanese businesses to describe their approach to global market expansion.
The term was modeled on Japanese word dochakuka, which originally meant adapting farming technique to one’s own local condition. In the business world the idea was adopted to refer to global localization.
From Habibul Khondker’s Glocalization as Globalization: Evolution of a Sociological Concept p. 4
A sociologist by the name of Roland Robertson appropriated the term glocalization into social-scientific discourse to critique the widely held view of globalization as a one-dimensional, homogenizing force.
At the time, world society theorists, notably John W. Meyer, posited that globalization promotes isomorphism, where societies converge through the adoption of shared models and practices. Meyer and his collaborators suggested that, under the influence of global forces, societies increasingly resemble one another.3
The world polity, as institutionalized in world society, shapes states, organizations, and individuals by promoting common models and scripts, leading to increasing isomorphism across societies.
From John W. Meyer et al., World Society and the Nation-State
Robertson argued that globalization is far more complex. It involves the particularization of universalism (adapting global ideas to local contexts) and the universalization of particularism (spreading specific local practices to a global audience).
Robertson introduced glocalization to emphasize globalization as a process that generates not only homogeneity (uniformity) but also heterogeneity (diversity).
Glocalization offered the means to highlight Robertson’s (1994, 1995) insistence that globalization involves both homogeneity and heterogeneity
From Victor Roudometof’s Glocalization: A Critical Introduction, p. 4
When we think of globalization, “interconnectedness” first springs to mind. Interconnectedness of economies, interconnectedness of cultures, interconnectedness of societies…
In this light, Robertson's introduction of glocalization into the social-scientific discourse aimed to challenge the notion that globalization would inevitably result in a fully integrated global society (a telos).
He argued that globalization should not be viewed as a linear trajectory with a predetermined endpoint. Simply put, globalization should not be seen as a linear process with a single end goal.
At the heart of Robertson’s theory is the principle of monism. As Roudometof clearly states, monism frames the global and the local not as discrete or opposing entities but as manifestations of a single interconnected reality. Robertson rejects the notion that globalization is an abstract phenomenon existing "out there". For Robertson, the global exists within the local.
Overall, the central meta-theoretical image that governs his treatment of the glocal is that of monism. Monism suggests that a variety of existing things (the local and the glocal, in this case) can be explained in terms of a single reality or substance (the global, in this case). The global is not outside of the glocal or local but exists within them; for Robertson (1992), globalization entails the particularization of universalism and the universalization of particularism.
From Victor Roudometof’s Glocalization: A Critical Introduction, p. 3
While Robertson's monistic approach might seem convincing at first, it has a significant implication. By treating glocalization as a specific articulation of globalization rather than as a distinct phenomenon, Robertson effectively conflates the two. Or as Roudometof puts it “glocalization is subsumed under globalization”.
At its core, this interpretation looks upon ‘globalisation as glocalisation’. Glocalization and globalization are analytically conflated, or to put it differently, glocalization is subsumed under globalization.
From Victor Roudometof’s Glocalization: A Critical Introduction, p. 5
This conflation diminishes the analytical autonomy of glocalization, making it challenging to treat it as an independent framework for understanding global-local interactions.
Robertson’s approach places glocalization so closely with globalization that it becomes impossible to consider glocalization as a distinct concept.
Glocalization is reduced to being a mere expression of globalization and leaves little room to analyze how the global and local independently interact or influence each other.
The local is never quite ‘pure’ or outside the global; it is always constructed in part in response to and through influences from the global.
From Victor Roudometof’s Glocalization: A Critical Introduction, p. 3
Robertson’s theory makes it difficult to analyze how the local independently contributes to unique outcomes, since glocalization is framed as inseparable from globalization.
It’s for this reason that Robertson’s monistic view has not fallen short of critics. According to Smitha Radhakrishnan, if the local and global are completely enmeshed in one another, how can we distinguish between local and global cultures if they are constantly interacting and influencing one another?
“How are ‘local’ and ‘global’ cultures to be identified as analytically separate if they are completely enmeshed in one another, as the same theories claim?”
From Smitha Radhakrishnan’s Limiting theory: Rethinking approaches to cultures of globalization
In Robertson’s monistic view, the global and local are not treated as oppositional but as mutually constitutive forces. For him, the global exists inherently within the local, and glocalization becomes the process through which globalization manifests itself in concrete, localized forms.
“In Robertson’s writings, globalization is realized in concrete forms that are local. It does not exist ‘out there’ and its articulation is not separate from that of the local.”
From Victor Roudometof’s Glocalization: A Critical Introduction, p. 3
But this framing presents glocalization as predominantly top-down. It implies that the global adapts to the local while retaining its overarching influence.
The global often assumes a dominant presence with the local depicted as merely a site where the global manifests. This imbalance obscures how the local can resist, reshape, or redefine global influences in meaningful ways.
“The global interpenetrates the local; the result is an image akin to the Hindu conception of deities. These are seen as manifestations of a single entity, but can take multiple forms, and thousands of them exist.”
From Victor Roudometof’s Glocalization: A Critical Introduction, p. 3
To clarify Roudometof’s analogy, let's use a water analogy. Water as a single substance can exist in various forms, such as liquid, solid ice, or gaseous water vapor. Each of these forms has its own unique characteristics and properties, but they are all manifestations of the same underlying substance.
In a similar way, Robertson's monistic view suggests that the global is a single entity that can take on many different forms and expressions in different local contexts.
Due to Robertson's subsumption of local influences under the broader concept of globalization, it is difficult to assess how distinct local conditions shape different styles of play within this article when using his theory of glocalization.
What is absent in Robertson’s framework is the recognition of glocalization as a balanced process where the global and local interact as “equal partners”.
Instead of treating glocalization as a collaborative interaction that combines elements of both the global and local to produce a genuinely hybrid outcome, Robertson reduces the local to a vehicle for globalization’s expression.
Robertson’s perspective limits our understanding of situations where the local takes precedence in shaping the global. This is particularly relevant when examining the cultural and environmental conditions that influence different styles of play, as we will discuss later in this article.
The Second Theory of Glocalization: George Ritzer
In the first section, I explained that Robertson’s monistic framework emphasizes the interconnectedness of the global and local where he presented them as mutually constitutive facets of a single reality, and by extension, conflated globalization and glocalization.
Robertson's perspective insisted that globalization encompasses both convergent trends towards uniformity (homogeneity) and divergent trends towards diversity (heterogeneity).
George Ritzer provides a critical counterpoint, arguing that once something is influenced by the global it cannot be considered truly local anymore. He believes that the local effectively disappears as the global takes over.
While Robertson’s theorization of glocalization focused on the mutual constitution of the global and local (the global exists inherently within the local), Ritzer turned Robertson’s theory on its head by arguing that glocalization must be viewed through the lens of global capitalism and transnational power structures.
“In Ritzer’s (2003, [2004] 2006) interpretation, glocalization and the related notion of cultural heterogeneity are explicitly acknowledged – at least in principle – as a viable theoretical alternative. Ritzer nevertheless concentrates upon the negative aspects of capitalism. Ritzer’s conceptual opposite to glocalization is ‘grobalisation’, which he defines as the ‘imperialistic ambitions of nations, corporations, organisations, and the like and their desire, indeed need, to impose themselves on various geographic areas’ (Ritzer, [2004] 2006: 73).”
From Victor Roudometof’s Glocalization: A Critical Introduction, p. 6
According to Ritzer, glocalization requires understanding how multinational corporations and international organizations shape different localities to serve their commercial interests.
To address the asymmetrical power dynamics that Ritzer felt were absent in Robertson’s conceptualization of the global-local relationship, Ritzer introduced a dualistic framework that views the global and local as mutually exclusive. As Roudometof puts it, "one cannot exist within the other," with the global ultimately subsuming the local.
In this dualistic framework, Ritzer introduces “grobalization”, which he defines as the “imperialistic ambitions of nations, corporations, organizations, and the like to impose themselves on various geographic areas”. This stands in opposition to Robertson’s “glocalization”.
Ritzer’s conceptual opposite to glocalization is ‘grobalisation’, which he defines as the ‘imperialistic ambitions of nations, corporations, organisations, and the like and their desire, indeed need, to impose themselves on various geographic areas’ (Ritzer, [2004] 2006: 73).
From Victor Roudometof’s Glocalization: A Critical Introduction, p. 6
For Ritzer, grobalization is driven by the homogenizing force of capitalism, where global influences seek to prioritize profits above all else by expanding their influence over different localities.
If glocalization allows for the interaction between the global and local, or as Robertson puts "the particularization of universalism and the universalization of particularism,” then grobalization seeks to standardize and subsume local practices and cultures into broader global contexts.
This preoccupation with the negative aspects of capitalism allows Ritzer to introduce grobalization and frame it as a conceptual opposite to glocalization, forming as Roudometof defines “a continuum ranging from ‘glocalization’ on one end to ‘grobalization’ on the other,” where grobalization and glocalization are subprocesses and opposite poles of the of globalization continuum.
Ritzer ([2004] 2006: 140) summarizes his own perspective as follows:
1. Globalization is a broad process that encompasses major sub-processes. These form a continuum ranging from ‘glocalization’ on one end to ‘grobalization’
From Victor Roudometof’s Glocalization: A Critical Introduction, p. 6
In this continuum, phenomena traditionally viewed as instances of glocalization can also convincingly be understood as supporting grobalization. As a result, the same processes might appear to demonstrate the local adaptations of the global influences (glocalization) but can simultaneously be interpreted as evidence of homogenizing forces of global capitalism (grobalization).
Even then, Ritzer suggests that few phenomena exist purely at either pole and argues that grobalization often dominates. This means the global tends to shape the local more profoundly than the local shapes the global.
The idea of a continuum makes it clear that most of what is thought of as globalization lies somewhere between these two poles. Both glocalization and grobalization are ‘ideal types’ with few, if any, actual processes being one or the other.
From Victor Roudometof’s Glocalization: A Critical Introduction, p. 7
Throughout this section, we can notice a common pattern: Ritzer’s dualistic framework challenging the neglect of power dynamics in Robertson’s monistic framework.
For Robertson, since the global and local are mutually constitutive, the interaction is interdependent. In turn, there is a covert risk in portraying glocalization as a relatively “organic” process, and in doing so, ignore the power imbalances that define many global processes.
For Ritzer, since the global and local are mutually exclusive, the interaction is hierarchical. The global and local do not come together as equal partners to create hybrid outcomes, to be more precise, the global often subjugates the local and reduces it to a vehicle for its own expansion.
Unlike Robertson’s monistic perspective, Ritzer’s perspective is shaped by dualism. The key concepts are pairs of binary concepts set in opposition to each other: glocalization–grobalization is one of these pairs. By far the most interesting application of this dualism is in Ritzer’s interpretation of the local–global binary relationship. In his view, the global and the local are mutually exclusive: one cannot exist within the other, as Robertson would have it. When the local is incorporated or subsumed under the global, then it morphs into the glocal. And the glocal is not ‘really’ local; something is irretrievably lost.
From Victor Roudometof’s Glocalization: A Critical Introduction, p. 7
Throughout this interaction, as Roudometof points out, “when the local is incorporated or subsumed under the global, then it morphs into the glocal”. It is through this subsumption of the local under the global that we can spot the first limitation in Ritzer’s theorization of glocalization.
In conceptualizing the global and local as mutually exclusive entities, Ritzer inadvertently reduces the local’s autonomy once it interacts with global forces. For Ritzer, as soon as the global touches the local, the global strips the local of its "purity".
In other words, the local exists outside the global: global and local are mutually opposite terms and cannot coexist. Once a product or service has been touched by the global, it can no longer claim to be local.
From Victor Roudometof’s Glocalization: A Critical Introduction, p. 8
The local no longer exists as an independent force, instead it is absorbed and redefined within the global leading to what we now understand as glocalization.
If we observe carefully, Ritzer’s perspective leads to a troubling conclusion: that in the global age, almost nothing remains "purely local". This renders the local powerless and strips it of its capacity to meaningfully influence or reshape global forces.
This dualism reduces glocalization to a hegemonic process where the global dominates and overshadows the local, and in doing so, leaves no room for the local to assert its autonomy.
In a similar light, Ritzer’s dualism, this time as manifested in his positioning of glocalization as a mere opposite of grobalization, confines the term’s analytical flexibility — the capacity for "glocalization" to be adapted and utilized in various fields — and as a result, Roudometof observes that Ritzer’s framework “lacks a transdisciplinary perspective that could take into account the varied uses of the glocal across disciplines and fields of study”.
Ritzer’s interpretation suffers from positioning glocalization as the mere opposite of grobalization – that is, it limits the term’s applicability and ignores the multiple uses of the glocal across disciplines and fields (see Roudometof, 2015; forthcoming). Hence, his interpretation of glocalization lacks a trans-disciplinary perspective that could take into account the varied uses of the glocal across disciplines and fields of study.
From Victor Roudometof’s Glocalization: A Critical Introduction, p. 8
In essence, Ritzer’s dualistic framework prevents the applicability of glocalization across a wide range of fields, including, as this article examines, the development of different styles of play in football.
More specifically, Ritzer’s theorization of glocalization is rendered ineffective in analyzing the development of different styles of play, since it rejects the independence of the local and subsumes it under the global.
Without Ritzer recognizing “glocalization” as a concept distinct from purely the global or local, the local is subsumed under the global and is always subordinate to or defined by global.
Hence, Ritzer’s interpretation is that of ‘glocalization as globalization’: glocalization is subsumed under globalization.
From Victor Roudometof’s Glocalization: A Critical Introduction, p. 7
When glocalization is positioned as inseparable from globalization, Ritzer undermines his own attempt to grant the glocal analytical autonomy. He leaves little room for the local to assert itself as an independent force, where glocalization functions independently from globalization.
In effect, their engagement suggests a failure to grant analytical autonomy to the concept of the glocal.
From Victor Roudometof’s Glocalization: A Critical Introduction, p. 8
As you will see throughout this article, this is not the case. The local, far from being overshadowed, plays an equally important role in the development of different styles of play in football.
The Third Theory of Glocalization: Victor Roudometof
Up to this point, I have shown you how glocalization is often trapped in the gravitational pull of globalization, either being reduced to a mere subset of the global (Robertson) or treated as a byproduct arising solely from the global (Ritzer).
Unlike the first and second theories, Roudometof argues that glocalization must be viewed as an independent process that finally allows the “glocal” to break free from the confines of both globalization and localization.
The third interpretation of glocalization suggests that glocalization should be viewed as an analytically autonomous concept. This notion of analytical autonomy is adopted from Alexander’s (2003) strong programme of cultural sociology, although its origins lie in the strong programme in the sociology of science. Alexander argues in favour of cultural autonomy, e.g. the autonomous status of culture as a factor that contributes to meaning-making and social life. In a similar fashion, the analytical autonomy of glocalization is meant to provide a foundation for using the concept to designate a process possessing analytical autonomy vis-à-vis other related concepts (local, global).
From Victor Roudometof’s Glocalization: A Critical Introduction, p. 8
Roudometof redefines glocalization as a process with analytical autonomy (independent from the local and global) that is distinct and capable of standing on its own without subordinating it to globalization.
More precisely, this autonomy allows us to see glocalization as a process in its own right, where glocalization is neither subsumed under globalization nor reduced to a mere site of articulation of the global within the local, but one where the global and local interact as equal partners without diminishing one in favor of the other.
As shown in the preceding discussion, Robertson subsumes globalization under glocalization whereas Ritzer subsumes glocalization under globalization. Both interpretations suffer from this conflation, as theorists fail to grant the glocal the analytical autonomy it deserves
From Victor Roudometof’s Glocalization: A Critical Introduction, pp. 8-9
In the vein of Roudometof’s introduction of "analytical autonomy", my use of "equal partners" is deliberate and should by no means be understated.
It is through the treatment of the global and local as balanced forces that we can truly internalize the significant roles both play as equally important co-creators in shaping the outcomes of their interaction and in resisting each other’s influence.
Based on this understanding, Roudometof's theory is best suited for approaching the topic of discussion in this article i.e. the development of different styles of play in football.
To better understand why I chose Roudometof’s this theory, we must reevaluate, as Roudometof advises, the metaphors we use to describe the spread of ideas, cultures, and practices.
Largely speaking, the dominant metaphor for explaining globalization has been diffusion: the idea that global ideas, practices, and phenomena spread out uniformly like ripples on a pond.
In contrast, for Robertson and White (2007: 62), the answer to the issue of the mechanism of glocalization lies in the concept of diffusion, insofar as they suggest that ‘diffusion has involved concentration upon the ways in which ideas and practices spread (or do not spread) from one locale to another’
From Victor Roudometof’s Glocalization: A Critical Introduction, p. 9
But diffusion, by its very nature, is problematic because it tends to lead to cultural homogenization, local cultures becoming similar to one another, which fails to capture the essence of how glocalization operates.
But framing the problematic of glocalization in terms of world culture’s diffusion is counterproductive. According to world society theory, diffusion and institutional isomorphism result in worldwide uniformity with regard to numerous cultural items. If diffusion leads to cultural homogenization, then one is left without an empirical mechanism that could capture the reality of how glocalization works.
From Victor Roudometof’s Glocalization: A Critical Introduction, p. 9
We face a serious dilemma as Roudometof puts it “If diffusion leads to cultural homogenization, then one is left without an empirical mechanism that could capture the reality of how glocalization works”.
While seemingly natural, there’s a tendency when adopting the diffusion framework to oversimplify the interaction between the global and local by assuming that ideas spread uniformly across different localities.
If we neglect the active role the local plays in engaging, resisting, and reshaping the global, we mask the reality of how glocalization takes place.
Refraction, by contrast, brings to the forefront the local's potential for transformation in reshaping, redirecting, and reimagining the global.
It is therefore necessary to complement the age-old conceptual metaphor of diffusion with the conceptual metaphor of refraction. Refraction refers to the fact or phenomenon of light or radio waves being deflected when passing through the interface between one medium and another or through a medium of varying density. Refraction offers a conceptual metaphor that allows the reinterpretation of the relationship between globalization and glocalization. The strategy rests on: (1) conceiving of globalization as a generic process in terms of waves spreading around the globe; and (2) using the notion of refraction of waves as a means of understanding the global–local binary.
From Victor Roudometof’s Glocalization: A Critical Introduction, pp. 9-10
To make this more vivid, I want you to picture a wave of light passing through a prism. It does not pass through untouched; instead, it bends, spreads out, and splits into a spectrum of colors depending on the density and properties of the prism.
Just as light refracts when it moves through a prism of varying density, when the global interacts with the local, it encounters local forces that possess their own "densities" or "resistances" — social norms, cultural practices, and historical contexts — which act as mediums through which the global is bent, reshaped, and refracted into something new.
In the case of the globalization of X, what actually takes place is the migration and spread of X into different localities. If one further views these localities as having varying degrees of density or ‘thickness’, or to put it differently, as having different wave- resistance capacities, the process can then operate in two different ways. First, the wave-like properties can be absorbed and amplified by the local and then reflected back onto the world stage. That process of reflection is rather accurately described by world society theorists – and in many respects it is the very mechanism through which institutional isomorphism comes into existence. Second, it is possible for a wave to pass through the local and to be refracted by it. And that is precisely what happens in some instances: glocalization is globalization refracted through the local.
From Victor Roudometof’s Glocalization: A Critical Introduction, p. 10
Unlike diffusion which implies a spreading process where the global absorbs the local, refraction acknowledges that the local is not a passive receiver but an active participant in reshaping the global.
But thickness, whether cultural, institutional, political or military, is a powerful means through which a locale (a nation, a region, etc.) can enable a process of selective appropriation of global influences. This allows the possibility of allomorphism through concept-borrowing without the assumption of a shared cultural model and effectively suggests that the world society’s isomorphism is not the only outcome of global–local interaction. The ability of a locale to modify or alter the waves that pass through it, a well- known and often evoked ability to cause mutations, alterations or fractures into whatever is introduced from ‘outside’.
From Victor Roudometof’s Glocalization: A Critical Introduction, p. 13
This refractive framework is what gives glocalization its analytical autonomy. Glocalization is no longer subsumed under globalization (like in Ritzer’s theory) or conflated with it (as implied in Robertson’s theory) but becomes a process of co-creation between the global and the local.
The introduction of refraction as a conceptual metaphor is the strength of Roudometof’s theory and what makes it a powerful tool in understanding the emergence of different styles of play in football.
The global is neither imposed on the local nor does the local exist in isolation, rather both interact symbiotically as equals to create outcomes that are neither fully global nor purely local but distinctively glocal.
The local is not annihilated or absorbed or destroyed by globalization but, rather, operates symbiotically with globalization and shapes the telos or end state or result.
From Victor Roudometof’s Glocalization: A Critical Introduction, p. 10
When we reframe glocalization through this lens of refraction, as Roudometof explains clearly, "The global and the local shape the end state. The result is heterogeneity".
The "glocal" embodies the “heterogeneity” that arises from the interaction between the global and local.
In glocalization, the global and the local shape the end state. The result is heterogeneity; just like light that passes through glass radiates an entire spectrum, so does globalization passing through locales radiate a spectrum of differences.
From Victor Roudometof’s Glocalization: A Critical Introduction, p. 10
In the same respect, glocalization then is not just about heterogeneity, but the process that actively produces these differences.
If the “glocal” embodies heterogeneity, we can challenge the contemporary narrative that homogenization is the inevitable outcome when the global meets the local.
While Robertson and Ritzer struggled to account for the independence of the local, Roudometof recognized that glocalization does not always favor the global. The local can resist global homogenization and produce outcomes that are genuinely collaborative rather than one-sided.
Second, it is possible for a wave to pass through the local and to be refracted by it. And that is precisely what happens in some instances: glocalization is globalization refracted through the local. That is a yet third interpretation of glocalization – one that explicitly allows its analytical autonomy from globalization. The local is not annihilated or absorbed or destroyed by globalization but, rather, operates symbiotically with globalization and shapes the telos or end state or result.
From Victor Roudometof’s Glocalization: A Critical Introduction, p. 10
Because Roudometof respects the autonomy of the local, both the global and local are recognized as equal co-creators of something uniquely new, and by extension, his theory of glocalization is best suited to understanding the emergence of styles of play in football.
Having articulated Roudometof’s theory of glocalization, I can now define glocalization as an autonomous process where the global and local interact symbiotically as equal co-creators to produce unique outcomes that are neither purely global nor purely local, but uniquely glocal.
A Semiotic Perspective
In the introduction to this article, I mentioned that my primary objective was not to describe the emergence of styles of play as mere response to opposition tactics, but to probe deeper to uncover the underlying influences that shape them. This led me to glocalization, which at its core, examines the interaction between the global and local.
I presented two different theories of glocalization. I began with Robertson, whose monistic framework reduces glocalization to an articulation of globalization rather than an independent process. I then turned to Ritzer, who in contrast, frames glocalization as a conduit through which global capitalism subsumes and erodes the local.
In both cases, the local is deprived of analytical autonomy. It is either absorbed within globalization, as in Robertson's view, or subordinated to it, as in Ritzer's. This necessitated my rejection of both frameworks, as neither could fully account for the ways in which the local actively resists, reshapes, and transforms the global to produce something uniquely distinct.
It was at this point that I introduced Roudometof’s refractive framework, which restores analytical autonomy to glocalization, by treating the global and the local as equal co-creators that interact symbiotically to create outcomes that are neither fully global nor purely local but distinctively glocal.
However, if we pay close attention, we can see that glocalization, at least in the way it has been theorized, operates predominantly at a structural level, with a larger focus on the macro-processes (the broad historical, economic, and cultural forces) that shape the interaction between the global and the local.
While this structural approach captures the "what", the observable outcomes of glocalization, it leaves the "how" unanswered:
How do these outcomes of glocalization come to exist in the first place?
And more importantly, how do distinct styles of play emerge from the interaction between the global and the local?
Semiotics, the study of how signs and symbols are used to create and interpret meaning within cultures, serves as the bridge that helps us connect the "what" and the "how".
If glocalization tells us that a particular style of play arose from the interaction between the global and the local, semiotics helps us trace those influences, and in doing so, we can uncover the specific global and local elements that converged to produce a distinct style of play.
We must remember that a style of play does not emerge in isolation, nor does it materialize simply because a new idea arrives from abroad. When a tactical idea enters a football culture, it does not preserve its original form.
Instead, it encounters a semiotic space (the cultural, social, and historical context in which meaning is created) that influence how the tactical idea is interpreted, adopted, or resisted.
This pre-existing system of meaning, or semiotic space, is what Yuri Lotman terms as the “semiosphere”. In Lotman’s view, the “semiosphere” represents the total semiotic space of a culture wherein all languages and communication occur.
By analogy with the biosphere (Vernadsky's concept) we could talk of a semiosphere, which we shall define as the semiotic space necessary for the existence and functioning of languages, not the sum total of different languages; in a sense the semiosphere has a prior existence and is in constant interaction with languages.
From Yuri Lotman’s Universe of the Mind: A Semiotic Theory of Culture, p. 123
The term draws analogy to Vladimir Vernadsky’s concept of the biosphere. In the same way the biosphere encompasses all ecosystems and living organisms interacting within a physical environment, the semiosphere represents the semiotic environment or "space" essential for languages, and by extension, communication or semiotic systems to exist and function.
In that sense, for effective communication to occur on its own, it must be situated within a broader semiotic space. Within this semiotic space there is a shared understanding of signs and meanings. When a child is trying to communicate with its parent, the effectiveness of the communication depends on the child's prior experiences of communication and the parent's understanding of these signs.
A schema consisting of addresser, addressee and the channel linking them together is not yet a working system. For it to work it has to be 'immersed' in semiotic space. All participants in the communicative act must have some experience of communication, be familiar with semiosis.
From Yuri Lotman’s Universe of the Mind: A Semiotic Theory of Culture, p. 123
A shared understanding between a parent and a baby, where the parent interprets the baby’s crying as a sign of hunger and the baby uses crying to communicate that need, is what makes the communication between the two more likely to succeed.
This shared understanding of the semiotic space what Lotman refers to as the “semiotic experience”. Without the semiotic experience, everyday interactions would become incoherent, since gestures, words, and symbols would lack shared understanding.
All participants in the communicative act must have some experience of communication, be familiar with semiosis. So, paradoxically, semiotic experience precedes the semiotic act.
From Yuri Lotman’s Universe of the Mind: A Semiotic Theory of Culture, p. 123
This is why Lotman emphasizes that "semiotic experience precedes the semiotic act”. Before any act of communication can succeed, there must already be a foundation of shared semiotic experiences that allow the sender and receiver to understand each other.
If we applied this semiotic thinking to football, we could rephrase football not as a sport, but a semiotic system (a system of signs and symbols that convey meaning) existing within a larger cultural semiotic space (semiosphere).
So in that sense, when a tactical idea migrates from one culture to another, it is filtered through the semiosphere of the receiving culture — its history, values, traditions, and ideologies — which affects whether it is adopted, modified, or rejected.
This process of adoption, modification, or rejection by the semiosphere is guided by the semiotic experiences of the receiving culture.
For example, Catenaccio developed in a post-World War II environment. The Italian cultural semiosphere in this specific period valued resilience and caution, reflecting the economic situation after the war and Italy's efforts to recuperate.
It is no coincidence that catenaccio developed and also found favor among the smaller clubs who were struggling with their economic situations, before being adopted by the bigger clubs.
This defensive mindset manifested in the development and widespread use of catenaccio. Just as Italians in an environment of economic crisis exercised caution due to scarce resources, smaller teams could not compete against bigger sides and opted for a defensive mindset to survive in the league.
Even after 80 years since its introduction, remnants of the Catenaccio style of play still exist, even though catenaccio as a whole is no longer the way most Italian teams strictly play football today.
This boils down to Lotman’s view of culture as a "non-hereditary collective memory," in which he argues that various texts (any manifestation of meaning) within a culture serve as repositories of collective memory for preserving and transmitting knowledge, values, and traditions.
The third function of language is the function of memory. The text is not only the generator of new meanings, but also a condenser of cultural memory. A text has the capacity to preserve the memory of its previous contexts.
From Yuri Lotman’s Universe of the Mind: A Semiotic Theory of Culture, p. 30
If we view a style of play as a text with the capacity to accumulate knowledge over time and preserve the memory of previous contexts, then the "memory" within the text (style of play) enables it to create new meanings and become part of the contemporary culture even when originating from different contexts or time periods.
The sum of the contexts in which a given text acquires interpretation and which are in a way incorporated in it may be termed the text's memory... This meaning-space created by the text around itself enters into relationship with the cultural memory (tradition) already formed in the consciousness of the audience... Unless texts had their own memory and were capable of creating a particular semantic aura around themselves, these invasions would all remain museum pieces set apart from the main cultural process... For a text, like a grain of wheat which contains within itself the programme of its future development, is not something given once and for all and never changing... The inner and as yet unfinalized determinacy of its structure provides a reservoir of dynamism when influenced by contacts with new contexts... Yet texts that preserve their cultural activity reveal a capacity to accumulate information, i.e., a capacity for memory... Nowadays Hamlet is not just a play by Shakespeare, but it is also the memory of all its interpretations... We may have forgotten what Shakespeare and his spectators knew, but we cannot forget what we have learnt since their time. And this is what gives the text new meanings.
From Yuri Lotman’s Universe of the Mind: A Semiotic Theory of Culture, p. 18
The enduring defensive tendencies still present in Italian football, for instance the widespread preference for back-three systems and a defensive mindset with a counter-attacking style, cannot be reduced to a tactical choice. They are a product of the collective memory of Italian football, which includes the historical success of Italian teams with strong defences.
Even when teams experiment with a more fluid attacking style of play, for example Inter under Simone Inzaghi, there is always an emphasis on a well-structured defense as the foundation of a winning team.
The successes of teams like Herrera’s Milan in the 1960s using catenaccio solidified it as a viable style of play which naturally became embedded in the collective memory of Italian football. This "text," in the Lotmanian sense, acts as a repository of values and traditions which are passed down through generations of Italian coaching.
Even though the explicit form of catenaccio is no longer the norm, its overly defensive principles are still present today. As I have shown in the preceding paragraphs and as I will show in the next section, the process of adoption, modification, or rejection is ultimately guided by the semiotic experiences of the receiving culture.
In the context of Italian football, the inherent cultural values of resilience and caution, and repeated successes of defensively minded teams, acts as a filter through which new ideas are evaluated and then embraced.
Even when Italian teams experiment with more expansive styles of play, they do so within a semiotic space that has already been shaped by decades of defensive success. This is why Lotman’s notion that "semiotic experience precedes the semiotic act" is so crucial. Before any idea can take root, it must first make sense within the receiving culture’s semiosphere.
This is another reason why the Italian cultural semiosphere will likely resist a purely improvisational style, because it clashes with the semiotic experiences of Italian culture.
In the same way, the Brazilian cultural semiosphere would over time reject the defensive rigidity that comes with catenaccio because the Brazilian cultural semiosphere has always celebrated individual flair and improvisation.
In order for a defensive-minded style of play to succeed in Brazil, it would have to be modified to embrace more individual freedom and creativity.
A typical example to illustrate how attempts to randomly impose a style of play that clashes with an existing cultural semiosphere is the tension between futebol arte and futebol força in Brazil.
The early development of Brazilian football was largely characterized by futebol arte (art soccer), which prioritized individual skill, creativity, and improvisation. Brazil’s loss in the 1950 World Cup highlighted the need for greater organization, more structured training methods, and a focus on fitness, which over the years drew increasing influence from European models.
At the same time, military leaders and the soccer establishment harbored doubts about the futebol-arte style that had become a trademark of Brazilian soccer. The Great Brazil (Brasil Grande) that the military dreamed of building required planning and control in soccer as in other realms. Waiting for the next great players to emerge from the populace and take on other nations with their “natural” skills was too messy, almost too anarchic, an approach for these technocratic, profoundly antidemocratic leaders. In soccer as more broadly, they insisted on “state tutelage and directed modernization.” This meant channeling the energies of the common people, reining in the exuberance that so many observers had praised in the 1950s and ’60s. In 1975, presenting his final report as CBD president, João Havelange summed up this position in grand, paranoid, terms: “Our Dionysian football felt itself unprotected,” he asserted, in the global “war against the supremacy” of Brazil. To make sure the country could win this war, the cartolas (club and confederation directors) wanted a style based on scientific models derived from European thinking about soccer, in place of futebol-arte. The new approach, futebol-força, emphasized coordinated control of the whole field, starting with the defensive end, and downplayed individual technique.
From Roger Kittleson’s The Country of Football: Soccer and the Making of Modern Brazil, p. 98
The military dictatorship in Brazil (1964-1985) embraced futebol força (strength soccer) in which physical strength and tactical discipline were prioritized as larger efforts in shifting Brazil towards a more pragmatic and functional approach.
They viewed futebol arte as undisciplined and inefficient, while seeing the more structured futebol força as a way to create a more "modern" Brazil, and to achieve international success.
The failures of futebol força, particularly its proclivity towards a rigid defence, led to calls for a return to the more traditional Brazilian style of play. So in the 1980s, Brazilian football experienced a resurgence of futebol arte, **under the stewardship of coach Telê Santana.
More important than these titles were the philosophical and stylistic changes that characterized futebol for much of the 1980s. First evident at Flamengo in Rio and Corinthians in São Paulo, the reformulation of Brazilian soccer took its most famous form on the national teams that Telê Santana conducted in 1982 and 1986. As Paulo Roberto Falcão, one of the stars of the Seleção in these years, later put it, Telê “rescued art, beauty, and talent.”
From Roger Kittleson’s The Country of Football: Soccer and the Making of Modern Brazil, p. 131
Santana sought to combine the traditional Brazilian skill and creativity with a more organized approach, but importantly, he based his philosophy on "Brazilian talent" and did not want to impose an alien model onto it.
As you can see, attempts to impose a style that is incongruent with a nation's semiotic experiences will likely meet resistance. Futebol arte and futebol força did not just represent different styles of play, but also different ways of understanding the world.
In that sense, when a tactical idea migrates from one culture to another, it is filtered through the semiosphere of the receiving culture, its history, values, traditions, and ideologies, which affects whether they are adopted, modified, or rejected.
Semiotics allows us to shift our focus from identifying global-local interactions to understanding the process through which these interactions materialize into new styles of play.
With this semiotic perspective in mind, a style of play is not reduced to a set of tactical decisions, but becomes the outcome of a glocal process in which global and local forces interact, adapt, and reconfigure within a cultural semiosphere.
A Short Recap of Glocal and Semiotic Views
In the earlier sections, I explored the concept of glocalization as a framework for understanding how the global and local interact as equal co-creators in shaping styles of play.
In the last section, I proceeded to reinforce the fact that glocalization, at least in the way it has been theorized, operates predominantly at a structural level in which there is a broad focus on the historical, economic, and cultural forces that shape the interaction between the global and the local.
While this structural approach captured the "what" (the observable outcomes of glocalization) it left a key question unanswered: How do these styles of play emerge in the first place?
To address this question, I introduced a semiotic perspective to uncover the specific global and local elements that converge to produce a distinct style of play, and built this semiotic perspective, so far, on the following concepts:
One, semiotics as the study of how signs and symbols are used to create and interpret meaning within cultures.
Two, the semiosphere as the total semiotic space of a culture (wherein all languages and communication occur) that encompasses the cultural, social, and historical context in which meaning is created.
Three, semiotic experiences as the shared understanding of signs and meanings within a culture.
Four, culture as a "non-hereditary collective memory" where texts serve as repositories of collective knowledge, values, and traditions and preserve the memory of past contexts while enabling the creation of new meanings in contemporary settings.
My semiotic perspective on the emergence of styles of play in football posits that a tactical idea does not simply transfer from one football culture to another in its original form. Instead, it is adopted, modified, or resisted based on the receiving culture’s semiosphere (its history, values, traditions, and ideologies).
Within this semiosphere, football itself functions as a semiotic system, where tactical ideas are not static but constantly shaped by the cultural context in which they are received.
To illustrate this, I used the example of Catenaccio to show that its defensive mindset was not just a characteristic of the style but a reflection of deep cultural values of caution and resilience deeply embedded within the Italian semiosphere.
I built on the idea of the semiosphere to introduce semiotic experiences as the shared understanding of the semiotic space within a culture that guides the process by which the semiosphere adopts, modifies, or rejects an idea.
From this point, I tied the notion of semiotic experiences to Lotman’s view of culture as a "non-hereditary collective memory" for understanding how styles of play evolve over time.
I distilled this into Lotman’s idea that various texts within a culture serve as repositories of collective memory, preserving and transmitting knowledge, values, and traditions
If we view a style of play as a text with the capacity to accumulate knowledge over time and preserve the memory of the previous contexts, then the "memory" within the text (style of play) enables is to create new meanings and become part of the contemporary culture even when originating from different contexts or time periods.
I presented Italian football as a case in point to show that the widespread preference for back-three systems and defensive mindset could not be reduced to a tactical choice, but instead is a product of the collective memory of Italian football.
Having thoroughly introduced and explored both glocal and semiotic perspectives, I will now shift my focus to demonstrating, through three detailed case studies, how these perspectives when combined provide a clear lens for understanding how different styles of play emerge in football.
A Glocal and Semiotic Perspective
Catenaccio and Italian Society
“Catenaccio is like a Titian painting – soft, seductive and languid. The Italians welcome and lull you and seduce you into their soft embrace, and score a goal like the thrust of a dagger.”
David Winner, Author of Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football
Catenaccio appeared passive, cautious, and even sometimes subservient. It invited pressure and lured opponents into a false sense of control before striking with ruthless efficiency on the counter.
Catenaccio, which translates to "padlock" in Italian, was a defensive style of play that prioritized a strong and organized defense, often at the expense of scoring goals.
To understand the origins of Catenaccio, one must consider Lotman’s idea of the semiosphere, described by him as the total semiotic space within which communication and meaning-making occur.
In the same way that language cannot exist outside the semiosphere, football functions as a semiotic system where styles of play are embedded within a broader cultural context.
This means that when any style of play is introduced to a new cultural environment it is filtered through the semiotic structures of the receiving culture, which determines whether it is adopted, modified, or resisted.
The Italian semiosphere in the aftermath of World War II was defined by the daunting task of rebuilding a war-torn nation. The economy was in shambles, food was scarce, and unemployment was through the roof.
Fear and uncertainty defined their daily life, and despite these hardships, Italians remained hopeful, coming together in solidarity to share resources and support one another.
According to Gianni Brera, Italians after the war felt the need to be more cautious, and this prudence manifested itself in football. For Brera, Catenaccio was the only way for Italy to succeed. Catenaccio reflected the nation’s focus on survival and resilience while rebuilding from a place of vulnerability.
It was that that led Gianni Brera to speak of Italian ‘weakness’, to argue that defensive canniness was the only way they could prosper, an idea reinforced by the crushing defeat of the Second World War, which seemed to expose the unreliability of the militarism that had underlain Vittorio Pozzo’s success in the Mussolini era.
From Jonathan Wilson’s Inverting the Pyramid: A History of Football Tactics
Antonio Negri echoed Gianni Brera’s sentiments by emphasizing that Catenaccio was a symbol of survival for the working class, born out of the economic struggles of the 1950s, especially in regions like Venice.
In his 2006 interview with Liberation, Negri described how Catenaccio, born in the harsh economic conditions of Venice, reflected the struggles of northern Italian immigrants who were "tough and fierce because they were hungry.”
Negri compared Catenaccio to rugby, describing it as a game of strength and survival for people shaped by the harsh conditions of post-war Italy, where many were forced to emigrate in search of a better life.
Gianni Brera used to say that catenaccio was associated with the character of Italians, a tough/rough character, of peasant, from the soil. Catenaccio constituted the equivalent of rugby in football. It was the class struggle; one is weak and has to defend oneself. Quite the opposite of what Segun had to say. Catenaccio was born in Venice, a land in which people, in the 1950’s, were obliged to leave in order to emigrate because they had nothing to eat; it was the great migration of the masons/brick layers or ice cream vendors to Belgium, Switzerland, the line of the Rhine. Catenaccio corresponds to the nature of these northern regions, strong immigrants, tough, fierce because they were hungry.
In a 2006 interview with Liberation journalists Renaud Dely and Rico Rizzitelli, Antonio Negri discussed football, Fordism, and class struggle. The interview was translated from Spanish by Guio Jacinto
Arrigo Sacchi offered a broader perspective, seeing Italy’s defensive tendencies as rooted in its history of invasions and external threats. Sacchi believed this instinct to defend against external dangers influenced not just football but also Italian politics and society as a whole.
When I started, most of the attention was on the defensive phase. We had a sweeper and man-markers. The attacking phase came down to the intelligence and common sense of the individual and the creativity of the number ten. Italy has a defensive culture, not just in football. For centuries, everybody invaded us.
From Jonathan Wilson’s Inverting the Pyramid: A History of Football Tactics
Italians found strength in unity and embraced caution and resilience to navigate a period of stability. This post-war mentality of caution, resilience, and unity was a reflection of Italy’s broader cultural memory, what Lotman termed the "non-hereditary collective memory".
According to Lotman, cultures preserve and transmit their values, traditions, and historical experiences not through genetics but through shared texts, practices, and symbols.
In that sense, cultural texts, whether literature, art, or in this case, styles of play in football, serve as repositories of collective experience that preserve historical memory while also shaping coaching philosophies in the future.
Catenaccio is not simply a moment in football history, but a cultural text that continues to exert influence even as new generations of Italian coaches come and go.
Catenaccio's underlying principles of compact defensive structures and ruthless efficiency on the counter remain embedded within Italian football’s semiosphere.
Even when new styles of play emerge, they do so in congruence with this pre-existing memory, which explains why many Italian teams prefer to sit in mid-blocks and low-blocks for large periods of the game to this day.
Another key aspect of football’s semiotic nature is its underlying structural logic. Like all semiotic systems, football is fundamentally based on binarism. Lotman's concept of binarism revolves around the idea that elements within a semiotic system are often understood through pairs of opposites.
Binarism and asymmetry are the laws binding on any real semiotic system. Binarism, however, must be understood as a principle which is realized in plurality since every newly-formed language is in its turn subdivided on a binary principle.
From Yuri Lotman’s Universe of the Mind: A Semiotic Theory of Culture, p. 124
Lotman's comparison of the cultural language of the Middle Ages and that of the Enlightenment is structured around opposing characteristics, where the former sees everything as signifying a higher reality, the latter views the world of objects as real and signs as conventional.
Even when different cultures seem to be using the same terms, they fit into a different system. Lotman gives us a brilliant example of typology of cultures with his comparison between the cultural language of the Middle Ages and that of the Enlightenment. On the one hand, we have a culture in which everything (not merely words but also things) signifies a higher reality and where objects themselves are important not for their physical nature or their function, but rather in so much as they signify something else. On the other, we have a cultural system where the world of objects is real, while words and signs in general are conventional constructions.
From Umberto Eco in the Preface of Yuri Lotman’s Universe of the Mind: A Semiotic Theory of Culture
In Italian football, this manifests in the binary opposition between attacco (attack) and difesa (defense) and between creatività (creativity) and organizzazione (organization). This binarism is not symmetrical as there is an inherent asymmetry where one pole dominates over the other. For post-war Italy, its survival mindset meant that security took precedence over risk and became ingrained within the cultural semiosphere.
This asymmetry is evident in the common Italian football phrase: prima non prenderle (“first, don’t concede”). Such a defensive mindset perfectly captures the Italian post-war mentality as Italians preferred to sit back and keep a clean sheet rather than risk outscoring the opponent, closely resembling the Italian post-war approach to survival.
For this reason, we cannot view Catenaccio as a style of play that emerged in isolation. It was a reflection of Italy’s post-war mentality. In the same way Italy sought security in uncertain times, so too did its football.
Beyond it’s national context, Catenaccio also stood in stark contrast to the expressive and fluid attacking styles of South America. We can therefore see that Catenaccio functioned as a semiotic boundary that divided football into two distinct ideological camps. On one side was the idealistic vision, favoring free-flowing, expressive attacking football. On the other was the pragmatic approach, where organization, efficiency, and defensive solidity were prioritized.
In Lotmanian terms, cultures divide the world into internal and external spaces, defining what is "ours" versus what is "other".
Paradoxically, the internal space of a semiosphere is at the same time unequal yet unified, asymmetrical yet uniform. Composed as it is of conflicting structures, it none the less is also marked by individuation. Its self-description implies a first person pronoun. One of the primary mechanisms of semiotic individuation is the boundary, and the boundary can be defined as the outer limit of a first-person form. This space is 'ours', 'my own', it is 'cultured', 'safe', 'harmoniously organized', and so on. By contrast 'their space' is 'other', 'hostile', 'dangerous', 'chaotic'.
From Yuri Lotman’s Universe of the Mind: A Semiotic Theory of Culture, p. 131
Italian football, particularly in the post-war era, constructed caution, resilience, and unity as internal cultural values, distinguishing itself from the more expansive, attacking styles of play dominant in other nations.
However, the roots of Catenaccio itself extend beyond Italy. The earliest iteration of Catenaccio can be traced back to Karl Rappan’s verrou (“bolt”) system in Switzerland that he developed to compensate for the physical limitations of his semi-professional players.
Unlike the standard W-M formation, which relied heavily on individual duels, the verrou introduced a verrouilleur (a free defender positioned behind the backline) to collect any loose balls. This allowed Rappan’s teams to absorb attacks and strike on the counter with efficiency, something that would become a defining characteristic of Italian Catenaccio.
His solution, which was given the name verrou - bolt - by a Swiss journalist, is best understood as a development from the old 2-3-5 - which had remained the default formation in Vienna long after Chapman’s W-M had first emerged in England. Rather than the centre-half dropping in between the two full-backs, as in the W-M, the two wing-halves fell back to flank them. They retained an attacking role, but their primary function was to combat the opposition wingers. The two full-backs then became in effect central defenders, playing initially almost alongside each other, although in practice, if the opposition attacked down their right, the left of the two would move towards the ball, with the right covering just behind, and vice versa. In theory, that always left them with a spare man - the verrouilleur as the Swiss press of the time called him.
From Jonathan Wilson’s Inverting the Pyramid: A History of Football Tactics
The historical connections between Switzerland and Italy suggest that this influence was no coincidence. In the early 20th century, northern Italian football was heavily shaped by Swiss players and coaches.
Italy and Switzerland shared deep football connections with Swiss players and coaches frequently crossing into Italian leagues. Vittorio Pozzo (Italy’s World Cup-winning coach) played for Grasshoppers’ reserve side, Franz Cali, the first captain of the Italian national team, was educated in Lausanne, and and many northern Italian clubs relied on Swiss expatriates during the early 20th century.
Again, it seems to have grown up independently of Rappan, although the historical influence of Switzerland on Italian football is significant. Vittorio Pozzo, for instance, spent two years playing for the reserve team of the Zurich club Grasshoppers, while Franz Cali, the first captain of Italy, was educated in Lausanne. Between the wars, it would have been unusual to find a leading northern Italian side without at least one Swiss expat, their presence being felt particularly strongly at Genoa, Torino and Internazionale.
From Jonathan Wilson’s Inverting the Pyramid: A History of Football Tactics
Historical migration data also supports this connection. By 1860, there were already 10,000 Italians living in Switzerland, a number that surged to 202,000 by 1910, with most migrating from northern Italy. This migration could not entirely have been in search of labor, because cultural exchanges inevitably spilled into areas like football, which was gaining traction across Europe at the time.
Given this context, it is hardly surprising that the verrou found its way into Italian football in the shape of Catenaccio. Lotman illustrates this in what he defines as the semiotic experience i.e. the shared understanding of signs and meanings within a culture that influence how new ideas are adopted, modified, or rejected.
If we view Catenaccio as a cultural text, in the Lotmanian sense, it is a structured set of meanings that accumulates knowledge over time, preserves past contexts, and enables the creation of new meanings in contemporary settings.
As a result, Rappan’s verrou was not adopted in its original form but was refracted through the Italian semiosphere and transformed into a style of play that resonated with the post-war mentality of caution, resilience, and unity rooted in Italy's non-hereditary collective memory.
Gipo Viani, managing Salernitana in the late 1940s, was one of the first adopters of Catenaccio and famously leaned on it to compensate for his team’s lack of talent. He recognized that a small club like Salernitana lacked the talent to compete on equal ground and therefore turned to a defensive approach to fortify their backline.
When Catenaccio first emerged in Italy, it was not universally embraced. It found particular favor among smaller clubs like Salernitana under Gipo Viani, who lacked the resources to compete in open play against stronger teams.
Whether it was inspired by a dawn walk by the sea or not, it seems that Viani, recognizing the limited resources at his disposal, decided the most fruitful policy was to try to stop the opposition playing - to exercise ‘the right of the weak’. One of the notional halfbacks, Alberto Piccinini, who went on to win two scudetti with Juventus, dropped in to mark the opposing centre-forward, with the central of the three defenders in the W-M, which had come by then to supplant Pozzo’s metodo as the default formation in Italy, falling back as the sweeper. Viani then had his team sit deep, drawing out the opposition, leading them to commit extra men to the attack and so rendering them vulnerable to the counter.
From Jonathan Wilson’s Inverting the Pyramid: A History of Football Tactics
Similar to the verrou, Viani deployed a sweeper to intercept forwards who tried to break through the backline with in-behind runs. But Viani’s variant of Catenaccio, known as "Vianema," differed slightly due to its focus on defensive solidity and less on counter-attacking.
With Vianema, Salernitana boasted the best defensive record among the three lower Italian divisions, resulting in their promotion to Serie A in 1947. However, in the 1947-48 Serie A season, they struggled to win a single away match and were immediately relegated.
Despite this, Viani’s relative success led to the widespread adoption of Catenaccio across Italy, especially among smaller teams that realized they couldn’t compete in open play against stronger sides.
Football journalist Lodovico Maradei noted that smaller teams recognized they couldn’t win individual battles, so they adopted a defensive mindset to survive in the league.
Viani’s relative success at Salernitana made catenaccio fashionable, and it began to spring up in varying guises across the country. ‘Smaller teams began realising that they stood no chance if they turned the game into a series of individual battles,’ explained Lodovico Maradei, the former chief football writer of the Gazzetta della Sport.
From Jonathan Wilson’s Inverting the Pyramid: A History of Football Tactics
Viani’s philosophy, which was dubbed "the right of the weak," gave smaller clubs a tool to level the playing field as it allowed them to neutralize the attacking talent of bigger teams.
In the same way post-war Italy sought to stabilize during tough times, Catenaccio gave smaller Italian clubs a chance to compete against stronger teams.
This success did not go unnoticed. Eventually, bigger clubs like Inter Milan, under manager Alfredo Foni in the first half of the 1950s, adopted Catenaccio. This marked a significant turning point, as it demonstrated that Catenaccio was not just a tactic of survival for weaker teams but a system with which even major clubs could win trophies. Inter, despite scoring fewer goals than their rivals, won the championship due to their strong defence.
Still, catenaccio was seen as ‘the right of the weak’, and it was only when Internazionale adopted it under Alfredo Foni that it began to be seen as a system with which big clubs could win trophies. He had Gino Armano, the right-winger, drop back to mark the opposing left-winger, allowing Ivano Blason, the right-back, to shift across as a sweeper. Armano was the first of what are known in Italy as tornanti - ‘returners’ - wingers who track back and help with the defence.
From Jonathan Wilson’s Inverting the Pyramid: A History of Football Tactics
Over time, the strict interpretation of Catenaccio as a purely defensive system began to evolve. Some managers, like Herrera, introduced elements of pressing ("Taca la bala – Attack the ball") and emphasized the importance of space, ideas that even shared similarities with Total Football.
Taca la bala – Attack the ball – this was a motto that epitomized Herrera’s ideas about pressing and the use of space on the field. You did not wait for your opponents to come to you, but tried to anticipate their movements. Still, today, this kind of play is characteristic of the difference between Italian and English defenders, for example. Far from what is usually seen as catenaccio, many of Herrera’s theories about the use of space were similar to those used by ‘Total Football’ gurus in the 1970s. ‘Create empty spaces. In football as in life, in painting, in music, empty spaces and silences are as important as those that are filled’ was another of Herrera’s slogans. His teams relied on rock-solid defenders, but also utilized – for the first time – defenders who could attack.
From John Foot’s Calcio: A History of Italian Football
The adoption of Catenaccio among the bigger clubs followed a center-periphery asymmetry, which according to Lotman's theory, is a pattern where innovations often emerge from the periphery before being adopted by the dominant center.
Lotman explicitly states that the structure of the semiosphere is asymmetrical, and this asymmetry is particularly apparent in the relationship between the centre of the semiosphere and its periphery.
The structure of the semiosphere is asymmetrical. Asymmetry finds expression in the currents of internal translations with which the whole density of the semiosphere is permeated. Translation is a primary mechanism of consciousness… Asymmetry is apparent in the relationship between the centre of the semiosphere and its periphery. At the centre of the semiosphere are formed the most developed and structurally organized languages, and in first place the natural language of that culture… If in the centre of the semiosphere the description of texts generates the norms, then on the periphery the norms, actively invading 'incorrect' practice, will generate 'correct' texts in accord with them.
From Yuri Lotman’s Universe of the Mind: A Semiotic Theory of Culture, pp. 127-129
This asymmetrical relationship allows the center of the semiosphere to exert significant influence over the entire semiotic space. The center attempts to impose its norms and descriptions, perceiving them as "our" language, which is well-organized and familiar.
The periphery of the semiosphere exists in contrast to the centre. This contrast is marked by a growing tension between the semiotic practices of its inhabitants and the norms and descriptions originating from the center of the semiosphere. The center's structure is often treated as "someone else's" language on the periphery.
As we have already said, the extension of the metastructural self description from the centre of the culture over all its semiotic space, makes it possible for an historian to look at an entire synchronic section of the semiosphere as something unified, though in fact it only gives an illusion of unification. In the centre the metastructure is 'our' language, but on the periphery it is treated as 'someone else's' language unable adequately to reflect the semiotic reality beneath it: it is like the grammar of a foreign language.
From Yuri Lotman’s Universe of the Mind: A Semiotic Theory of Culture, p. 134
Unlike the more rigid and self-regulating centre, the periphery is a zone of significant semiotic change. It is here, in the friction between imposed norms and actual practices, that new languages, codes, and forms of expression come into being.
On the periphery - and the further one goes from the centre, the more noticeable this becomes - the relationship between semiotic practice and the norms imposed on it becomes ever more strained. Texts generated in accordance with these norms hang in the air, without any real semiotic context; while organic creations, born of the actual semiotic milieu, come into conflict with the artificial norms. This is the area of semiotic dynamism. This is the field of tension where new languages come into being.
From Yuri Lotman’s Universe of the Mind: A Semiotic Theory of Culture, p. 134
There is a process of shifting where the periphery of culture can move into the center, and the center can be pushed out to the periphery. Lotman cited the shift in housing after the Russian Revolution and the trajectory of fashion like jeans moving from working clothes to mainstream as examples.
The 'night-time world' of the city also lies on the boundary of the space of culture or beyond it. This travesty world presupposes anti-behaviour. We have already discussed the process whereby the periphery of culture moves into the centre, and the centre is pushed out to the periphery. The force of these opposing currents is even stronger between the centre and 'the periphery of the periphery', the frontier zone of culture. After the 1917 October Revolution in Russia this process took place literally in many shapes and forms: poor folk from the outskirts moved in their masses into the 'apartments of the bourgeoisie' who were either turned out or had to squeeze up to accommodate them. There was a symbolic sense too in the moving of the beautiful wrought iron railings which before the Revolution surrounded the royal gardens round the Winter Palace in Petrograd to a working-class area where they were put up round a square, while the tsar's garden was left without a railing, 'open'. In the utopian plans for a socialist city of the future, of which any number were drawn up in the early 1920, a recurrent idea was that the centre of the town should be a giant factory 'in place of the palaces and churches'.
From Yuri Lotman’s Universe of the Mind: A Semiotic Theory of Culture, p. 141
From the beginning, Catenaccio was a tool of survival for smaller Italian clubs who could not compete with the superior technical quality of the bigger teams. Teams on the periphery, such as Salernitana, Padova, and Triestina, embraced a defensive mindset out of necessity, to neutralize the attacking prowess of stronger sides.
The initial reaction from the "center" (bigger clubs) was not immediate adoption. However, as these "peripheral" ideas yielded success for the smaller clubs, the "center" began to recognize their value. The success of teams like Viani's Salernitana and Nereo Rocco's early sides demonstrated that a strong defence could be a powerful tool even for clubs with greater attacking talent.
As these smaller teams found success, the "center" of Italian football began appropriating Catenaccio. Helenio Herrera’s Grande Inter did not create Catenaccio but rather codified and refined it, transforming what was once a reactive approach into an institutionally accepted model for success.
Throughout my analysis in this section, we can see that the adoption of Catenaccio in Italy was not an isolated event but part of a broader pattern of glocalization, where Karl Rappan’s verrou system combined with the Italian semiosphere.
At the global level, the verrou system was developed in Switzerland by Rappan to compensate for the technical limitations of his semi-professional players. He introduced a verrouilleur (a free defender positioned behind the backline) to sweep up loose balls, which allowed Swiss teams to sit absorb pressure and strike on the counter.
When verrou entered Italy, it did not remain a direct imitation of Rappan’s system. It was absorbed and reconfigured within the Italian semiosphere, where an existing post-war mentality of caution, resilience, and unity was already deeply ingrained.
Due to historical ties between Italy and Switzerland, the migration of Italian workers into Switzerland and vice versa throughout the early 20th century facilitated cultural exchanges, including tactical ideas. It is plausible that the cross-border movement of players, coaches, and tactical ideas helped introduce verrou to Italy.
At the local level, the transformation of verrou into Catenaccio was shaped by the realities of post-war Italy. The country, emerging from devastation, was in a period of reconstruction in which Italians sought to protect what little they had rather than risk it all.
And just as Italians sought security in an unpredictable world, their football reflected this need for stability. Catenaccio became a physical manifestation of a deep-seated instinct for survival, preferring to protect their goal rather than outscoring their opponents.
But its assimilation into the Italian semiosphere meant that it could not be implemented without undergoing substantial modification.
Rather than being applied in its original Swiss form, verrou was fused with the Italian post-war cultural semiosphere, leading to the evolution of the libero (sweeper) as a crucial player.
This involved a tactical shift where Italian teams under Catenaccio often employed a deeper defensive line by positioning players closer to their goal to absorb pressure and exploit counter-attacking opportunities.
Although the verrouilleur's role was primarily defensive, the libero gained the freedom to initiate attacks from the back through carrying the ball from deep or relaying long balls. The libero became instrumental not only in defence but also in the team's transition to counter-attacks.
Thus, the journey of verrou into Italy was not simply about the importation of a foreign tactical idea but a process of glocalization where the global influence of verrou met the Italian post war realities to create Catenaccio.
It is not surprising to see that in the same way Italy rebuilt itself in the post-war period with an emphasis on caution, resilience, and unity, its football reflected these very same principles.
Total Football and Dutch Progressivism
“Total Football means that a player in attack can play in defence – only that he can do this, that is all. Everything starts simply. The defender must first think defensively, but he must also think offensively. For an attacker it is the other way around. Somewhere they meet.”
Barry Hulshoff
The First Instance of Glocalization: Dutch Technicality and the Arrival of Jack Reynolds and Vic Buckingham
Amsterdam wasn’t always the lively and cosmopolitan city it is today. What was once one of Europe's dullest capitals is now a city synonymous with sophistication, beauty, and indulgence. For those growing up in the postwar era, life in Amsterdam felt especially bleak.
Max Arian of De Groene Amsterdammer recalled the era's pervasive boredom, saying, "We were so, so bored". This sentiment was shared by dancer Rudi van Dantzig, who described the time as oppressive and joyless, where "life was terribly boring and heavy" and "the music and everything in culture was very heavy".
Just as Dutch society lagged behind, so did its football. At the time, Dutch football was deeply embedded in the post-war Dutch semiosphere characterized by a strong adherence to tradition and a degree of cultural conservatism.
This was a society where established norms and hierarchies remained largely unchallenged and where the pace of change was slow. This conservatism was directly mirrored in Dutch football through its slow pace of adaptation which lagged significantly behind its counterparts.
While Hungary revolutionized the game with a deep-lying forward, Brazil dominated with 4-2-4, and Italy refined the rigid catenaccio system, Dutch football remained outdated. Because Dutch clubs still relied on the old-fashioned WM formation (2-3-5), they were tactically decades behind.
By 1948, Dutch coaching philosophy had yet to adopt the concept of a defensive center-half, a role introduced by Herbert Chapman in the 1920s. Even into the early 1960s, many Dutch teams still played with just two defenders, which exposed their tactical flaws on the international stage.
But in the early 1960s, everything changed for the Netherlands. Once considered one of the most backward countries in Europe, the nation experienced a cultural, political, and social revolution. According to Hubert Smeets, a commentator for NRC Handelsblad, this shift was marked by the rise of Johan Cruyff as a key figure, propelling the country into a more progressive era.
We were the most backward country in all of Europe, except for Ireland. Absolutely backward, especially in the participation of women in the workforce, which was the lowest in Europe. Then we experienced a cultural, political and social revolution, with Johan Cruyff as the main representative, and we became one of the most forward, one of the most progressive, countries in Europe.
From David Winner’s Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football
The transformation was predicated on a number of factors. Post-war reconstruction restored the country's infrastructure, while a growing welfare state and a booming economy paved the way for new opportunities. As the traditional divisions of Dutch society weakened, generational tensions grew, which were fueled by the post-war peace and increased access to global culture through television and pop music.
“With hindsight it is easy to identify some of the contributing factors to Holland’s cultural and social upheaval. In wider society the country’s infrastructure had been restored after the war, the safety-net of a complex welfare state had been set up and the economy began to boom. As the British class system wilted in the 1960s, so the traditional divisions of Dutch society – Catholic, Reformed, Socialist and so on – rapidly crumbled in the wake of new prosperity. As the prewar generation aged, a generational tension was building. After twenty years of peace, there were unparalleled opportunities for international cultural cross-pollination via the new mediums of television and pop music.”
From David Winner’s Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football
Dutch football mirrored this cultural shift. In the early 1960s, it was crude and amateurish, but within a decade, it evolved into the most innovative and sophisticated football in the world. This transformation, defined by the rise of "Total Football," saw the Netherlands shift from a rigid approach to a fluid style that would influence the global game.
The concept of Total Football, which became synonymous with Dutch football, did not emerge in isolation. It was built upon a series of foundational elements and factors that set the stage for its development.
Ajax in particular, had a long-standing tradition of intelligent attacking football that began with Jack Reynolds in the early 20th century. The discipline of technique, quick-passing, and fitness instilled by Reynolds transformed the then minor club into a national powerhouse. His strict coaching, which emphasized both fitness and technical skills, created a foundation for Ajax's success.
In the 1920s, Reynolds laid the foundation for Ajax's youth system by dedicating long hours to coaching players at all levels in the same style. His belief that "the best defense is attack" resonated throughout the club's philosophy and was later encapsulated in a poem about the importance of open play and using the wings.
Open game, open game/you can’t afford to neglect the wing
From David Winner’s Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football
The arrival of Jack Reynolds marked a turning point in Dutch football history. Reynolds’ impact on Dutch football was not an imposition of foreign ideas, but can be seen as a form of semiotic experience where the shared understanding of signs and meanings within Dutch football culture influenced how his ideas were received and adapted. His coaching style was not adopted wholesale but refracted through the existing Dutch semiosphere.
Ajax's style of play was praised by the press and considered almost equal to the English professional game, only lacking the English teams' spirit. The Volkskrant newspaper praised Ajax’s "technically controlled" game, ball skills and tactics:
Ajax comes close to the English professional game and lacks only the spirit that English teams have.
From David Winner’s Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football
In the late 1950s, English coach Vic Buckingham helped further refine Ajax’s style by placing more emphasis on possession-focused football.
Possession football is the thing, not kick and rush. Long-ball football is too risky. Most of the time, what pays off is educated skills. If you’ve got the ball, keep it. The other side can’t score. I liked to have people who could dominate other sides playing like that.’ He was impressed by Ajax’s set-up, philosophy and young talent. ‘Dutch football was good. It wasn’t a rough-tough, got-to-win-things mentality. They were gentlemen. Ajax was an institution.
From David Winner’s Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football
For him, possession was central, and he believed that Ajax’s ability to dominate possession was key to their success. Buckingham also admired Ajax’s approach of maintaining the ball while creating space with quick, fluid passing, which was a refreshing change from the more direct "kick and rush" football of English teams.
Their skills were different, their intellect was different and they played proper football. They didn’t get this from me; it was there waiting to be stirred up – I don’t know what they did before me – it was just a case of telling them to keep more possession. I’ve always thought possession is nine-tenths of the game, and Ajax played possession football. It was lovely. I used to just sit back and relax.
From David Winner’s Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football
Buckingham observed the evolution of Ajax’s play, where players developed an almost instinctive understanding of each other's movements.
I influenced them, but then they went on and did things above that which delighted me. For instance, two of them would go down the left side of the field passing to each other – just boom-boomboom – and they’d go thirty yards and two men would have cut out three defenders and created a vast acreage of space. I’d never seen that done before.
From David Winner’s Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football
Ajax’s players would instinctively form triangles and combinations and pass the ball with precision across the field to create space and progress up the pitch without relying on moments of individual brilliance.
They really were an amazing side. You only had to give them an idea; they added skills, movements and combinations all the time. They’d get into threes and fours without really knowing they were doing it. They were playing “habit football” after a time, and habit football was star football. They could find each other by instinct. They’d have a rhythm; go from the left side of the field to the right side of the field but make progress of thirty or forty or fifty yards as well. Keeping the ball all the time. You have to have a lot of skill to do that, and we trained all the time on it.
From David Winner’s Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football
In Lotman’s boundary formation theory he posits that the boundary is a fundamental and defining structure for the creation and maintenance of culture and meaning within a semiosphere.
Before the influence of figures like Reynolds and Buckingham, Dutch football operated within a relatively closed "internal space" characterized by adherence to the outdated formations and slow adaptation to new tactical trends.
The "external space" consisted of evolving styles of play developed in other countries (e.g., Hungary's deep-lying forward, Brazil's 4-2-4, and Italy's Catenaccio)
The boundary acts as the outer limit of this self-description, separating what is considered part of the cultural "self" and what is not.
Dutch football's "self-description" was rooted in its tradition of intelligent attacking football, but it was also marked by tactical rigidity and a lack of innovation.
The introduction of new tactical ideas and coaching philosophies through the arrival of Reynolds and Buckingham disrupted this established identity, leading to a redefinition of Dutch football's "self".
Similar to a physical one, a semiotic boundary controls what enters and leaves the semiosphere. Dutch football's initial boundary was relatively rigid and limited the entry of new secondary codes. The arrival of Reynolds and Buckingham acted as a catalyst for making the boundary more permeable, allowing for the introduction of new secondary codes.
Throughout this section, what we have observed so far is that before the period of Dutch transformation, Dutch football possessed its own set of primary codes that embodied its established traditions.
Ajax had a long-standing tradition of intelligent attacking football and even then Dutch clubs still relied on the old-fashioned WM formation (2-3-5), indicating a reluctance to embrace change and a slow adaptation to new tactical trends.
The arrival of Reynolds and Buckingham brought with it a set of secondary codes. They represented new tactical trends that would interact with and transform the existing primary codes.
Reynold’s emphasis on technical ability, disciplined training, and structured attacking play provided a new model for how Dutch football could be played.
Buckingham emphasized the importance of possession-focused football and coaching his players on how to create space and progress up the pitch through short and quick passes and constant movement between themselves.
The introduction of these secondary codes by Reynolds and Buckingham created a tension with the established primary codes, directly challenging some of their limitations, such as the reliance on outdated formations and the lack of tactical flexibility.
Dutch football did not blindly adopt the secondary codes, but filtered them through the Dutch semiosphere and adapted them to suit Dutch Football.
From this point, we can identify the first instance of glocalization that played a significant role in the development of Dutch Total Football. This process involved the interaction between primary and secondary codes to create a new, hybrid, and glocal style of play.
On the local level is Ajax’s pre-existing tradition of intelligent attacking football. On the global level is a combination of Reynold’s open attacking football and Vic Buckingham’s possession-focused football.
Reynolds was the first major global influence on Ajax’s style of play. Reynolds shaped Ajax’s identity through his emphasis on technical ability, disciplined training, and structured attacking play.
His belief in the importance of youth development and training consistency across all levels of the club meant that Ajax’s attacking style of play was replicated even at the youth level which created a unified style of play within the club.
The second global influence on Ajax’s style of play was Vic Buckingham who built on the foundation of technical quality and attacking intent that Reynolds had established by introducing a more structured possession game.
Under Buckingham, Ajax players learned to create space and progress up the pitch through short and quick passes and constant movement between players, which became the backbone of Total Football.
What we can see is the early stages of glocalization where the local (pre-existing tradition of intelligent attacking football) combined with the global (Reynold’s structured coaching & attacking play and Buckingham’s possession football) to create the early foundations of Total Football.
The interaction between primary and secondary codes demonstrates how Dutch football engaged in a process of glocalization to create a glocal style of play.
The Second Instance of Glocalization: Post-war Dutch Liberal Attitude
The peak of Provo influence came in 1966, two years before the uprisings in Paris, but just as disruptive in its own way. Unlike the revolutions that rocked France and the U.S., the Dutch version was more cultural than political, and more importantly, it was never followed by a reactionary backlash.
The real turning point came when Princess Beatrix announced plans to marry Claus von Amsberg, a German aristocrat and former Wehrmacht officer. For many Dutch citizens, the war was still a fresh wound and anti-German sentiment ran deep.
The Provos, a group of anarchist-minded youth, tapped into this anti-German sentiment and spread wild rumors about plans to disrupt the royal wedding.
They claimed they would lace the city’s water supply with LSD, feed hallucinogens to the horses pulling the royal carriage, or smear lion dung on the streets to spook the horses.
On March 10, the day of the wedding, Amsterdam’s streets erupted. As the royal procession passed through the city, white smoke filled the air. Smoke bombs filled the Raadhuisstraat, and for TV viewers at home, the screen went white. The police responded with brute force, charging into the crowds and beating protesters.
The unrest didn’t end there. Three months later, workers demanding better holiday pay took to the streets, briefly aligning with Provo. Clashes with police erupted near the Dam, and a worker, Jan Weggelaar, collapsed and died of a heart attack.
When De Telegraaf falsely reported that he had been struck by stones thrown by fellow protesters it triggering a fresh round of riots outside the newspaper’s headquarters. The government in a panic, authorities declared a state of emergency and called in 1,400 national and military police to restore order.
As we have discussed, any cultural phenomenon, whether it is a social movement or a style of football, is embedded within a broader cultural space known as the semiosphere. Much like Catenaccio was embedded within Italian football's semiosphere, so too was the Provo movement a product of its Dutch semiosphere.
The Provo movement, emerging within the Dutch semiosphere, tapped into the deep-seated anti-German sentiment following the war, using provocative actions and rhetoric.
Outside this semiosphere, there can be neither communication nor language. The Provo’s actions, though disruptive, were a form of communication within this specific cultural environment, reflecting the unique ways in which the Dutch semiosphere allowed for the expression of dissent and the negotiation of social change.
The events surrounding the royal wedding and the worker protests reveal a deeper reality about cultural shifts. At the heart of these shifts is the tension between long-standing traditions and new forms of self-expression.
In the Dutch context, this transformation was shaped by binarism. Traditional authority faced resistance from those challenging the status quo. A rigid social order stood in contrast to the growing demand for freedom, movement, and self-expression. The post-war mentality centered on survival and rebuilding clashed with a new liberal ethos that embraced individualism.
Lotman emphasizes that these binary oppositions are not neutral. They reflect an inherent asymmetry where one side gains prominence over the other. In the Dutch case, defiance overshadowed traditional authority.
The demand for freedom and self-expression disrupted rigid social structures. The shift from a survival mindset to one that prioritized personal freedom and self-expression was not a slow adjustment but a clear break from the past that transformed Dutch cultural identity in fundamental ways.
This shift was not confined to social and political domains. It also shaped the way the Dutch approached football. Was there a link between the cultural revolution and the transformation of Dutch football?
On the surface, perhaps not. They unfolded in the same city, at the same time, but neither the players nor the anarchist revolutionaries ever acknowledged any connection.
Despite this, the events of the Provo moment in 1966 suggested otherwise. The Provo movement had shaken Dutch society by proving that authority could be challenged and that old structures could be torn down.
Could the same refusal to accept the status quo have found itself onto the pitch? The 1960s in the Netherlands was a period of great cultural and social change.
There was a constant rejection of the establishment, particularly evident in the way the post-war baby boom generation challenged traditional social norms. Institutions in every field, which ranged from politics, art, and music, were being questioned and reinvented.
It's possible that Dutch football was not an exception. Total Football, in its own way, was an act of rebellion.
There were those for whom the connection was obvious. The late Rudi van Dantzig, Dutch choreographer and leader of Dutch National Ballet for twenty years, saw it in the way movement itself was suddenly celebrated on the stage and on the pitch:
Before the sixties, people were interested in theatre and music and literature but not dance. And then all of a sudden came this intense interest in bodily virtuosity: in football and dance. The theatres were suddenly full and there was a fanatical following for dance.
From David Winner’s Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football
The young generation refused to live in a grey society. Both literally and metaphorically, there was an energy, a sense of freedom, and a determination to move:
The young generation didn’t want a grey society any more. You could feel this explosion of being alive and kicking and moving. Of finding our feet, throwing off the old restraints. In a way, we discovered how small Holland was. But we also realized we could make it in the world. Football became international at that time too. We didn’t make the connections then, but I think we were all doing the same thing in different ways. Now I realise how similar the goals were.
From David Winner’s Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football
Psychoanalyst Anna Enquist saw this as a broader societal shift. The post-war years had been about survival and rebuilding. But by the sixties, there was room for something else:
People in the sixties were liberating from the fifties – which were so terrible. After the war, everybody had to work so hard. And football was liberated too. It has something to do with playing seriously. Play suddenly becomes a valuable thing, something to talk about, study, take seriously.
From David Winner’s Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football
Public policy professor Maarten Hajer saw the same transformation in football. Great Dutch players of the 60s and 70s, such as Van Hanegem, Cruyff, Krol, Suurbier represented a new liberal attitude towards authority. Even Rinus Michels, a well-known disciplinarian at the time, couldn’t completely control them.
The connection is a new liberal attitude towards authority. They were revolutionary players, these guys, extremely charismatic. People like Van Hanegem, Cruyff and Ruud Krol, Wim Suurbier. Rinus Michels was obviously an authoritarian figure but even he could not really control them. Cruyff was running the whole thing. He had these bizarre counter-intuitive ideas that were so brilliant that people followed his lead. In their attitudes to the games they were very liberal. When they get the football together, they have a combination of the system and the individual skill with a very high level of individual capacity.’ Hubert Smeets says Cruyff was not a Provo but was infinitely more important.
From David Winner’s Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football
Cruyff, in particular, saw the game differently, and his ideas, though often counterintuitive, worked. And this liberal attitude extended beyond the pitch when he challenged the very structure of the game. This was notable when he refused to conform to the Dutch FA’s sponsorship deal with Adidas by choosing to wear Puma boots instead. At the 1974 World Cup, he even altered his jersey to remove one of Adidas’s signature stripes. Journalist Hubert Smeets argued that Cruyff “was not a Provo but was infinitely more important”.
And Cruyff did provoke the establishment – to the limits. He destroyed the hierarchy of the Dutch game. He destroyed the position of the club board. For example, he refused to play in the boots stipulated under the contract the KNVB had signed with Adidas and played instead in Puma. (During the 1974 World Cup he even wore a shirt with only two stripes across the shoulders instead of Adidas’s trademark three.) Cruyff was also the first to understand that playing for the Dutch national team was important not only for him but also for the Netherlands. And while his ideals with regard to making money were not entirely altruistic, they can be traced nonetheless to the core values of the 1960s.
From David Winner’s Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football
Before Dutch football underwent tactical liberalization, the game was structured around linear attacking patterns that limited individual freedom. Tactical discipline was valued over creativity and player movement was dictated by fixed roles rather than individual freedom.
Dutch football mirrored the post-war mentality of structure and control, where predictability and order were valued above all else. But just as Dutch society in the 1960s rejected rigid social norms, Dutch football began to break free from its own constraints. The game became more fluid and individual freedom emerged as a defining characteristic of Dutch football.
The transformation of Dutch football was inseparable from the sweeping cultural changes redefining the Netherlands in the 1960s. During this time, the Dutch were questioning traditional structures and redefining their identity.
Dutch society in the 1960s was moving away from rigid hierarchies and embracing freedom, movement, and individual expression. These same ideas took shape on the pitch.
Total Football was more than just a new way to play the game. Total football reflected the Dutch rejection of rigid authority and their embrace of freedom and self-expression, both in society and on the pitch.
From here, we can trace the second instance of glocalization where global countercultural movements combined with the Dutch social transformation. Across the world, the 1960s and 1970s were defined by a defiance against traditional authority.
In Paris, students and factory workers clashed with police in the streets. In San Francisco, the counterculture (often associated with hippies) rejected mainstream consumerism and the Vietnam War. Netherlands was caught in this wave of change, but in its own unique localized form.
The country was emerging from the hardships of the post-war years, and for the younger generation, the rigid and disciplined mindset of the 1950s felt stifling. The fifties were a time of survival and rebuilding.
But by the sixties, the younger generation wanted something different. They refused to be bound by the strict social order that had shaped their parents' world. They sought freedom and self-expression.
They found it in the Provo movement. They found it in art, in music, in politics. And, whether they realized it or not, they found it in football.
Dutch football, like Dutch society, was breaking free from its old constraints. The traditional way football was played with its fixed roles was being torn down.
In its place was a style of play where any player could take on any position at any time. Defenders could become attackers, midfielders could drop into the backline, and wingers could drift inside.
This was the liberal attitude of the sixties and seventies made manifest on the pitch. Just as the younger generation rejected the authority of the post-war establishment, Dutch football rejected the old rigid way of playing football characterized by fixed roles.
What we see is the process of glocalization at work, where global countercultural movements interact with the Dutch social transformation to produce the individual freedom that was a defining characteristic of Total Football.
The Third Instance of Glocalization: Dutch Architecture and Dutch Space
While Total Football served as a clear example of the synthesis between individual freedom and collective structure, this idea had already been explored decades earlier in Dutch Total architecture.
The Amsterdam school of architecture, led by Michel de Klerk, envisioned the city as a unified work of art, where every detail, from apartment blocks to furniture, was interconnected.
He believed no detail was too small to be considered part of a greater whole i.e. every carpet, lamp post, and doorway contributed to the city’s cohesive identity.
This approach of balancing rigid design principles with expressive freedom anticipated the balance between structure and freedom that would later define Total Football.
Nowhere was this more visible than in the Old South district, where H. P. Berlage’s masterplan imposed order through sweeping boulevards and imposing apartment blocks, while leaving room for eccentric details e.g. curved walls, animal carvings, and unexpected ornamentation.
By the 1960s, as Michels and Ajax began shaping Total Football, Dutch designers were pursuing total visions of their own.
Designers like Wim Crouwel’s Total Design studio sought to create visual identities that were transferable across different disciplines, whereas structuralist architects such as Aldo van Eyck and Herman Hertzberger rebelled against rigid modernism and advocated for flexible spaces that allowed reinterpretation.
Aldo van Eyck, one of the movement’s key figures, described cities as interconnected systems:
All systems should be familiarized, one with the other, in such a way that their combined impact and interaction can be appreciated as a single complex system.
From David Winner’s Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football
Herman Hertzberger, another leading structuralist, saw buildings not as fixed constructs but as evolving spaces capable of shifting roles:
Each form must be interpretable in the sense that it must be capable of taking on different roles. And it can only take on those different roles if the different meanings are contained in the essence of the form.
From David Winner’s Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football
Like Hertzberger designed buildings with the inherent capacity to serve multiple purposes, Michels crafted a style of play where players could seamlessly transition between different positions.
Michels encouraged his defenders and midfielders to join in the attacks. Michels: ‘In the fourth or fifth year I tried to find guidelines that meant we could surprise a little those walls. I had to let midfield players and defensive players participate in the building up and in the attacking. It’s easy to say, but it’s a long way to go because the most difficult thing is not to teach a full-back to participate in attacking – because he likes that – but to find someone else who is covering up.
From David Winner’s Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football
By the late 1960s, Ajax had perfected this system. Positional rotations became instinctive with defenders joining attacks and attackers dropping back to cover. Michels insisted that no player should be static; instead movement had to be constant, fluid, and interdependent. Barry Hulshoff captured the essence of it simply:
Total Football means that a player in attack can play in defence – only that he can do this, that is all. Everything starts simply. The defender must first think defensively, but he must also think offensively. For an attacker it is the other way around. Somewhere they meet.
From David Winner’s Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football
Dutch architecture, design, and Total Football all function within a broader non-hereditary collective memory that is passed down not through genetics but through shared ways of thinking about space.
The principles that define Dutch Structuralism, where built environments are designed as adaptable systems rather than static forms, reflect the same approach seen in positional rotations in football.
Space is not fixed but continuously redefined by movement. This spatial consciousness is ingrained in Dutch culture and has shaped everything from city planning to how football is played.
A Dutch architect does not see space as something fixed but as something to be shaped, adjusted, and redefined.
In the same way, a Dutch footballer does not develop an instinct for Total Football through inheritance but by absorbing a semiosphere where movement and structure coexist.
Johan Cruyff did not invent a new way of thinking about football from nothing. He refined and expressed a spatial logic that had long been present in Dutch urban planning, architecture, and even the country's historical strategies of land reclamation.
The same principles that guided the Dutch approach to designing cities found their way onto the football pitch, where space was treated not as a given but as something to be manipulated and controlled.
In Total Football, players moved, adjusted, rotated. Defenders attacked, attackers defended. Sjaak Swart described this intuitive positional rotation:
When I saw Suurbier going forward, I knew I had to go back. I didn’t have to be told. And after two years, everybody knew what to do. When Johan [Cruyff] went to the left, I knew I had to move to the far post. I was thinking he would cross the ball with the outside of his right foot, so I was coming and could score with my head.
From David Winner’s Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football
Dutch architecture and football have long been shaped by a tension between the center and the periphery, where ideas from the margins challenge and eventually redefine the mainstream.
Modernism and functionalism once dominated Dutch architecture by enforcing strict spatial organization and uniformity. But the periphery was where the most significant challenges to this rigidity took shape.
The Amsterdam School, led by Michel de Klerk, rejected the impersonal nature of modernist design. He saw the city as an interconnected system where every element, from brickwork to lampposts, contributed to a larger artistic vision.
H. P. Berlage’s masterplan for Amsterdam’s Old South imposed structural order but left room for unexpected details like curved walls and intricate ornamentation.
These deviations from rigid uniformity anticipated the way Dutch football would later balance structure with individual freedom.
The strongest push against modernist rigidity came from Dutch Structuralism. Aldo van Eyck and Herman Hertzberger argued that buildings should not impose static order but function as adaptable environments where space could evolve based on human interaction and changing needs.
Van Eyck described cities as networks of interconnected spaces while Hertzberger designed buildings that could shift functions over time.
Their work did not immediately replace modernist architecture, but over time, it forced a rethinking of rigid design principles, which allowed for a more fluid and user-centered approach to space.
Dutch football underwent a similar transformation. Traditional football powerhouses like England and Italy dictated the rules of the game with their emphasis on direct play and defensive solidity to maintain control.
The Netherlands, positioned on the periphery, developed an alternative approach to space. Just as Dutch Structuralists redefined architecture, Rinus Michels and Johan Cruyff reimagined the football pitch.
Michels introduced a system where defenders stepped into attack, midfielders rotated seamlessly, and attackers dropped back to create space, mirroring the adaptable spaces envisioned by structuralist architects.
Barry Hulshoff described the logic behind this:
It was coming out, going in, coming out, going in. You make space, you come into space. And if the ball doesn’t come, you leave this place and another player will come into it.
From David Winner’s Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football
Cruyff, much like Dutch designers who rejected rigid modernism, viewed positional rotations as the key to dismantling defences.
Players like Sjaak Swart and Ruud Krol instinctively adjusted their positioning in relation to their teammates, much like Dutch urban planners designed cities to be dynamic rather than constrained.
At first, these ideas were seen as experimental, but by the late 1960s, Ajax had perfected the system. By the 1974 World Cup, the Dutch national team had proven that a fluid, adaptable approach to space could succeed at the highest level.
Space was never static, but created, occupied, abandoned, reoccupied. Hulshoff again puts this into perspective clearly:
It was coming out, going in, coming out, going in. You make space, you come into space. And if the ball doesn’t come, you leave this place and another player will come into it. This movement flows down the sides of the team and also in the middle.
From David Winner’s Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football
Space is the defining element of Dutch football, but no other nation has approached it with the same level of abstraction, structure, and architectural precision as the Dutch.
Total Football was built on a revolutionary concept: space on the pitch is not a fixed entity but something flexible, something a team could control and manipulate to its advantage.
The central idea of Total Football was to reimagined the dimensions of the pitch itself. It proposed that a football field was not a rigid 105m x 68m rectangle but a fluid and ever-changing landscape that expanded and contracted based on how a team played.
When in possession, Ajax (and later the Dutch national team) stretched the field to its maximum. Players spread wide, using the wings to create as much space as possible, making defenders chase shadows and opening new passing lanes
Ruud Krol explained the logic behind this:
We talked always about space in a practical way. When we were defending, the gaps between us had to be very short. When we attacked, we spread out and used the wings. Our system was also a solution to a physical problem. Fitness has to be one hundred per cent, but how can you play for 90 minutes and remain strong? If I, as left-back, run 70 meters up the wing, it’s not good if I immediately have to run back 70 meters to my starting position. So, if the left-midfield player takes my place, and the left-winger takes the midfield position, then it shortens the distances. If you have to run ten times seventy meters and the same distance back ten times, that’s a total of 1400 meters. If you change it so you only must run 1000 meters, you will be 400 meters fresher. That was the philosophy.
From David Winner’s Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football
This continuous exchange of positions reduced wasted effort and ensured that every run served a tactical function: either to create space or to conserve energy.
Barry Hulshoff described how Johan Cruyff constantly refined these ideas:
We discussed space all the time. Cruyff always talked about where people should run, where they should stand, when they should not be moving. It was all about making space and coming into space. It is a kind of architecture on the field. It is about movement but still it is about space, about organizing space. You have to know why building up from the right side or from the left side is a different movement from when you build up from the centre.
From David Winner’s Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football
What made this concept uniquely Dutch? The football pitch is the same size everywhere in the world, yet no other nation saw the game in this way.
The answer lies in Dutch history. The Netherlands is a country that has always had to think creatively about space; not just in football, but in everyday life.
As a small, densely populated nation, it has spent centuries mastering the art of reclaiming land from the sea, structuring cities with meticulous planning, and designing architecture that maximized efficiency.
Total Football was simply an extension of this mindset. It was an approach to football shaped by a national identity that had always treated space as something to be designed, controlled, and reimagined.
The Dutch obsession with space stems from their unique geography. The Netherlands is one of the most densely populated and highly planned countries on Earth. Every square meter of land has been carefully designed, debated, and controlled, not just for efficiency but for survival.
Because of their strange landscape, the Dutch are a nation of spatial neurotics. On the one hand they don’t have nearly enough of the stuff. Holland is one of the most crowded and most intensively planned landscapes on Earth. Space is an inordinately precious commodity, and for centuries the use of every square centimetre of every Dutch city, field and polder has been carefully considered and argued over. The land is controlled because as a matter of national survival it must be.
From David Winner’s Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football
More than half the country lies below sea level and requires an elaborate system of dikes and drainage to keep the sea at bay. The Dutch literally created their own land, a "fact" which can be summed up by the famous saying: “God made the world, but the Dutch made Holland.”
The Dutch water system has to be regulated tightly because more than fifty per cent of the country is below sea level. In the west of the country, the entire landscape is man-made – from the astounding network of canals, dikes and waterways to the awesome sea defences in Zeeland, to the great port of Rotterdam, the giant airport at Schiphol and the remarkably complex ancient compactness of the cities. Large parts of the country were literally dragged out of the sea and dried using centuries-old techniques of dike-building and drainage systems. As the old boast-cum-joke puts it: ‘God made the world, but the Dutch made Holland.’
From David Winner’s Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football
How the Dutch see and use space is a direct result of their vastly horizontal and overwhelmingly flat landscape. The open skies and endless horizons create a paradoxical environment that is simultaneously expansive yet confined.
The giant domed skies and limitless stretches of flat, geometrically ordered land have also turned the Dutch into agoraphobes. In the absence of natural mountains – or even hillocks worthy of the name – the Dutch have made their own in the form of tall houses with terrifyingly steep and narrow staircases. Dutch staircases are a shock to a non-native. Among the most extreme examples are those in the Edwardian-era tenements of west Amsterdam. In the Tweede Helmersstraat there are staircases that make the prospect of climbing the north face of the Eiger seem attractive: sheer stairfaces rising almost vertically for five storeys with barely enough room for a toehold on each rung, and tiny landings all the way up.
From David Winner’s Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football
To counteract this overwhelming openness, the Dutch have historically designed compact, carefully structured spaces in their cities and homes.
The traditional explanation for these extraordinary structures is that their lack of large stairwells or lifts saves valuable living-space. Yet old Dutch farmhouses also have steep stairs, and even in the Amsterdam Arena, the stairways are noticeably steeper and narrower-stepped than their Continental or British equivalents.
From David Winner’s Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football
This need to control and balance space is mirrored in Total Football where players consciously manipulate the dimensions of the pitch, either stretching the pitch when attacking or staying compact when defending.
This idea finds an interesting contrast in Himalayan cultures, where the opposite occurs. The towering mountains create a sense of oppressive verticality, so people build low, flat houses to feel more grounded.
‘The sheer abundance of the horizontal plane in everyday rural life leaves people lusting for something more vertical,’ he says. ‘It is as if the Dutch compensate for the overwhelming vastness of their sky and horizon by manufacturing uncomfortably small spaces for themselves to squeeze into.’ By contrast, he notes that amid the mountains of the Himalayas people compensate for the ‘oppressive verticality’ by building houses as low and flat as they possibly can.
From David Winner’s Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football
The Dutch, living in a world of flat openness, create tight, controlled spaces to provide a sense of stability. These environmental adaptations reveal how different landscapes shape not just architecture but also the way people think about space, including on the football field.
The Dutch mastery of space goes back centuries. During the war for independence against Spain in the 16th century, they pioneered an early version of defensive spatial control.
Rather than simply fighting invaders head-on, the Dutch flooded their own farmlands, reducing the available battlefield and forcing the Spanish into disadvantageous positions.
By making their land physically smaller, they turned space into a weapon. This same principle can be seen in Dutch Total Football where teams compress central space to suffocate opponents and force them wide where progression is less effective.
The Dutch were also among the first to plan and enforce a rigid separation between compact, crowded cities and their open rural areas. This first developed for strategic military reasons during the war for independence with Spain in the sixteenth century. Anticipating by nearly 400 years the Total Football concept of squeezing space in defence, the Dutch (literally) made their land as small as possible by flooding the farm lands between their walled cities when the Spaniards attacked.
From David Winner’s Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football
If the Dutch were historically skilled at compressing and defending space, they were equally adept at creating new space where none existed. Dr. Michiel Schwartz describes the Netherlands as a "country by design," where everything (from land to political structures) has been carefully planned.
This philosophy, known as maakbaarheid (the belief that society and environment can be shaped and controlled), is evident in all aspects of Dutch life, including football.
‘How can a small country like Holland, one of the most crowded nations on Earth, offer space?’ he asks. ‘The answer lies in the Dutch ability to create new space – not only literally, in the form of new land reclaimed from the sea, but in the form of new political structures, new social compacts and new relationships between society, technology and nature. This ability to make space gives rise to a host of surprising hybrids: what seems natural – the land, for instance – is in fact artificial, and often what is man-made has become intertwined with nature. This is the heart of the Dutch notion of maakbaarheid, the ability to shape, form and control every aspect of the social and physical environment… the belief that a country can be planned and made, from its physical environment to its social and cultural life.’
From David Winner’s Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football
The Dutch relationship with space is not just a matter of geography but it has also shaped their entire way of seeing the world, and by extension, their football.
The vast flatness of their landscape, the endless horizons, and the absence of natural landmarks have compelled the Dutch to develop an acute sense of distance, positioning, and structure. This instinct for measuring and organizing space is evident in everything from their art and architecture to their approach to football.
Rudi Fuchs, director of the Stedelijk Modern Art Museum in Amsterdam and one of the country’s leading art critics, argues that different nations and cultures develop distinct ways of perceiving the world, which is influenced by their landscape and climate.
Even though psychologists may dismiss this idea, Fuchs insists that these aesthetic tendencies are undeniable.
The psychologists deny these differences exist, but it’s there in the [Dutch] art and culture. Ask any Dutch person to draw the horizon and they will draw a straight line. If you ask someone from Yorkshire or Tuscany or anywhere else, it will have bumps and hills. A Scandinavian blue is cold and steely, completely unlike a blue in Italy. Italian painting is rich in warm reds, but when red appears in the work of a northern artist like Munch, it’s blood in the snow.
From David Winner’s Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football
The careful attention to detail with which Dutch painters created their paintings resembled the architectural understanding of space shown by Dutch footballers. Fuchs makes a striking comparison between different styles of play and artistic expressions.
Catenaccio is like a Titian painting – soft, seductive and languid. The Italians welcome and lull you and seduce you into their soft embrace, and score a goal like the thrust of a dagger. The Dutch make their geometric patterns. In a Vermeer, the pearl twinkles. You can say, in fact, that the twinkling of the pearl is the whole point of Vermeer. The whole painting is leading to this moment, the way the whole of football leads to the overhead goal of Van Basten. The English like to run and fight. When Gullit tried to transplant this Dutch art to Newcastle, he was trying to do something impossible. He was bound to fail.
From David Winner’s Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football
To make sense of the their overwhelming flatness, the Dutch developed an extraordinary ability to measure distances from the horizon with great accuracy. This is evident in Dutch Golden Age painting, where every element is carefully placed.
The 19th-century French writer Eugène Fromentin described this Dutch approach to art in Masters of Past Time:
Every object, thanks to the interest it offers, ought to be examined in its form and drawn before it is painted. In this way nothing is secondary. A landscape with its distances, a cloud with its movements, a piece of architecture with its laws of perspective, a face with its physiognomy, its distinctive traits, its passing expressions, a hand with its gesture, a garment in its natural folds, an animal with its carriage, its frame, the inmost characteristics of its kind.
From David Winner’s Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football
Fuchs expands on this idea by explaining how the Dutch instinctively measure and organize space:
To measure distance is a natural inclination, an instinct for Dutch people. We measure space quietly, very precisely and then order it in detail. That is the Dutch way of seeing, the Dutch approach to space: selective detail. It’s a natural, instinctive thing for us to do. You see it in our paintings, our architecture and our football too. Dutch football also is all about measuring space very precisely.
From David Winner’s Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football
Dutch artist Jeroen Henneman sees a direct link between the spatial consciousness in Dutch painting and Total Football:
Historically, Dutch painters always wanted a special quality in their work which looks easy to do but is very hard to achieve. When you see a painting by Mondrian or Vermeer, it feels very silent and fresh and quiet and “roomy”. When you space things, it becomes very quiet. No noise. If you translate that to football, it means it’s easier to play because there is more room to receive the ball. In the time of Cruyff, the footballers at Ajax began to want the same thing as the painters. Suddenly football was not about kicking each other’s legs any more. You went to matches at Ajax and came away with the feeling that you had seen something very special and that only you could see it. But then you talked to other people and you realised everyone felt the same thing. There was something spiritual going on, though exactly what would be hard to discover.
From David Winner’s Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football
The Dutch appreciation for space is reflected even in their taste in art. In 1995, an art survey by Komar and Melamid revealed that while the rest of the world favored realistic landscapes, the Dutch uniquely preferred abstract paintings. Dirk Sijmons suggests that this preference for abstraction is tied to the Dutch landscape itself:
“There is a link between the landscape. This must have something to do with the liking of abstract paintings and abstract football: you could call it “spatial football.”
From David Winner’s Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football
The Dutch engagement with space, whether in architecture, urban planning, or football, has always involved an active negotiation between between primary and secondary codes.
The primary codes, shaped by centuries of land reclamation and precise urban planning, established a way of thinking where space was not a fixed entity but something to be created, manipulated, and controlled.
In architecture, modernist and functionalist movements in the early 20th century introduced secondary codes that presented a new way of thinking about design that emphasized uniformity and efficiency.
Rather than simply conforming to these ideals, Dutch architects engaged with them critically. Michel de Klerk’s Amsterdam School resisted the cold, impersonal qualities of modernism by integrating intricate detailing into structured designs, ensuring that rigid forms still allowed for artistic expression.
Aldo van Eyck and Herman Hertzberger took this further, rejecting the notion that buildings should impose fixed functions. They envisioned adaptable environments where spaces evolved based on use rather than predetermined roles.
Dutch football followed a similar path. Traditional styles of play built on rigid formations and predefined player roles were disrupted by new ideas that emphasized fluid passing and individual freedom.
But these concepts were not simply absorbed. When outside ideas entered the Dutch semiosphere, they were never adopted outright but were reshaped to fit this existing spatial consciousness.
From this point, we can identify the third instance of glocalization where the rise of modernist and functionalist architecture in the early 20th century combined with Dutch structuralism and Dutch spatial consciousness.
The early 20th century saw the rise of modernist and functionalist architecture that prioritized simplicity and uniformity in order to meet the demands of industrialization and mass production.
The first major local response to modernism was the Amsterdam School led by Michel de Klerk. While modernist architecture sought uniformity, de Klerk viewed architecture a total work of art where every element contributed to a larger interconnected whole.
The Amsterdam School’s buildings which featured intricate brickwork and curved facades embraced the idea that structure and artistic expression could coexist together.
The second major local response came in the form of Dutch Structuralism and was pioneered by Aldo van Eyck and Herman Hertzberger. They rejected the idea of buildings as static and isolated objects and instead treated them as flexible systems capable of shifting roles and functions over time.
Van Eyck saw cities as networks of interconnected spaces, while Hertzberger designed buildings with modular elements that could be rearranged over time.
This concept of space as something fluid and adaptable resembled the broader Dutch spatial consciousness developed through centuries of designing and controlling their land.
The Netherlands, a nation built on reclaimed land, had always viewed space not as a given, but as something they could create, manipulate, and control.
And this same spatial consciousness that informed Dutch architecture and urban planning foreshadowed the tactical innovations that would come to define Total Football.
In the same way structuralist buildings allowed their occupants to redefine the spaces within them, Dutch Total Football gave players the freedom to rotate positions on the pitch.
When defenders stepped into attack, forwards dropped back to defend, and midfielders could rotate with defenders and attackers, contributing equally in both phases of the pitch.
What is clearly evident throughout is the process of glocalization at work, where the global influences of modernism and functionalism met the local response of Dutch Structuralism to create a uniquely Dutch approach to space.
This approach, where space was not fixed but something that could be created, manipulated, and controlled, was manifested on the pitch in the form of constant positional rotations, and would eventually become the defining characteristic of Dutch Total Football.
Jogo Bonito and Brazilian Identity
Malandragem and Ginga
Through a series of iconic Nike advertisements, the Brazilian football style known as Ginga has been commodified and popularized under the label jogo bonito, which in Portuguese translates to "the beautiful game."
Jogo bonito, or “the beautiful game,” embodies a style of play characterized by creativity, improvisation, and an exuberant joy that is reminiscent of the Brazilian culture.
For Brazilians as well as others, the decisive traits of this Seleção was its joyful application of specifically Brazilian skills. They did not carve up their opponents surgically, but overwhelmed them with their clever, unpredictable passes and runs and inimitable touches and dribbles, their ‘refined and mischievous game.
From Roger Kittleson’s The Country of Football: Soccer and the Making of Modern Brazil p. 158
This playful deception is not limited to the football pitch, but deeply rooted in Brazilian folklore, where mythical beings are said to roam.
One of them is the curupira, whose feet face backward and leave misleading tracks to confuse those who pursue him. He is fast, elusive, and always one step ahead to ensure that anyone who attempts to follow him is forever lost in the jungle.
In the jungles and forests of Brazil lives a creature called the curupira, protector of the animals and guardian of the trees. 'It is on everyone's tongues that there are certain demons that the Brazilians call 'corupira', which often attack Indians in the bush, whipping them, hurting them and killing them,' wrote a nervous-sounding scribe in 1560, only sixty years after the Portuguese first landed on South American soil.
From Alex Bellos’ Futebol: The Brazilian Way of Life
Another is the saci-pererê, a one-legged, pipe-smoking imp who relishes in wreaking havoc by untying horses, scattering crops, and vanishing in a whirlwind when cornered. Despite their differences, both creatures share a similar trait: the ability to use their lower limbs in clever and deceptive ways.
Another of Brazil's popular creations – certainly the most original, according to Monteiro Lobato, pioneer of Brazilian children's fiction – is the saci-pererê. The imp-like saci-pererê has three defining features: he is black, he smokes a pipe and he has just one leg. He is always making a fool of people, freeing horses at night, breaking ears of corn; causing chaos where there is calm. His one leg makes him light and fast. The only way to stop him is to trap him in a whirlwind.
From Alex Bellos’ Futebol: The Brazilian Way of Life
This same agility and deception is a celebrated Brazilian trait, reflected not only in folklore but also in the samba dancer’s gyrating hips, the capoeirista’s feinting kicks, and the craque’s (star player) mesmerizing dribbles.
Both of these little monsters have a common characteristic – they use their lower limbs in a cunning way. It is a valued Brazilian trait. When Chico Buarque sang 'There are no sins south of the equator' he was describing the Brazilian anatomy as well as its geography. A samba dancer's gyrating hips, the feigning swing of a capoerista's kick and a footballer's guile are all trademarks of a national style.
From Alex Bellos’ Futebol: The Brazilian Way of Life
The connection between Brazilian football and music is no coincidence. The emphasis on dribbling, which involves the entire body, has led to football being described in musical terms; specifically, as a samba.
The Brazilian style is like an international trademark, which was registered during the 1958 and 1962 World Cups and given a universal patent in 1970. Its essence is a game in which prodigious individual skills outshine team tactics, where dribbles and flicks are preferred over physical challenges or long-distance passes. Perhaps because of the emphasis on the dribble, which moves one's whole body, Brazilian football is often described in musical terms – in particular as a samba, which is a type of song and a dance. At their best Brazilians are, we like to think, both sportsmen and artists.
From Alex Bellos’ Futebol: The Brazilian Way of Life
The connection runs even deeper when compared to capoeira, a martial art developed by enslaved Angolans and disguised as a dance to evade the scrutiny of slave owners.
In capoeira, two opponents engage in a non-contact duel, taunting each other with deceptive kicks and movements, all performed to music. The hip-swinging motions of a capoeirista mirror those of samba dancers and Brazilian footballers.
There is a revealing parallel here with another Brazilian invention. Capoeira is a martial art, invented by Angolan slaves, that was disguised as a dance to fool the slave owners. In capoeira, the two contestants never make physical contact. Instead, they taunt each other – usually to music – with deceptive kicks and trip-ups. The hip-swinging body language used by a capoeirista is very similar to samba dancers and Brazilian dribblers.
From Alex Bellos’ Futebol: The Brazilian Way of Life
All of these movements (in samba, capoeira, football) are bound together by a single concept referred to as ginga. According to the Houaiss Dictionary of the Portuguese Language, ginga refers to:
the swinging of the body
the capoeirista’s deceptive movements used to confuse an opponent
a series of body movements in football designed to outwit the opponent
In Brazil, malandragem finds its physical expression through the ginga. Malandragem is a noun in Portuguese that translates literally to “cunning” in English. Its adjectival forms, malandro (male) and malandra (female), describe a streetwise trickster i.e. someone who combines cleverness with a touch of mischief.
The origins of malandragem can be traced back to the 1880s, when the abolition of slavery in Brazil left thousands of newly freed slaves without work, education, or a place to call home. With limited opportunities and unstable livelihoods, many were marginalized and forced to live on the outskirts of cities, forming the first favelas (shanty towns).
In this context, malandragem emerged as a response to oppressive socio-economic conditions. Newly freed slaves, facing corruption, unemployment, and inequality, adopted cunning behaviors to deceive authorities and bypass laws not merely for personal gain but to ensure the survival and well-being of their families and communities.
The Brazilian history of Malandragem can be traced back to the 1880s when slavery was abolished. Traumatised and impoverished from years of slavery many individuals could not obtain regular work and were drawn into undervalued activities to survive. Some accepted jobs for poor wages, but without qualifications and places to live, ex-slaves were often rejected by the public and were shunned and forced to live on the outskirts of cities, forming the first favelas (or shanty towns) (19). Due to a range of socio-economic complexities and struggles such as corruption, unemployment and inequalities, Malandragem gained traction as a common form of socio-cultural navigation in communities and as a tool for seeking individual justice (19). That is, by living under constant oppressive forces, individual Malandro had to adapt to manipulating people, deceiving unreliable authorities, and bypass laws simply to survive and guarantee their well-being.
From Malandragem and Ginga: Socio-cultural constraints on the development of expertise and skills in Brazilian football p. 17
This same mindset translates seamlessly to Brazilian football, where malandragem manifests itself in a player’s ability to read the game, anticipate movements, and execute deceptive plays to gain a tactical advantage on the pitch. In Malandragem and Ginga: Socio-Cultural Constraints on the Development of Expertise and Skills in Brazilian Football, one of the interviewees, Mr. CL, explains that being a malandro on the field involves using perceptual-motor skills to deceive opponents and create opportunities. This might include feinting, changing direction unexpectedly, or using body movements to mislead defenders and create space.
In the case of Brazilian football, the Malandro (tricky player) with his/her Malandragem (cunning) abilities may connote not only a negative image (anti-hero) as explained earlier, but also a positive one (hero) as explained by Mr CL: In football you create game situations where you want to go out to one side and come out the other side. You make your opponent think you will do something and you do something else. That is what you can call Maladragem or malice in a positive sense. (Interview, December 31, 2010) Here, Mr CL indicates that being Malandro in a positive way is about using perceptual-motor skills as a strategy to deceive the opposition and create opportunities to gain a positive advantage onfield. In this sense it may be using body movements to apparently move in a predictable way and then to feint and change direction to create a player overload or to move into space
From Malandragem and Ginga: Socio-cultural constraints on the development of expertise and skills in Brazilian football p. 20
In a similar way, Mr. VL describes the malandro as someone who employs ginga to deceive opponents by shifting unpredictably from one side to the other. As he puts it:
"In my view, Ginga is synonymous with improvisation… Ginga is not only about the way that one executes movement, it is also about astutely perceiving what is going on around. It is about being smart and cunning enough to anticipate what is going to happen and make decisions accordingly." (February 16, 2011)
From Malandragem and Ginga: Socio-cultural constraints on the development of expertise and skills in Brazilian football p. 22
In Brazilian football, the malandro uses ginga to execute deft, atypical movements that incorporate elements of surprise, craftiness, and readiness, all of which are highly valued traits.
This connection between ginga, malandragem, and Brazilian football is backed by Domingos da Guia (one of Brazil's most gifted defenders of the 1930s), who credited his dance-like agility, with helping him survive the racial discrimination and physical aggression he faced on the pitch:
When I was still a kid, I was scared to play football because I often saw black players in Bangu get whacked on the pitch, just for making a foul or sometimes for less than that… My elder brother used to tell me: the cat always falls on his feet… Aren’t you good at dancing? I was, and this helped my football… I swung my hips a lot… That short dribble I invented imitating the miudinho, that type of samba.
Domingos da Guia, in a video interview with Núcleo de Sociologia do Futebol, UERJ
Brazilian poet and anthropologist Antonio Risério captures this fusion of culture and sport by stating:
The Brazilian people reinvented football by playing with corporeal intelligence acquired from their ethno-cultural formation. At the base, it involves samba and capoeira with rhythm and malandragem. It is not by chance that we can use the same word—and of African origin: ginga—to speak of the meandering body movements of samba, capoeira, and football players.
From Malandragem and Ginga: Socio-cultural constraints on the development of expertise and skills in Brazilian football p. 26
Building on the concept of malandragem, Mr. VL reflects on his experiences playing pelada (informal street football in Brazil) and how it contributed to the development of key cognitive and perceptual skills, such as scanning for information, rapid thinking, anticipation, decision-making, and problem-solving.
I lived in a very rough neighbourhood full of crime. We played pelada every day on the streets. We had players at various levels of skills and age. I was about 6 years old. So everybody knows that football has 17 rules, but in our street, there is only one rule: if no blood, no foul. Under this context, you create certain malice [trickery] for the rest of your life. For example, I knew that if I bumped into a 15-year-old boy I would break myself up, so I had to look over my shoulders all the time and anticipate the moves to avoid physical contact. In doing so, you develop quick thinking and the notion of searching for space and time to play. (Interview, February 16, 2011)
From Malandragem and Ginga: Socio-cultural constraints on the development of expertise and skills in Brazilian football p. 21
Brazilian football, much like Brazilian identity itself, was never rigid or predetermined. It developed within a constantly evolving cultural environment where external influences were not simply adopted but absorbed into a semiosphere where movement was tied to self-expression and deception was a means of navigating social structures.
From the very beginning, football in Brazil encountered a complex system of pre-existing cultural codes. Afro-Brazilian bodily expression, colonial hierarchies, and trickster folklore all played a role in shaping how Brazilians interacted with football.
The African drumbeats that structured samba, the deceptive movements of the capoeirista, and the calculated guile of the malandro all predated Brazilian football and became embedded in how the game was played.
The curupira, the trickster figure from Brazilian folklore whose feet faced backward to mislead his pursuers, embodied the same agility and deception that characterized Brazilian football.
The ginga that defines Jogo Bonito wasn’t just a stylistic choice. It was a natural outcome of football in the Brazilian semiosphere. The Brazilian body became more than a tool for play. It was a medium of expression and survival.
Pelada
Many of Brazil’s greatest footballers, including legends like Garrincha, Pelé, and Zico, credit their early development to playing pelada, an informal style of pick-up football where players organize their own games without coaches.
Pelada is typically played outdoors on irregular surfaces like streets, beaches, and makeshift grounds where the game lacks set boundaries and often adapts to the available space.
Pelada is usually played outdoors on irregular surfaces (e.g., streets, beaches, yards, makeshift grounds, courts, etc.) where the boundaries of the playing area are often marked or created impromptu, although it may also be played in demarcated venues such as soccer fields and futsal courts.
From The Role of Informal, Unstructured Practice in Developing Football Expertise: The Case of Brazilian Pelada
Unlike structured football, pelada has no fixed rules: the number of players, team composition, and even the boundaries of the playing area are determined on the spot.
In addition, pelada is played under different rules and norms to other more formal versions of football such as futsal. For example, the number of players per team depends on the number of people present to play. Age and gender are not constraining factors, and players of all ages and both sexes typically play together.
From The Role of Informal, Unstructured Practice in Developing Football Expertise: The Case of Brazilian Pelada
Teams are often selected by the most respected or senior players present to ensure balanced competition, and if too many players are available, multiple teams may form to accommodate everyone.
A common way to assign players to teams in pelada is for the most respected or senior players present to select the teams, so that the skill level of each team is relatively well matched to enhance the competitive nature of the informal game. If the number of players present is deemed too high for the size of the playing area, then more than two teams are formed. As an example, if thirteen players were present to play in an area of similar dimensions to a futsal court then two teams of five and one team of three players would be initially formed. In this case, the two teams of five would play against each other first, and the team of three would have to wait, with games lasting about 10 minutes or after a first team has score two goals. The winning team continues playing until they lose, then the team of three would be able to choose two players from the losing team in the first match. In the case of a draw after 10 minutes, the team that has been in the field for the longest keeps playing. This pattern would be repeated until changes had to be considered, such as when more people turned up to play.
From The Role of Informal, Unstructured Practice in Developing Football Expertise: The Case of Brazilian Pelada
Historically, pelada emerged as a response to urbanization and societal inequalities in Brazil. While British colonizers introduced formal football, underprivileged communities reshaped it into a more accessible format.
For many children, especially those from impoverished backgrounds, pelada became the primary outlet to play football. Because of a lack of resources, they improvised with balls made from socks or rags and marked goalposts with stones or trees.
The unpredictable nature of these games helped Brazilian players develop technical skill and better problem-solving abilities.
Many Brazilian footballers interviewed highlighted how their early exposure to pelada and other outdoor activities, such as climbing trees or swimming in lakes, enhanced their coordination, creativity, and overall physical and mental well-being.
Indeed, many of the Brazilian footballers we interviewed revealed that their interactions with their immediate physical environment as children played an important role in their football expertise development. In fact, several players grew up in poverty and as a result reported having to draw upon whatever physical means and resources they could acquire in order to play football. For example, a lack of financial resources for many parents meant that they could not send their children to organized football clubs or academies and hence the only outlet to play football was via playing pelada in the streets. Through regular exposure to unsupervised play, some of the players also reported a wide range of outdoor play activities (such as climbing trees, swimming in lakes). Such activities reputedly encourage adaptive skills, creativity, mental and physical well- being, and ultimately the overall enhancement of body movement coordination (Louv, 2005).
From The Role of Informal, Unstructured Practice in Developing Football Expertise: The Case of Brazilian Pelada
By the age of 14, the most talented players are often scouted by professional clubs. Even within formal academies, elements of pelada persist, with spontaneous modified games played between or during training sessions. In The Role of Informal, Unstructured Practice in Developing Football Expertise: The Case of Brazilian Pelada, coaches likes Mr. A recognized this developmental value and often integrated pelada-like elements into formal training. Mr. A explains that:
The key is to bring back some elements of pelada, such as fun, enjoyment, and, most importantly, to give players the freedom to express themselves. In doing so, they can try things they’ve seen or invent new skills (Interview, February 8, 2011).
From The Role of Informal, Unstructured Practice in Developing Football Expertise: The Case of Brazilian Pelada
From this perspective, the common sentiment surrounding the decline in technical skill among Brazilian footballers compared to previous generations begins to make more sense.
The decline of unstructured practice environments like pelada has significantly limited the development of perceptual-motor skills among Brazilian players which in turn limits the ginga.
When the Seleção (Brazilian national team) abandons the ginga style of play, it often struggles to achieve success, sparking widespread criticism and calls for a return to its traditional identity. This sentiment was particularly evident after Brazil’s devastating 7-1 loss to Germany in the 2014 FIFA World Cup, which ignited debates about the need to revive the ginga style. Pelé himself emphasized this, stating, “Brazil needs individual ginga to return to their former best”.
I am sad just talking about it… I cried watching that game and not just because of the score. I cried because I do not know what happened to the joy of Brazilian football… Maybe this summer in the Olympics and Copa America, we can remind the world of how Brazil plays soccer, but it will not be easy. I fear we have lost our way… There is no ginga… Other South American countries like Argentina, Chile, and Ecuador now play more beautiful soccer than Brazil, and you see what happens in the last two Copa Americas. We lose to Paraguay on penalties!… Myself, Gerson, Rivelino, and Tostao were all No. 10s, and yet Zagallo wanted us all on the field at the same time, so he created a formation that could accommodate us… Then in Japan, we had Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, and Rivaldo, who all had great flair, and we won again. But today we have a coach who doesn't care about individual expression… Neymar cannot do it alone… You saw what happened in the World Cup when he couldn’t play against Germany.
Pelé, in a 2016 interview with ESPN FC’s David Hirshey
Several coaches and football professionals have echoed this sentiment and stressed the importance of incorporating elements of pelada into modern training. Referring back to In The Role of Informal, Unstructured Practice in Developing Football Expertise: The Case of Brazilian Pelada, Mr. F, a former fitness trainer at São Paulo FC, observed that urban players often lacked general motor competencies, such as postural control, agility, and balance compared to their rural counterparts. To address this, he introduced unconventional training methods, such as climbing fences and trees, to simulate the adaptive challenges of pelada.
Mr. F (former SPFC fitness trainer) noticed that some of the youth players who came from big cities were lacking general motor competencies (e.g., postural control, agility, balance) compared to those players who came from the countryside. So to provide some of this experience within the setting of his club he organized some unusual physical training, such as climbing fences and trees. In a similar vein, Mr. G and Mr. E.
From The Role of Informal, Unstructured Practice in Developing Football Expertise: The Case of Brazilian Pelada
In a similar way, Mr. G believes Brazilian football is losing its expressive style due to the decline of natural learning environments that have largely been replaced by rigid soccer academies that fail to understand Brazil’s cultural footballing identity.
I think we are still very skillful, but with some reservations. This is because we are making two major mistakes. One is that we are losing our culture of playing with that body expression due to the lack of natural learning environments, as a result of urbanization. Second, it is because such natural learning environments have been occupied by soccer schools that are not qualified in the methodological understanding of our culture. Their training is too mechanized, losing the essence of learning the game in a natural way.
From The Role of Informal, Unstructured Practice in Developing Football Expertise: The Case of Brazilian Pelada
He argues that to preserve high-level perceptual-motor development in Brazilian players, the essence of pelada must be reintegrated into formal training.
We are losing our culture of playing with that body expression… We need to bring back the essence of pelada, street soccer, to the training in soccer schools.
From The Role of Informal, Unstructured Practice in Developing Football Expertise: The Case of Brazilian Pelada
Interviews with other experienced coaches and managers further reiterates the enduring influence of pelada. For instance, Mr. A, a renowned youth coach, that coached many football icons such as Miller, Kaká, Oscar, Lucas, recalled playing in unpaved streets using makeshift goalposts.
Where I grew up, the streets were not asphalted so we just put blocks as a mini goal and played pelada a lot.
From The Role of Informal, Unstructured Practice in Developing Football Expertise: The Case of Brazilian Pelada
Mr. B, a FIFA agent, notes that many great players emerged from rural Brazil, where open spaces encouraged informal play with improvised equipment like sock balls and stone goals.
Many football players emerged from the countryside of São Paulo and of Brazil in general. This is because there was more space, and everything was cheaper. The streets themselves were football fields. There was no asphalt. We just placed some rocks as small goals and played with balls made of socks.
From The Role of Informal, Unstructured Practice in Developing Football Expertise: The Case of Brazilian Pelada
Mr. C, a respected goalkeeper coach, believes the unpredictable terrain of street soccer (mud, rocks, and uneven ground) helped players refine their ball control.
I played a lot of street soccer. I believe that street soccer with all those levels of difficulties such as stones, mud and so on, forces you to become more skillful in terms of controlling the ball.
From The Role of Informal, Unstructured Practice in Developing Football Expertise: The Case of Brazilian Pelada
Mr. F reminisces about playing barefoot, which forced him to develop precise ball-striking techniques while learning to protect himself.
It was inevitable. We played all bare foot. This makes you kick the ball in a different way, to protect yourself, and we learned, we lost a lot of the tips of our toes.
From The Role of Informal, Unstructured Practice in Developing Football Expertise: The Case of Brazilian Pelada
Mr. M, a former São Paulo FC player who later represented Japan, describes how pelada honed his spatial awareness and quick decision-making. He explains that the informal street football taught him to avoid physical duels by constantly scanning his surroundings and finding open space.
In Franca we played pelada on the streets. From the age of 6 to 18, [it] was all mixed. We know that football has 17 rules. In my street there was just one: That is, if you don’t see blood there is no foul. This makes you smart to play. [I] knew that if I bumped into a boy of 15 years old I would get injured so I had to avoid physical contact by checking all the time my front and my back. This makes you develop the ability to think quick and seek for free space to play.
From The Role of Informal, Unstructured Practice in Developing Football Expertise: The Case of Brazilian Pelada
In the absence of structured fields, football found a home wherever space allowed. It was on stretches of sand, narrow alleys, and uneven streets where the boundaries shifted and football molded itself to the environment.
But space in Brazilian football was never neutral. It was defined by exclusion, restricted by social and racial barriers, and weaponized to determine who could play and who was forced to remain outside.
The early history of football in Brazil was defined by exclusion. Social and racial barriers dictated who could participate, restricting access to enclosed spaces.
Football arrived as an elite pastime, controlled by the Liga Metropolitana de Sports Athléticos that dictated access through literacy tests, entrance fees, and restrictive membership policies designed to keep Afro-Brazilian and working-class players from participating.
Clubs such as Fluminense and Club Athletico Paulistano positioned football as a sport for the upper class and reinforced the racial and social divisions that mirrored broader societal hierarchies.
But as Lotman suggests, boundaries do not only separate. They regulate cultural semiospheres, determining what is absorbed, what is altered, and what is rejected. The emergence of pelada was more than just a response to exclusion.
It was the redefinition of football itself. It was played in alleys, empty lots, and stretches of sand where no lines were drawn and no referees dictated movement. Pelada stripped the game of its rigid European constraints and placed control back in the hands of those who played it.
The confined spaces of these makeshift pitches demanded quick feet, deceptive body movements, and an instinct for evasion. Improvisation was not an aesthetic choice but a requirement shaped by the playing environment
As players from pelada entered the formal game, these very elements they learned through pelada seeped into club football. Pelada nurtured ginga, which became second nature as players developed a continuous, flowing motion that allowed them to shift direction effortlessly while maintaining balance.
It was a way of reading and reacting to space and using movement to unsettle defenders and create openings that did not seem to exist. What had once been filtered out of the Brazilian semiosphere now redefined it.
The feints, deception, and spontaneous movement that made up Jogo Bonito were not just stylistic choices. They were the inevitable result of football passing through the semiotic boundary of Brazilian culture and being transformed within it.
This fluid relationship with boundaries was not unique to football. Trickster figures in Brazilian folklore, such as the curupira and saci-pererê, existed on the edges of structured society, outwitting those who tried to impose order.
Their presence reflected a cultural negotiation with restriction, one that also found expression in malandragem. Malandragem was not about direct resistance but about navigating social structures through deception.
In football, this found expression in the way Brazilian players moved. It was in the dribbles that allowed them to burst past defenders in tight spaces, in the feints that sent opponents lunging in the wrong direction, in the slight pause before accelerating into open space.
Even then, malandragem was not just a way to evade defenders. It was a means of subverting the very idea of rigid structured play.
So far, we can observe the first two major instances of local elements that take part in the process of glocalization, ultimately shaping what we now recognize as Jogo Bonito.
The first is malandragem that emerged in response to socio-economic marginalization following the abolition of slavery, where individuals, excluded from stable employment and societal acceptance, developed ways to outmaneuver oppressive structures.
In football, malandragem manifests through ginga. The malandro footballer does not rely on brute force but on improvisation and creative problem-solving to unbalance and deceive their opponents.
The second is pelada, an informal, unstructured style of pick-up football that has shaped generations of Brazilian players.
Unlike the rigid, highly organized youth academies of Europe, pelada is played in streets, beaches, and makeshift fields where players must constantly adapt to irregular surfaces, impromptu goalposts, and mixed-age competition.
This absence of fixed rules encourages an instinctive style of play, where technical skill, spatial awareness, and improvisation become second nature.
Glocalization and Brazilian Football
But in order to trace the deeper influences on the development of ginga style in Brazilian football, we need to understand the historical and social context of Brazil during its early football years, especially in relation to racial and class tensions.
Following the abolition of slavery in 1888, Brazil underwent significant social changes, driven by a mass migration of formerly enslaved people moving to urban centers in search of work. This migration intensified existing racial and class tensions and contributed to the expansion of favelas (slums where Afro-Brazilians settled).
The lei áurea (golden law) had just abolished slavery on 13 May 1888. The country was facing great migrations. Hundreds and thousands families of ex-slaves flowed to São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro searching for jobs and for better conditions, settling in the hills close to city centres and other places of difficult access.
From Paolo Demuru’s From Football to Futebol: A Glocal Perspective on the Influence of Europe on Brazilian Football (and Vice Versa)
In the early years, football in Brazil was closely associated with the European elite. Clubs like Fluminense and Botafogo were exclusive and only catered to individuals of European descent as well as those who adhered to European social norms and values. These clubs became symbols of social distinction and reinforced the divide between the upper and lower classes.
Football's European origins helped establish it as the sport of Brazil's white urban elite. Oscar Cox and nineteen friends founded Fluminense, Rio's first club, where matches became glamorous social events. Teams comprised of young students and professionals from the city's best families. Fluminense was a stage to show off cosmopolitanism and refinement. In the stands, women wore the latest fashions and men, impeccably dressed in suits and ties, attached coloured team ribbons to their boaters. They revelled in the Englishness of it all, cheering players with 'hip hip hurrahs'. The sport was resolutely amateur, in tune with modern European theories of fitness and hygiene.
From Alex Bellos’ Futebol: The Brazilian Way of Life
Europe, and particularly the idea of a unified European culture, represented an aspiration for Brazil's elite. From the very beginning, Brazilian football sought to mirror European ideals of modernity, with the upper classes framing their cultural and social identity in relation to Europe. The appeal of European civilization was so dominant that even those who sought to resist it found themselves shaping their projects in response to it. The ideal of becoming more European or at least, emulating European practices was deeply ingrained in the way the elite viewed themselves and their place in the world.
From the very start of soccer’s history in the country, Europe—not just specific teams or countries but an imagined, united Europe—represented an ideal of modern civilization that Brazil should strive to attain or, if somehow possible, overcome. Even those who rejected this goal found themselves having to frame their projects for the nation in reaction to it, so hegemonic was the appeal of European modernity.
From Roger Kittleson’s The Country of Football: Soccer and the Making of Modern Brazil, p. 14
Brazil's famous clubs mirrored this elitism, with most members striving to embody the ideals of English gentlemen. These clubs adopted English terminology and practices, referring to themselves as "sportsmen" and using terms like “shootado” for a shot, a blend of English and Portuguese. As Mário Filho reported, to become a member of Fluminense, “a player had to live the same life” as the club's elite members who were “all established men, heads of firms, high ranking employees of the great [business] houses, sons of rich fathers, educated in Europe, accustomed to spending.”
They referred to themselves as “sportsmen,” using the English; indeed, they preferred English terms for all elements of the game. Luso-English mutations popped up; a ball could be “shootado” (close to the Portuguese chutado) instead of “shot,” but the linguistic evolution proceeded slowly and unevenly. More marked were the wealth and social status of the leaders of clubs like Fluminense. To become a member of Fluminense, Mário Filho reported, “a player had to live the same life” as Oscar Cox and his peers, “all established men, heads of firms, high ranking employees of the great [business] houses, sons of rich fathers, educated in Europe, accustomed to spending.” In this regard, Fluminense was no different from other clubs such as CA Paulistano or São Paulo AC; only men of “good family” and ample resources could enter.
From Roger Kittleson’s The Country of Football: Soccer and the Making of Modern Brazil, p. 21
Clubs like Fluminense, CA Paulistano, and São Paulo AC were havens for these men, who would socialize in formal attire such as “smokings” or dinner jackets. This pattern was consistent across Brazil, where regional elites used sporting events as opportunities to reinforce their social standing.
When they traveled to take part in São Paulo– Rio matches or when they fêted visiting teams from England or South Africa, for instance, they wore formal clothes—“smokings,” or dinner jackets, were required. This pattern held throughout the country; regional elites enjoyed their class standing at sporting as well as more conventional social events.
From Roger Kittleson’s The Country of Football: Soccer and the Making of Modern Brazil, p. 21
The early days of football reflected the Brazilian elite’s attempt to emulate European aristocratic values. It wasn’t just about playing the game, but adopting the entire social environment that came with it.
In its early days, Brazilian football reflected the elite's desire to mirror European aristocratic culture. This wasn’t just about the game itself but about adopting the social behaviors tied to it such as post-game cigar and whisky tastings.
Games frequently ended with imported cigars and with whisky tasting and it was absolutely forbidden to offend or ridicule the players of the opposing team… The footballers took tea at five o’clock, shaved at the Rio’s ‘Salão Naval’ (Naval Salon), dined at the ‘French Rotisserie.’ Playing football was a practice within a universe of practices, in which the values of the European aristocracy were translated and reproduced.”
From Paolo Demuru’s From Football to Futebol: A Glocal Perspective on the Influence of Europe on Brazilian Football (and Vice Versa)
However, as the sport grew in popularity, it began to spread beyond the elite. Football moved into factories and working-class suburbs, with clubs like Bangu hiring workers, many of whom were Black and mulatto.
This shift led to a clash between the elite’s desire to maintain football’s exclusivity and the growing involvement of the lower classes in the sport. The increasing participation of Afro-Brazilian and mulatto players would eventually influence the development of a new and expressive playing style that contrasted with the rigid and aristocratic ideals that had originally defined the game.
It is important to remember that Jogo Bonito emerged within a system of binarism, where one way of playing was positioned as the standard while the other was seen as its deviation.
From the moment football arrived in Brazil, it was measured against a model that viewed order, structure, and discipline as legitimate, while movement, improvisation, and spontaneity were cast as inferior.
The first and most defining opposition was between structured and improvisational play. European football, shaped by industrial-era efficiency, prioritized order, discipline, and positional structure. The Brazilian style developed in contrast, with improvisation, deception, and instinct as its basis.
The increasing popularization of football among the lower classes and Afro-Brazilians sparked fierce opposition from the elite, who viewed it as an erosion of the sport’s Anglo-Saxon identity and a direct threat to their social exclusivity.
We think – together with those who consider sincerity as a religion: football is a sport that can be practiced only by people of the same education and culture. People like us – who attend the academy, have a position in society, shave at the Rio Salão Naval, have dinner at the Rotisserie, attend literary conferences, go to five o’clock. Though, when we decide to practice sport and enter the Icarahy Club’s field – distinguished team from the third metropolitan division – we are forced to play with workers, filers, postmen, mechanics, chauffeurs – and who knows what other professions –, people who have nothing to do with the entourage in which we live. In that case, the sport becomes a torture, a sacrifice, and never a fun.
Antonio Silvares, alias Joffre, Sports, 6 August 1915
To preserve the sport's exclusivity, the elite put formal barriers in place. They introduced literacy requirements, professional restrictions, and exorbitant registration fees to exclude players from working-class and Afro-Brazilian backgrounds.
Despite these prohibitions, marginalized teams like Bangu and Riachuelo took matters into their own hands. In the same year, they formed an alternative competition called the Liga Suburbana de Football to directly challenge the elite's control over the sport.
To safeguard the amateur spirit, the sportsmen of the elites began to ban from the league illiterate players and labourers and demand exorbitant registration fees. Furthermore, in 1907 the statute of the Liga Metropolitana de Football forbade ‘colored people’ from playing (see Pereira, 2000: 66). Faced with this prohibition, the teams who included blacks and mulattos – such as Bangu and Riachuelo – founded, in the same year, a suburb league (Liga Suburbana de Football), starting a new competition and thus increasing the tensions.
From Paolo Demuru’s From Football to Futebol: A Glocal Perspective on the Influence of Europe on Brazilian Football (and Vice Versa)
This divide between elite clubs and the lower class Afro-Brazilians was not just administrative but also evident in the way the game was played. On the pitch, players from elite clubs sought to maintain social distance by avoiding physical confrontations with opponents of lower social standing.
This aversion to physical contact gradually shaped a style of play that emphasized dribbling and evasiveness that was born in part from the broader racial and class divisions in Brazilian football.
In other words, the social distance was translated into the field as a rejection of physical contact. Hence, it does not seem risky to assume that the taste for dribbling – which developed within this system of norms and restrictions – became entrenched because of the need to avoid hard physical contact (to not commit fouls and then not suffer the consequences).
From Paolo Demuru’s From Football to Futebol: A Glocal Perspective on the Influence of Europe on Brazilian Football (and Vice Versa)
Brazil’s rigid interpretation of the charge rule further reinforced this trend. While in other countries the rule was largely overlooked, Brazilian officials treated it as a defining aspect of the game and penalized any conduct deemed “violent” or “dangerous” during a passage of play.
However, these classifications were far from neutral. The process of determining what constituted excessive aggression was shaped by existing power dynamics that disproportionately affected Black, mulatto, working-class, and illiterate players. They were far more likely to be labeled as reckless or undisciplined, and this reinforced negative stereotypes and justified their exclusion from the game.
Paolo Demuru, in From Football to Futebol, discusses how this biased application of the charge rule functioned as a tool of marginalization. The prevailing biases against players from disadvantaged backgrounds meant that they were routinely penalized more harshly than their white counterparts.
Black and mulatto players not only faced increased scrutiny from referees but also endured physical violence on the pitch. Many of them developed an instinctive aversion to physical contact because they recognized that even minor infractions could result in severe consequences. As Fausto dos Santos reflected on his own experience, he articulated this fear vividly:
I thought about advancing, pushing the ball and helping Prego ( . . . ) Maybe we could even drew the game ( . . . ). Then I remembered that I was the only black in the team. And if we suffered a goal without my defensive help . . . They didn’t beat anymore, but the guilt was all over me. (Fausto dos Santos, A Noite, 28 July 1930)
From Paolo Demuru’s From Football to Futebol: A Glocal Perspective on the Influence of Europe on Brazilian Football (and Vice Versa)
Domingos da Guia recalled how the violence he witnessed as a child shaped his playing style:
When I was still a kid I was scared to play football, because I often saw black players, there in Bangu, get whacked on the pitch, just because they made a foul, or sometimes for something less than that . . . my elder brother used to tell me: ‘the cat always falls on his feet . . . aren’t you good at dancing?’ I was and this helped my football . . . I swung my hips a lot . . . that short dribble I invented imitating the miudinho, that type of samba.”
Domingos da Guia, in a video interview with Núcleo de Sociologia do Futebol, UERJ
While many Brazilian cultural commentators have drawn parallels between samba, capoeira, and football, we can clearly see that the development of ginga as style of play is better understood as the product of racial and social tensions, the strict interpretation of the rules, and the necessity for Afro-Brazilian players to avoid physical confrontation.
The body sways, hip movements, and deceptive footwork that define ginga could not be classified as inherent Brazilian traits, but instead as a means of survival on the pitch. In a game where any contact with a white opponent could lead to severe retaliation, Afro-Brazilian players had to rely on skill rather than force to maintain possession.
In this sense, malandragem manifested itself through ginga. Afro-Brazilian players adapted their movements to outwit their opponents rather than engage physically. This evasive dribbling, these sudden shifts in direction, and these fluid coordination patterns came to characterize Brazilian football. And in this way, football was transformed into “a dance” where deception was a form of self-preservation.
Throughout my analysis, we can observe several global and local elements that contributed to the glocal formation of the Brazilian style of play. On the global level, the emulation of European customs and practices influenced how football was initially played in Brazil. Alongside that, the rules of the game as set by the IFAB codified the rules of the game across the globe.
On the local level, malandragem, pelada, the social and ethnic tensions in post-abolition Brazil, and the way Brazil interpreted those IFAB rules, shaped how Brazilian players interacted with the game.
Malandragem was a necessary tool for Afro-Brazilian players navigating a game where they were penalized more harshly. Pelada encouraged improvisation and reinforced a style of play that prized skill over brute force.
The deep social and racial tensions that spilled onto the pitch dictated not just who could play but how they could play. And importantly, Brazil’s strict interpretation of the IFAB’s rules (particularly the charge rule) favored the development of a less physical way of playing.
So when we speak of the Brazilian style of play, we must reexamine it from a glocal perspective. We are not speaking of something purely aesthetic. We are speaking of a style of play that was born out of necessity rather than some pre-existing tradition. We are speaking of a style that was shaped by Brazil’s racial tensions and refined through a constant negotiation between global and local elements.
It is this precise tension between structure and improvisation, between discipline and deception, between the global and the local, that gave Brazilian football its soul and that we now recognize as Jogo Bonito.
References:
Pier Paolo Pasolini, Il calcio è un linguaggio con i suoi poeti e prosatori.
Victor Roudometof, Glocalization: A Critical Introduction.
Smitha Radhakrishnan, Limiting Theory: Rethinking Approaches to Cultures of Globalization.
Yuri Lotman, Universe of the Mind: A Semiotic Theory of Culture.
Alex Bellos, Futebol: The Brazilian Way of Life.
Roger Kittleson, The Country of Football: Soccer and the Making of Modern Brazil.
David Winner, Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football.
Luiz A. Uehara et al., The Role of Informal, Unstructured Practice in Developing Football Expertise: The Case of Brazilian Pelada.
Mauro Coelho & Luiz Uehara, Malandragem and Ginga: Socio-Cultural Constraints on the Development of Expertise and Skills in Brazilian Football.
Paolo Demuru, From Football to Futebol: A Glocal Perspective on the Influence of Europe on Brazilian Football (and Vice Versa).
Habibul Haque Khondker, Glocalization as Globalization: Evolution of a Sociological Concept.
John W. Meyer, John Boli, George M. Thomas, & Francisco O. Ramirez, World Society and the Nation-State, American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 103, No. 1.
I originally discovered Pier Paolo Pasolini in John Foot’s Calcio: A History of Italian Football, in which Pasolini contrasted Brazilian football’s poetry with Italian Catenaccio’s prose. Pasolini’s discussion of football in highly semiotic terms served as my main inspiration for writing this article. It is only fair for me to share as much as I can about his work. You can find excerpts of some of Pasolini’s work here.
I must note that the three “theories of glocalization” I presented should not be regarded as the canonical theories used to delineate and understand glocalization. They are just a starting point for elucidating how glocalization is commonly discussed in social-scientific literature. This way we can see why glocalization, as theorized by each author, makes an accurate case for or against its use in explaining the emergence of styles of play
In their analysis, Meyer et al. emphasize that the isomorphism of nation-states emerges from the adoption of global codes, such as standardized educational systems or bureaucratic structures, which are realized locally despite cultural and historical differences, leading to striking similarities across societies. See World Society and the Nation-State,’ The American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 103, No. 1.