| Friday, February 22, 2002 |
 | Quoting myself elsewhere, because I can:
On reflection, I realised on the tube last night that monogamy is a lot like 4-4-2 (for those of us in the United States, 4-4-2 is a system for the playing of "Soccer", or football as the rest of the Universe calls it, in which 4 defenders, 4 midfielders and two attackers make up the formation).
4-4-2 is used by many lower division football teams, because it can through organisation compensate for an absence of individual ability. In essence, two big central defenders of limited technical ability can police the area directly in front of goal, two full backs can police the touchlines and move forward when it is entirely safe to do so, two wide midfielders can apply pressure to the opposition full-backs, two central midfielders can cut out balls through the middle and pass out to the wings, and two strikers can run on to balls and head down crosses for each other. According to the particular abilities of the players available, the system is tweaked, but generally one looks for 2 big centre-backs, 2 small, nippy full-backs, two competent dribblers and crossers, a hardman midfielder and a passing midfielder, a big strong forward and a small nippy forward, with the system compensating for the weaknesses of the players. At lower levels, 4-4-2 is safe and reliable way to use players without the perception, technique or footballing intelligence to make more complex systems like 3-5-2 or the sweeper acheivable.
Now, Brazil also often played 4-4-2 during the period of their eminence. There you had a pair of ball-playing central defenders who were able to play intelligent passes across the pitch to set up new attacks, full-backs able to overlap the midfield and provide highly accurate passes infield or dribble past opponents, wingers with incredible ball skills who could cut out entire defences with skilful passing and running, one central midfielder acted as a playmaking "stopper", combining positional sense with a broad range of passing, the other played in a more advanced role with the responsibility of doing something utterly magical, and the forward were, generally, fast and small with almost prescient awareness of the ball to be able to make perfectly timed runs into unpredictable spaces. A bewildering, enchanting set of interlocking patterns of movement and passing, the Brazillian 4-4-2 resembled its counterpart on the playing fields of England in name only, and yet the basic structure of the system is the same.
So, the point. Done well and skilfully between two emotionally competent people, monogamy is a fantastic and beautiful thing, able to offer different but equally valid arguments for its existence in comparison to all the other intricate and equally beautiful dances available.
On the other hand, if you are a pair of needy, disturbed, childish or just plain dim people, monogamy is probably the way forward because it attempts to minimise the number of situations in which your own resources are pitted against the complexities of the world by imposing an easy-to-follow system.
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