Federico Redondo, who is Fernando’s son and how he plays

Fernando’s son is the latest interpreter of the role of the Argentine 5.

For the first sixty-five years of football’s history, players took to the pitch without numbers on their shirts. The only way to identify a footballer was to associate him with the position he held on the pitch. This, obviously, left room for a lot of confusion: football was still interpreted as a chase for the ball rather than a concept of an organized game with schemes and strategy. In Great Britain we still play kick and run: the aim was to throw the ball further from your own goal and chase it like a poorly organized and chaotic swarm. The introduction of shirt numbers, therefore, becomes an almost necessary choice when football begins to be seen by more spectators in the stadium and even to be reported on the radio.

The first documented match played with numbers on the shirts it dates back to 25 August 1928, when Arsenal faced Sheffield Wednesday and, at the same time, Chelsea hosted Swansea Town. At that time in England they played with a formation that included two defenders, three midfielders and five attackers: 2-3-5, precisely. That was also the moment when Chapman began to revolutionize the game with his Arsenal, they drew a line of three defenders shielded by two lines made up of two midfielders each and, finally, another line of three attackers. Read graphically, this new arrangement resembled a W and an M, and these two combined letters gave the name to the new module invented by Chapman, which will be called WM or System.

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More or less in all parts of the world where it was practiced, football has evolved according to British dictates and innovations. The only real exception then was Argentina. Until the 1950s, Argentina – and to a small extent Uruguay – was an entity apart from the rest of the football world. As much as its fans may not accept it, Albiceleste football owes everything to the British, given that it was they who founded and baptized many of the teams that still exist today. Nonetheless, the Argentinians have always felt different (and superior) compared to the rest of the world, so much so that they called their way of playing “ours”to reaffirm their way of understanding the game. This self-imposed isolation also influenced shirt numbers, which in Argentina, more than in other parts of the world, have been associated with a specific role. Two emblematic examples of this phenomenon are number tenassociated withhitchthe attacking midfielder, and the number seven, assigned to the imaginative and dribble-loving winger like Crazy Housemann. If these examples give a good idea of ​​how much a number can attach itself to a role to the point of completely identifying with it, there is another which corresponds more to a function than to a role, to a task that is indivisible with respect to the number that represents: five.

The five in Argentine football corresponds to the role of the steering wheel, or rather Volante (with a capital letter). Born in Lanús in 1910, Carlos Volante he also passed through Serie A, with Napoli, Livorno and Turin but it was in Brazil – where he landed to escape the First World War – that he will forge a unique way of playing the role of midfielder in front of the defense so much so that when one had to describe a footballer the formula was often used “play as Volante” to praise his quality, and then move on to totally identify the role with the Argentine midfielder: in fact, even today in South America the midfielder in front of the defense, or the high five, is called a flyer.

In Argentina the five has therefore permeated the football culture so much that its role has taken on an almost more important role than the ten. “A ten cannot play well if he doesn’t have a good five behind him and a five without personality cannot exist.” With this axiom, the former San Lorenzo Roberto Telch described the main prerogative for a good Argentine five. One of the main prerogatives for playing as a steering wheel is therefore the personality which we could decline into foresight, it is not a question of a supernatural gift but of the ability to see in advance what will happen on the pitch. What a five must be able to do is lead the team as a whole, deciding whether to raise the center of gravity or whether to be more wait-and-see or whether to direct the ball to the right or, acting as the team’s center of gravity, according to when illustrated by former Huracán striker Carlos Babington.

A footballer who knew how to play the role of five like no other Fernando Redondo. Our story, however, begins in a twilight moment of Redondo’s career, who in January 2003 was trying to find himself to give Milan fans the last flashes of a career punctuated by genius. Redondo was one of the best midfielders of his era, gifted with cerebral talent and an immense understanding of the game, so much so that he became the cornerstone of the Real Madrid Galacticos. Redondo is everything you could want from a number five: he is intelligent, altruistic, technically excellent and capable of strokes of genius which alone are worth the boredom of another ninety flat and empty minutes. All this is condensed into taconazo from Old Trafford with which he ridicules Berg and then opens the door wide for Raul, who only has to tap it into the net. A goal where there is all of Redondo who, however, seems to have evaporated in 2003, forced by circumstances to watch the others play while he struggles to recover from an injury which led him to suspend his salary, as a sign of respect for the fans that they are waiting for. If from a professional point of view it is a complex moment on a personal level Redondo is in one of his best moments, in Madrid, where his family remains, his wife Natalia has just given birth to the couple’s third child: after Fernando and Luciana he is born Federico.

Federico Redondo he won’t have time to become aware of his father as a footballer but, due to a sort of reversed law of retaliation, until now he is the only footballer for whom the comparison with his father can be made. Fernando ends his career a year after Federico’s birth – winning a Champions League and an Italian Cup with Milan – and returns to Argentina where his youngest son begins to take his first steps in the world of football. He does it in one of the most flourishing youth sectors in the whole world, namely that ofArgentinos Juniorswhich produced talents such as Cambiasso, El Bichi Borghi, Riquelme and, of course, Maradona and Redondo himself. The youth sector of Argentinos Juniors is so thriving that it is nicknamed “Seedbed of the World“, “the nursery of the world”, and is one of the strong points, if not the strongest, of the Paternal team.

Federico completes the entire process in the Argentinos Juniors until Gabi Milito decides to field him as a starting five against Tigre on 11 June 2022, which the Animal will win 2-1. Time immediately seems to rewind. A steering wheel, right-handed, extremely elegant, with a strong understanding of what happens to the four corners of the pitch and which, moreover, has Redondo written on its back. Unlike his father, Federico has never yet played in a midfield where he was the only low top but always supported by another midfielder; Gabi Milito almost always joins him with Franco Moyano, who is entrusted almost exclusively with interdiction tasks, in his 3-4-2-1 and who with Federico forms a very well-matched pair where order and chaos reign supreme.

What immediately catches the eye when watching Federico play is his ability to move as if he were tied by a string invisible to his teammates: he always keeps the right distance from those around him and, knowing how to read the game in an excellent way, he has the qualities to find his teammates even with long balls, skipping the first pressure lines. According to Antonio Rattín, former Boca midfielder, the five must be the thermometer of the team, establishing whether the structure to be adopted is more offensive or wait-and-see; Redondo plays the role by always placing himself at the center of the action and influencing the movements of his companions without, however, ever appearing invasive but rather almost resembling a shadow, which influences what is around him even without acting directly.

Gabi Milito prefers a compact and short team, always characterized by pressing forward and Federico is the brains of this organisation, directing the pressing to always be high, so as to recover the ball as close as possible to the opponent’s goal. Once he gets the ball back, Federico does the next thing redondiana of his technical background: orient your body even before receiving the ball, creating an advantage without even touching the ball; like his father, Federico is a master at determining where the ball will go even before receiving it and, when the ball is magnetized towards him, he takes very few touches to dispose of them, imposing his rhythm on the team.

Federico is just starting out, but he already seems oversized compared to Argentinos Juniors. Despite this, however, the father has already denied his possible move to Boca or River and even less a transoceanic leap to Europe – despite the fact that in Germany there is already talk of an interest from Wolfsburg and recently rumors have emerged that he approach Milan – motivating this choice with the desire to complete Federico’s football training in his homeland. Whatever Federico’s growth path, it is already wonderful to be able to see a midfielder doing the things Fernando did, even more so if Redondo is written – again – on the shirt above a number 5.

2024-01-24 09:00:00
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