Xabi Alonso, the Spain and ex-Liverpool midfield player, understands this instinctively. He told the Guardian that he was surprised to see so many young players at Liverpool herald “tackling” as one of their strengths. “I can’t get into my head that [soccer] development would educate tackling as a quality, something to learn, to teach, a characteristic of your play,” he said. “How can that be a way of seeing the game? I just don’t understand [soccer] in those terms. Tackling is a [last] resort and you will need it, but it isn’t a quality to aspire to, a definition.”14 To Alonso, tackling
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