To the extent that modernity has castrated dribblers and turned them into an endangered species, players like Brazilian Samuel Lino (Santo André; 23 years old) are determined to demonstrate that dribbling is now more necessary and unbalancing than ever. “Dribbling is a way to excite, it is something about love, football cannot be just touch, touch and touch. There is a moment when you have to do magic,” Lino defends with joy. In this football of tactical and physical excellence, his excess earned him the jump from the favelas to the Portuguese Gil Vicente in 2019. Three years later, Atlético de Madrid recruited him for seven million euros . Loaned to Valencia in his first season as a red-and-white, when he showed up for preseason this summer he had a better chance of going out on loan again than finding a place in the red-and-white squad. The reports from his season at Mestalla were good on and off the field, but there didn’t seem to be a place for him.
However, on alert because he knew that Yannick Carrasco could leave, as finally happened, Diego Pablo Simeone already imagined Lino in the first training sessions of the Los Angeles de San Rafael concentration more as a left winger than a winger. On the tour of Asia and Central America, after dedicating some individual sessions to him, the Argentine coach was convinced that both Lino and Riquelme should be recruited and recycled for the Belgian’s position if he was transferred. Simeone informed the club that he did not want them to go out on loan or to be part of any operation.
Simeone thinks that Lino has no trouble running back when the team loses the ball. On that side, he has an advantage over Riquelme. “I’m absorbing all of Cholo’s concepts, especially the defensive ones, like knowing how to profile myself,” he warns. Tonight, if Simeone gives him the title, he can be faced by Rodrigo, another excellent dribbler. “It’s our culture, I admired Ronaldinho, Ronaldo and Robinho, who was another incredible dribbler.” In case it’s his turn to play, Simeone repeated another individualized session of defensive movements days ago. “It gives me a lot of information to improve in those aspects,” he says.
Although both Baraja, during the time he directed him at Valencia, and Simeone now agree that Lino must improve his definition and decision-making, the offensive part comes as standard, engendered in the libertine game of the dirt fields of the favelas. “When we were children, my brother and I spent all day haggling and dancing. Dribbling and my speed are my weapons when I need to create danger since I played indoor soccer. In eleven football I started playing in the team of a project called Triguinho, intended for kids who did not have the resources to pay for a soccer school. It was also a way to get away from the dangers of the neighborhood,” she says naturally.
“I had friends who were better dribblers than me, with more variety and from whom I learned a lot, but they didn’t make it to the top. Life in the favela was hard, but I was lucky that my parents, especially my mother who was employed in two companies, worked hard to give us a life and a good education,” he concludes
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