PROTOTYPE BERGVALL
Note: This essay was first published in Swedish on January 19th, 2025.
It’s a cloudy spring evening at Tele2 Arena. A valiant Djurgården side are sitting deep and counterattacking — spurred on by the thunderous roar of Sofialäktaren — against a powerful BK Häcken. The minutes are ticking down. Djurgården lead 1–0. The ball is given to the youngest player on the pitch.
That the boy — for that is what he is — has made his first-team debut in this match feels strange; even more so that he remains on the pitch in the game’s most crucial time. It demonstrates the faith Djurgården’s coaches Kim Bergstrand and Thomas Lagerlöf have in him. Still, playing him undeniably presents a risk due to the boy’s tender age. The question is: why play him now?
The boy controls the ball with the sole on the right flank, in level with the centre circle. Häcken-players chase him frantically, cutting off every possible passing option. The boy turns around. Now he is alone; isolated on a deserted island with nothing but yellow and black shirts in sight. Häcken’s Amane Romeo and Kristoffer Lund spring into action: now, the boy will be shut down.
However, the boy has other plans.
Somehow, the boy named Lucas Bergvall manages to achieve what seemed impossible. With the help of a ‘“McGeady spin-pass”, he deftly threads the ball through the once closed gap in Häcken’ defensive wall, finding an unmarked Haris Radetinac, who plays it forward to Bergvall.
Darkness may have descended over Tele2 some time ago, but the brightening future brings hope to Blåränderna-enthusiasts. What can this 17-year-old accomplish? Just how good can he actually become?
Just over a year later, Bergvall faces the most important decision of his soon-to-be 18-year long, or rather short, life. A promising spell at Djurgården, with groundbreaking displays of potential, as well as tough reality-checks and lessons, has given him a selection of European giants to choose as high next club.
Bergvall may be raw, but his ability to escape difficult situations with help from his ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ card — his technique — has sporting directors salivating over the thought of him in their central midfield. Still, it is something about that rawness precisely. There are still a few aspects of his game that could be polished.
Somewhere else in the world…
Only three weeks to go. The coach and his staff are preparing for the South American Cup final. Someone knocks on the door to the office. It’s the club president. He outlines the work carried out by the board ahead of the most important battle of the season.
The president steps aside. A couple of European analysts, dressed in suits and carrying folders full of papers, introduce themselves. Both speak only English. They give of a strange impression. Sure, they may be knowledgeable football analysts, but how much can they really tell me about my team that I don’t already know?
The president closes the door to the office and leaves the coach with the analysts. Immediately, the folders are slammed down with force onto the coach’s desk. “Your current left winger loses the ball too often,” begins one. “Far too often in relation to his chance creation and finishing abilities,” adds the other. The manager is taken aback. What are they saying about my best player?
The analysts suggest instead that the manager brings in the central midfielder who usually warms the bench. “Let him hold the width and instruct him to play with a maximum of two touches. That kind of reliable player type is ideal for controlling games and winning titles.”
The coach’s surprise suddenly turns into anger. But what can he do? He is arguing against statistics, not against people. He is furthermore told that the left winger’s previous performances in European cup finals have been poor, and therefore there is no rational argument for starting him in this final. The analysts leave the room, but they leave the folders behind. The manager sits in silence and the questions take over. Rationality?
He turns around to his colleagues. “Did you hear what I just heard?” They look just as, if not more, shocked than he does. The coach looks down at his desk and sees a pile of papers which make his head spin. It reminds him of that maths course he failed in high school. Apart from anger, the pile of papers give him a feeling of emptiness — something football has never given him before.
He thinks further. What is causing these feelings within me? Have I overestimated my left winger’s abilities? Then, suddenly, everything sort of clicks; he sees through the analysts’ attempt at a football equation that supposedly only has one valid answer. He realises that…
For all of Lucas Bergvall’s astonishing skills, there are also clear weaknesses in his game which football experts rarely fail to mention. Everything from his questionable positioning in defense, to his sometimes sloppy ball control and reckles attempts at dribbling in his own half.
Thus, there was doubt in the Swedish football world when Bergvall decided to sign for Tottenham Hotspur in early 2024. Is Bergvall really good enough for the Premier League? Does he have the physicality required to cope with English football? How on earth is he going to compete with James Maddison?
These were questions that, as expected, popped up on social media feeds and in TV studios. For one man, however, all those questions seemed to be completely irrelevant. Perhaps it has more to do with who he is — what he stands for; his perspective on football and what it doesn’t encompass.
Ange Postecoglou.
Throughout his long and intense coaching career, the Australian football strategist and dogmatist has clashed with the football establishment and, time and time again, he has emerged victorious. From Australia to Japan, on to Scotland and finally to England and Tottenham Hotspur — Postecoglou’s stubbornness and almost fundamentalist approach to football have, to a large extent, paid off.
In many ways, he is a coach whose view of football is reflected in Lucas Bergvall. A style based on a relentless running, unpredictability and, above all: courage. The courage to play short in the team’s own penalty area; to defend with a high defensive line and be the ‘protagonists’. Or, in Lucas’ case: the courage to dribble past his man in midfield, play risky balls and go on solo runs.
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Postecoglou may be criticised — Tottenham’s form as of recent has been dismal and makes him seem naive — but his ideas have undeniably resonated with Bergvall. And, if you take a look around Europe, it is tempting to ask: which other coaches have a playing philosophy built on courage like Ange Postecoglou’s? Who else is willing to put his team on the front foot — in a way that can cause it to fall just as easily as it can take it to new heights?
In today’s footballing world, Ange Postecoglou is seen as an extremist. At the same time, his convictions are, in many ways, the remnants of what was once commonplace in football; he is what remains of an era before the tactical paradigm shift in modern European football. In a way, a resistance to the ideals that came to change football forever.
The coach goes through drawer after drawer, shelf after shelf. The sound of an old football memory echoes in his head. The analysts’ words seemed familiar, but they left him wanting more. Control. Hold the width. Rationality. Finally, he finds what he’s been looking for.
The coach brushes the dust off the CD. “2007”, it says on the cover. He walks back to his desk with the disc in his hand. The coach connects a CD drive to his computer and places the disc in the drive’s tray. The video starts playing; the words from the man in the video remind him of the analysts.
It’s Pep Guardiola, teaching his methods to Barcelona’s B team. One day, a long time ago, he sat in his office and watched the same video clip. Then, it didn’t make him react. Now, he finds himself in the same seat as before, looking out of the window — what has happened to the sport I love? He turns back to the screen and continues watching.
Analysts may have all these figures in their heads; they may be able to account for every little detail about every player in the team; yet this damn equation still doesn’t add up. A style of play based on risk minimisation, supposedly played by the ‘protagonists’. A style that prioritises ‘rational occupation of space’ over getting the players to dance together.
Sure, maybe these ideas make the game more efficient, but at what cost? Are we no longer allowed to take risks; not even play with positional freedom, flair and joy? How are players supposed to express their role within the team if every player in the team has predetermined roles — and must adhere to predetermined zones to create predetermined passing patterns?
All the coach think of are eleven players, distance from each other, programmed to play without risk, and always thinking about what to do when they lose the ball. He sees how players become dumbed down; how they become prototypes applied in a team structure not intended to express their respective identities, but instead that if of the control-obsessed coach.
Once, Guardiola’s ideas were merely the ideas of someone foreign to him, but now, they affect him deeply. Not out of affection, but out of fear.
Fear that these ideas will creep into him and reduce his passion and love for football into ones and zeros. As if he were breathing his least breaths before he too becomes nothing more than a prototype, programmed to play rationally; without risk, without unpredictability, without courage. No, this must not happen, the coach thinks. Let me go back…
Looking back at Lucas Bergvall’s decision, his move to Tottenham appears to have been the right decision. Not only has he exceeded all expectations for his adaptation to the Premier League, but he has also become something of a key player in Postecoglou’s current squad. And, if this continues — who’s to say it won’t get even better and better?
Bergvall’s future career at Tottenham Hotspur seems crystal clear for everyone. Postecoglou’s role as head coach, however, appears more unsure, and perhaps the bond he previously forged with the supporters are beginning to fray. Postecoglou is fighting for his life as a manager; his ideas; but this time, the establishment has the upper hand.
An establishment which, over the past decade, has embraced Guardiola’s ideas; his vision of unified attack and defense through the rational occupation of space and ‘two-touchism’. This presents a sensitive question for Bergvall: if not Postecoglou, then who? Which other manager will give him — an 18-year-old midfielder — positional freedom in England’s top flight?
Modern football’s emphasis on control has not only led to a completely different focus on pre-determined structures and the relation to different spaces on the pitch. It has also meant that only certain qualities fit the ideal prototype of a central midfielder. These are not courage, flair and unpredictability — they are control, practicality and simplicity.
The question “what says it won’t get better and better?” subsequently yields a reluctant and possibly contradictory answer. Bergvall may improve without Postecoglou, but improve at what? Improve at navigating a specific area of the pitch? Improving at playing short, lateral passes? Improve at doing everything the coach programmes him to do — take the ball, pass the ball, wait for his turn?
The conclusion becomes that Bergvall may not get the chance to express himself on the football pitch through his mental traits; the very things that make him who he is on the football pitch. He may no longer play as Lucas Bergvall; the 18-year-old dribbler with unparalleled courage and drive — he’ll play as ‘Prototype Bergvall’; one of the coach’s eleven test models.
Lucas Bergvall’s biggest obstacle, therefore, is not injuries, non-football related factors — not even himself. Lucas Bergvall’s biggest obstacle is the numbers.
The numbers that turn Lucas, a proactive dribbler, into a two-touch midfielder. The numbers that are applied to the extent of making Lucas appear as just one of eleven variables in a football algorithm. The numbers that, like Guardiola, argue for efficiency and rationality — that develop Bergvall into an ‘ideal player type’ rather than the best version of Lucas Bergvall.
In the modern footballing world, driven by Guardiola’s defensively minded positional play, players have lost a part of their freedom; their essence. Players are no longer judged on the basis of their attributes; how they distinguish and express themselves as individuals; but solely on the results their abilities produce within a hopelessly control-oriented playing structure.
So here is a final plea: the next time Bergvall pulls off spin-move that send to players to ‘the shops’, or makes a careless mistake that creates a clear-cut chance for the opposition, don’t start digging into the numbers. Don’t see Bergvall as a number 6, 8 or 10 in a 4–3–3 or 3–4–3 — see him as unique player who can go as far he likes, if only he is allowed to play with freedom. See him as Lucas Bergvall, not as ‘Prototype Bergvall’.
The coach’s footballing heart is beating once more, and it’s pounding to the same rhythm that it always has. He takes out the Guardiola CD and throws it in the bin — searches through his computer files. He finds the video he’s looking for in no time and presses play. A teenage boy is dancing with the ball on the left wing. He glides past one, two, three players. Goes round the goalkeeper. Taps the ball into the net. “Goooooooooooooool!”, the commentator exclaims in ecstasy.
The coach leans back in his chair. My left winger, just as I remembered him.
