Progressão
Progressão is a book, a podcast, and a long-term thinking project focused on football, learning, and skilful human behaviour. Our work approaches football from a complex, holistic, and ecological perspective, where players and all football actors are understood as living beings always in correspondence with their environment.
Progressão
#185 Pelada: naked football environments
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In this episode of the Progressão podcast, we continue our exploration of learning environments by turning to something simple, yet powerful: pelada.
Pelada is informal football that is played in streets, beaches, backyards, wherever space allows. The word itself means “naked”, and that captures something essential. These are environments without structure, without coaches, without predefined systems. And yes, full of life.
We explore what makes these environments so rich for becoming skilful.
From variable surfaces and changing teams to improvised rules and shared responsibility, pelada offers a different kind of learning. It's the one where players adapt, explore, and grow within the game itself.
We also connect this to wider football culture, looking at how environments shape creativity, decision-making, and the way players relate to the game.
Let's play!
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Rukkastella on Podcast lökkälä. Jaliinen. Kjalaan näjista Rukkästä. Haluamme Mistä fotkallista. We kujamme hyvällainen kujana, kompleksista relaisia meistä hyvänä ja sen käyttäjistä kiluillä fotkoiluhe. Welkom ebut.
SPEAKER_02Prokrassa podcast. Today me muuta hyvää topista luennista environnistä ja especially into kaikin: pelada. Pelada is a termistä in Brazil for informal fotball playäin in skreita, beach, bakkyard or any valjasta späkistä. The verda pelada literally meet naked, and that is a beautiful metaphor, koska ts are in a seensä nakedall environments, environments without structure, without formal organization, without coaches, without predefined systems, and yet they are incredibly rich environments for becoming skillful. So, Jani, why do we talk about pelada? J.
SPEAKER_01Because if we look at global football, countries like Brazil have consistently produced players with a certain kind of skill. Or we could say that from Brazil, certain kind of players have emerged. They are not produced but they are emerged from there. They are creative, adaptable, deceptive, fluent, and this is not only about the training methods. We don't think that all the kind of best knowledge lives only in Brazil, but there is something else. It is about the environment and culture, like we have been talking now for a few episodes. For example, in Brazil, there is a concept called Malandrajei, a kind of street intelligence, a culture of trickery and deception. And from this something like Jinga emerge emerges the rhythmic, deceptive body movement we see in football but also in dance and everyday life. And pelada is one of the environments where this way of being develops.
SPEAKER_02Let's explore what kind of environment pelada actually is. First, the place. So pelada can happen almost anywhere. Streets, beaches, concrete, sand, backyards, small fields. So almost any surface can do, and it can vary a lot. And that variation matters. Because different surfaces invite different kinds of actions. You might play on sand one day, concrete the next day, grass another day. Sometimes the ground is uneven. Sometimes the ball bounces unpredictably. And all of this shapes how players move and act.
SPEAKER_01Secondly, the pitch itself there is no standard pitch size. The field adapts to the environment. Sometimes there are clear boundaries like walls, fences. Sometimes the boundaries are just loosely agreed. If more players arrive, the field grows. If fewer players are there, it becomes smaller. So the game constantly adapts. And the pitch is not even always symmetrical or even. There might be some obstacles, slopes, or patches of grass or water or whatever in the field. So the game is always slightly different.
SPEAKER_02So let's move to the third aspect: which is equipment. In pelada, equipment is not standardised. The ball might be a proper football, it might be a futsal ball, it might be a ball that is completely worn out, or sometimes even something completely improvised on the spot. Also, the goals can be normal ones, but they can also be like two stones, two shoes, bags, and so on. And even clothing can define teams. For example search versus skins. And also all of this variability shapes skill because players must constantly adapt.
SPEAKER_01And then we go to the teams. And teams are not fixed also, they change all the time. Players can come to the game, they can go, and teams are often organized to keep the game balanced, competitive, enjoyable. And if new players are arriving, the teams adjust. If there is a skill difference, players can regulate it themselves. And importantly, different ages often play together. This almost never happens in our European organized models where we play always with the same age, but there the different ages often play together. Younger players can join older ones and vice versa, and then the older players adapt their behavior and they can tease the younger ones.
SPEAKER_02Let's move to the fifth point, which is coaching. So in Pelada, there is no coach, or at least no formal coach. So learning happens within the game. As Janni said, more experienced players may guide others. And players also imitate better players, friends, and professional footballers. But no one stands outside the game giving instructions. The game itself teaches.
SPEAKER_01Then we go to positions and roles. Of course, you might already expect there are no fixed positions. Players move freely. Of course they can still kind of decide that today I'm a defender. Maybe I want to be strikers. Roles emerge and change. They are not just fixed. Someone might attack, then defend, then switch again, and the organization is fluid and adaptive.
SPEAKER_02The seventh and the last, the goal of the game. So in organized training we often define clear objectives. But in pelada, the goals can vary. Of course there is competition. But also enjoyment, experimentation, trying new things plays a role. So players might attempt something they would not dare in a formal training environment. Because the pressure is different, but there is also something very important. The game itself is respected deeply. So you can try new things, you can be creative, but you cannot destroy the game. If someone plays in a way that breaks the flow, the autos react. Because the game matters.
SPEAKER_01So Jeep, when we think about the goals of the game, what differences do you see to a kind of formal, maybe Northern European way of training here where the goals might be quite strict in the exercises?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, there can be like emphasis to, in a way over constrained the players, for example, that you have to meet a certain objective in a certain way. For example, you get. you have to score the goal after five passes, so you can take more than two touches before you shoot, and so on. And in some way that can also lead to something good, but it can also restrict a lot.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I agree on this. Then we often talk also about the nature of the game: that what are the goals of the game, that we need to progress and we need to score goals and we need to prevent goalscoring and progression. And we think that those are kind of universal goals of the game. But they are not. You can go into street game, and maybe somebody's goal is to shine. Like in Latin America. They want to shine, they want to show themselves to others. And maybe by shining, maybe they want to combine. They're not really trying to score even always, but they want to do some actions that look good or feel good also. So there can be different goals for different persons.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, but the important point was that, and interesting list, that the game itself is respected. So it's not just doing cirkus triks for the sake of it.
SPEAKER_01Just. What about the timinä pelada?
SPEAKER_02Pelada does not have a fixed training duration, if we can call it a training in a traditional way. So it can last for minutes, it can last for hours on even the whole day. But the intensity also varies. So sometimes it can be very intense for a moment, then sometimes it can be more relaxed. But over time players accumulate a huge number of experiences.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, very interesting. Pelada shows us that skill can grow in environments that are variable, adaptive, social, meaningful, and it reminds us that not all learning needs to be so structured, and that rich environments can produce rich skill. So maybe the question is not how can we control learning better? But maybe it is what kind of environments do we create for players to grow in?
SPEAKER_02That's all for today. We hope this episode gives you ideas and maybe even the inspiration to go outside, find a space, and just play.