Rapid has an alibec. Does he know what to do with him?

Rapid has achieved an interesting transfer this season by bringing Antoine Baroanplayer who was also desired by Dinamo and who demonstrates quite quickly (as the Romanian people) has the sense of emptiness. Let's see if Rapid knows that Antoine is part of a more special group of players, who can confirm or deny a team according to a favorable emotional context. To do the pleasant reading, Rapid took a … Alibec.

Case studies

In a research of 3 years ago, which started out of pure curiosity and turned into a recognizable template, I noticed a pattern: the offensive players with creative profile, instinctively have the best performance exactly in the seasons where they receive the most yellow cards. It is not a coincidence, but a mirror of a deeper truth: they perform when they are left to be themselves.

In general, people treat footballers as a merchandise that has to stand with the ball on the non-stop and forget that before he is a footballer, there is the man with experiences and emotions, who needs to be seen, accepted, respected and loved. The biggest emotional offense that a man can feel is to be seen and refused, and in Romanian football we refuse new players, people and ideas.

Yellow = empty

But if I told you that, in the case of certain players, is yellow a form of expression? That means more than a delayed entry or impulsive protest? That can, in essence, be a cry of freedom?

If we talk about Antoine Baroan, I think the Rapid did not “hit” the player, but he got the club and the context. So far, his best time has had it in Bulgaria, in Botev, where he scored 14 goals in 31 matches, but where he took most yellow cards. In the seasons in which he did not confirm, no cards were taken.

After all, where does the resemblance to Alibec? Alibec has similar statistics, the best seasons in which he also gathered goals, but also most yellows, were at Astra and Lighthouse (Viitorul).

It seems absurd to say that players are looking only because they take yellow, but I would like to deepen the subject and include other players, such as Mario Balotelli, Davide Lanzafame, Michu and Gabriel Barbosa, known as Gabigol. All were talented players, in some clubs they were decisive, in others they did not exist.

Baroan was described by a former coach as “special”. And “especially” often means “different”. Not obedient, not predictable, but spontaneous and difficult to fit into rigid structures. I think we can agree that this description is also suited to the mentioned, especially if we think about the best known to us, Alibec and Balotheli.

Șumudică and Hagi left Denis to be the unpredictable player who can decide matches, even though he sometimes lost control, protest or have moved gestures.

Denis Alibec has never escaped from “Hands”

Balotheli. “Why Always Me?”

Mario Balotheli is probably the perfect embodiment of this pattern. A footballer with a colossal talent, but always in conflict with the environments that tried to control it. In his peak seasons, Balotelli was simultaneously marker and conflict generator.

But the question he displayed famous, after a scored goal-“Why Always Me?” – It wasn't a mere arrogant gesture. It was, in fact, a human question. A search for understanding and especially, he wanted to attract attention.

Few know that Balotheli grew up with an extremely close relationship to the adoptive mother, and his sister Cristina stated in an interview: “Mario always needed love and affection.”

Balotheli's yellow cards were no signs of rebellion without cause. There were signs of a man who demanded, unconscious, acceptance and validation.

Lanzafame: The footballer who reborn when he was loved

Davide Lanzafame is another example. Raised in Italy, considered a great hope, but failed in its own system. He was reborn, the peak, in Hungary, where he was a goalscorer and locker leader, playing in Honved and Ferencvaros.

He said in an interview: “Maybe I could play in a better known team, but it doesn't matter: in Hungary, they appreciated me for my instinctive and natural way of being.”

No one tried to change it. And his answer was the performance. With yellow, with reactions, with personality. But also with goals.

Michu, One Season Wonder at Swansea

Known for the perfect season made in the Premier League in 2012/2013, which was no longer repeated, Michu hid the same emotional values that were not fully understood. As a proof, from Swansea, he left, shocking, in the 4th Spanish League, at the age of 30, after an unsuccessful adventure in Naples.

For Michu, as for the others, he received the need for understanding and human connection.

Emotional pattern

Easy to recognize. There are introvert people who want to express themselves freely through gestures and not by words. Basically, any form of restriction of non-verbal expressiveness also attracts a decrease in performance. Equally seeks to attract validation and attention subconsciously.

The world of football has a huge problem in understanding individuals who do not feel the need to express themselves in words. In fact, words are the weakest form of communication we can have, because I do not always tell the truth. The truth is expressed through emotions, feelings and non-verbal.

The pattern continues and, following the research, most of these players had strong connections and influences from a maternal figure that, according to other studies, offers greater freedom, in pre -fabric and adolescent development. But tends to form, in addition to creativity, a more rebellious personality seeking validation on the outside with difficulties in regulating impulses (Erik Erikson – Psychological Development Theory; Monica Kirkpatrick – Jurnal of Research on Adolescence).

Attention, not to be understood that these things are negative, on the contrary, expresses courage to be natural.

Any form of criticism or restriction in a fixed fixed tactical system of these players will lead to low performance. Basically, they need specific tactical pregnancies and as few. Alibec is an extremely talented player in a slightly unfavorable context, who I do not know if he was fully understood as a personality and character in Romanian football, and Baroan's success will depend on how well the people in the club will accept and understand it.

I tend to believe that it will be a happy collaboration, because Giulești always had an affinity for creative and misunderstood, and the show received in the face of tactical rigidity and predictable.

Antoine Baroan, in Rapid – FC Botosani, Photo: Cristi Preda (gsp.ro)

Maybe it's time to look at the players differently. Not only for executors in tactical systems, but as people with stories, sensitivities and real emotional needs. They work primary with emotional fuel: trust, freedom, acceptance.

Football is not just about control. It's about the beautiful chaos of creativity. And these cards in the CV of the above players are not mistakes, there are signs that they have been alive.