Planning Leads to Victories

We are all dismayed. Corroded. Devastated by yesterday's defeat. Our first reaction is anger and the search for someone to blame to vent our disappointment. The team played very poorly. That's a fact. It didn't deserve to qualify. The referee was biased in his use of yellow cards and in awarding two penalties, which hurt Flamengo, but these are just excuses and do not stem our feelings of sadness.

What lesson can be learned from this tough defeat? Planning is the answer. Planning is a process that involves setting goals, evaluating alternatives, selecting paths, estimating resources, and monitoring and controlling the execution of actions. It is a process for achieving desired goals through the best use of available resources.

Soccer has long ceased to be a sport with unpredictable results. One need only look at the winners of the most important tournaments to reach the natural conclusion that the world of soccer revolves around a few better-structured teams. And when unexpected results occur, this fact is more closely linked to mistakes, mainly in planning, made by the biggest teams than to the virtues of the weaker teams. With a strong influx of financial resources, clubs have modernized. Stadiums have been built, state-of-the-art training centers have been established, and the signing of top athletes has become more frequent. Regardless of the source of the funds, teams have become true multi-territorial selections. In Brazil, only Flamengo has structured itself for this new era in a sustainable way. Brazilian SAFs are very new and have not yet had time to prove themselves. Flamengo, unlike its rivals, does not depend on patronage and yet increases its revenue annually on a recurring basis, meaning it is far from needing to become an SAF to ensure its survival. Starting in 2016, after getting its finances in order, it began to invest in major signings that transformed the team into an elite squad. This team has dominated the national and South American scene for four years. It has not won every competition it has played in, it is true, but it was and is considered the favorite in all of them.

That's why fans are feeling more pain than usual today. Flamengo has a better team than Al Hilal, better players, and can continue to sign outstanding players with a state-of-the-art support structure and training center. But then why did they play so badly? Let's go back to planning. Clearly, the club did not plan adequately for the start of the season. The team is physically struggling on the field, players have not been performing as expected for some time, signings, when not unsuccessful, are slow to take effect, and as a result, the team's performance has been declining over the past four years. The flashes of good football have been lasting less and less. They are insufficient to cope with the current schedule. Not to mention the constant change of coaches, based on trial and error, which is the method commonly used in Brazilian football to try different approaches until the right solution to a particular problem is found. Each change of coach is a new beginning and takes time to have a positive effect. Flamengo did not have this time at the start of the year.

Good planning would not allow players to take a 60-day vacation, with important competitions right at the start of the season. It would keep important players until the end of the World Cup. It would give newcomers more time to adapt, no matter how good they are. It would identify the team's technical gaps and move to sign players for these positions in the transfer window at the end of last year. There would be a more in-depth discussion about the coach to be hired and the timing of this hiring. It's not that the team played poorly in one game at the beginning of the season. They haven't played well at all since the end of last season until today. There has been talk for some time about alternatives to the main players, but the signings have not happened. Since 2019, Flamengo has followed the pattern of playing poorly at the beginning of the year, then changing everything in the middle and correcting what is wrong throughout the championships. Clearly, once again, there was no good planning for the season to come.

In a structured team the size of Flamengo, with the largest fan base in the country, every match should strive to be a spectacle, regardless of the importance of the championship. To achieve this, it is necessary to have a robust squad in terms of both numbers and quality. The world's major leagues have high average attendance at every game. This is because they strive for great performances in every match. In yesterday's game, the team with the largest structure in Brazilian soccer had no alternative to the poor performance of its key players. It played like a team with a limited roster.

With good planning, the team will not necessarily win every competition it plays in, but it will tend to be successful in the vast majority of them. From the fans' perspective, planning and transparency help mitigate the pain of defeat, without detracting from the collective and individual merits of victories. Flamengo will continue to be the club with the greatest capacity for signing players. Therefore, its managers, technical staff, and players need to understand that the pain of defeat will always be greater. We cannot delude ourselves with the premise that Flamengo has the best squad in South America, as if that alone were enough. There are already several examples that disprove this thesis, including at Flamengo itself.

A well-structured club needs professional, paid managers. They are responsible for putting in place the necessary structure to achieve the objectives set out in the plan in a timely manner so that the goals are met. This plan needs to be detailed and transparent so that there is no doubt about the club's priorities for the season. This means exclusive dedication to the club, without any parallel political or executive functions. No company allows such a situation. Nothing against the people who are currently in charge, but it is important to know that each of them is exclusively dedicated to the team.