Some observations on the world cup

A world cup of set pieces: Especially in the knock-out stages, teams relied on set pieces, rather than scoring from open play. France relied on set pieces against both Spain and Brazil. Even Argentina scored twice from corners against both Mexico and Germany. Negative England could only beat Ecuador with a Beckham free kick. Ranieri observed:

“The tactics are playing a bigger part now than they did at the group stages, and that works against the goalscorers. There is less space on the field because so many teams are playing three central midfielders. That forces teams to try to create chances from set-pieces rather than open play….”

Another issue was how coaches packed the midfield, playing a lone striker. France, Italy, England and Portugal all played with similar systems, albeit by shifting the shape of the midfield. Most of their games in the later stages were virtual stalemates. They were separated either by penalty shooutouts or a single set piece. On the other hand Klinsmann played a 4-4-2, but with dynamism that saw players shifting positions akin to Dutch total football. How many times did we see Phillip Lahm in an attacking position, a player far more reliable than Ashley Cole. The Germans played a system that matched their players, England played a tactic that was imported, it didn’t match their game, which leads to…

It’s what you do with the ball: Sounds simple, right? This maybe shocking but England actually attempted a passing game, in the knock-out stages, with one lone striker. Now if you go to the match stats against Portugal you’ll find that England had 49% possesion of the ball. Bear in mind England played with 10 players for nearly half of the 120 minutes. To hold the ball with 10 players, for 49% of the play, against a passing team like Portugal is some feat. But if anyone observed the game, they would know England played most of the ball with players in their own half, with a lot of aimless play. Sven’s tactics were like a square peg in a round hole. While teams like Italy and Portugal can build from the back, England players were not used to such a slow tempo game, an agressive high tempo game is not necessarily a negative thing as the Germans have proven. Their last three games (against Argentina, Italy and Portugal) saw their possesion at 47%, 42% and finally 48%. In all three games they had many scoring opportunities. Talking about possesion football, this leads to the final point of the post…

Phil Scolari is not infallible: Some of his tactics baffled at times. While Portugal dominated many of their games in terms of possesion, they hardly threatened in the later stages. They were toothless against both England and France. Pauletta was woeful at times, hardly sniffed a chance, well excluding a chance that hit the side netting against France. Instead of bringing on an extra striker to play along Pauletta or at least substitute him with like for like (maybe Nuno Gomes?), he took him off, and played Ronaldo through the middle, after bringing on an extra midfielder e.g. Simao. Surely a Sven moment…