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There’s a lot more good than bad in the World Cup now, as the wheat inexorably separates from the chaff. We even get a few days of no football this week – boo! – where those of us who have got quite used to the 6am start lifestyle have to do horrible thing like make conversation with our loved ones.
There’s been a lot to process in these last few days, too: let’s get to the bottom of it all.
There’s no way we can talk about good things that have happened and not start with Brazil. For years, really, Brazil have underwhelmed. Even when they won, they weren’t the Brazil that we expected. Let me explain why.
Prior to the 2002 World Cup, I was gifted a four VHS set of the FIFA official history of the tournament and probably watched it a hundred times, giving me the sort of nostalgia bomb that comes from having seen the 1958, 1970 and the 1982 Brazil at a highly impressionable age.
My father used to talk about the 1970 tournament, the first to be broadcast in technicolour around the world, beamed in to drab Northern English households, about the save that Gordon Banks made from Pele in the Group Stage and much, much more. His formative World Cup memory was that and those videos were mine.
It’s hard not be imbued with a sense of nostalgia about Brazil. They’re the archetype, really, of what we want the World Cup to be about, with a lesser nod to the mid-1970 Netherlands side. With Pele lying in a hospital bed, that has been even more top of mind at this World Cup.
There’s something in those canary yellow jerseys – and the bright orange ones – that stands for something, and yes this is rose-tinted, but it’s not been there for a while. Everyone respects the Germans but few love them. People love Brazil.
This Brazil are exactly what we want. It isn’t actually freewheeling, gung ho football, but the perfect mix of structure and talent. If they crashed forward and tried to win every game 6-4, they’d lose. This side are much more than that. But they are still Brazil, authentically, nostalgically.
Let’s get this in now in the expectation that they will go out against France: it has been great to watch this England team.
I’m largely ambivalent to whether they win or not – England Men winning matches emboldens the worst people in English society – and perhaps a level of detachment from the result has allowed me to actually enjoy watching them play.
This is the most consistently good England team of my lifetime, but they have not always been scintillating to watch. Indeed, there has long been a theory that they play sufferball, as it was coined by Antonio Conte, with a strategy of dogged defence and excellent set pieces to win games.
This year, though, has been a revelation. There was an outbreak of suffering pragmatism against the USA, when a 0-0 was plenty, but mostly it’s been bright football played by bright players.
Jude Bellingham and Phil Foden are genuinely exciting on a level rarely seen among English players, Marcus Rashford and Bukayo Saka are two of the most likeable players around and the older heads – Harrys Kane and Maguire, plus Jordan Henderson in particular – seem to offer the right level of leadership and balance to make it work.
I wonder if this tournament might not be one too early for them, and that France might be too strong on the day. Traditionally, going out to the first good team they play has defined England teams, but you feel like it won’t define this one.
Adios, Espana, and not a moment too soon. Morocco were happy not to concede and Spain refused to try and score.
Since putting seven past Costa Rica, they have passed and passed and passed for a grand total of two goals. More accurately, it was 2,711 passes for nine shots on target and a total xG of 2.26, which is, by anyone’s standards, absolutely pitiful.
This is not a new thing, either. Since winning the World Cup in 2010, they haven’t won a knockout tie. When they did win the tournament, they took every knockout game 1-0.
Their last five knockout games, including the 2020 Euros, have gone to penalties and they have been knocked out in the last two World Cups by the might of Russia and Morocco.
In short, Spain are playing like it is still 2012. The concept that brought them to success was not, as many have suggested, the tiki-taka style, but it was in fact negative possession, and Pep Guardiola has repeatedly distanced what he did with Barcelona from what Spain did on at international level.
Negative Possession is passing for passing’s sake, a way of stopping the other side scoring by you having the ball for a long time. In and of itself, it has a place and isn’t a bad idea.
When it takes you more than 300 passes to register a shot on goal, that has been taken too far. You’ve stopped trying to do something with the ball.
What good high possession teams do is keep the ball, then lose it trying to do something, then win it back high up the field again, allowing them lots of chances to attack in both transition and from set structure. Spain win it high a lot but then put the ball in the vault, wasting the best opportunities.
Possession football in 2022 does involve a lot of possession, of course, but it has now evolved to include a central striker who occupies space and provides a focal point, an Erling Haaland or a Robert Lewandowski.
They don’t have to be that good, mind but they do have to have the threat that they might score.
Richarlison is forced out wide at Spurs, for example, and Andrej Kramaric is far from the elite tier, but both have functioned well at this tournament and provided that role to their teams.
Spain only brought one proper striker, Alvaro Morata, and despite being widely acknowledged as not that good, he still provided their last three goals at the tournament and half of their total xG, even though he only played 50% of available minutes in their last three games.
What we’re getting at here is that Spain played too indirectly, could have played more directly, and I’m glad that they’re out so I don’t have to watch them play innocuous keepball anymore.
(Photo by Pablo Morano/BSR Agency/Getty Images)
I am, with full disclosure, not a fan of Cristiano Ronaldo. I have never been. I remember him signing for Manchester United – he actually lived down the road from me in Rochdale before someone robbed his house – and cheering as, in one of his early appearances, he was kicked to pieces by Charlton clogger Graham Stuart. Amazingly, it’s on Youtube.
He was, in those days, a teenager with braces who, according to my mate, ‘looked like he had a bowl of pasta tipped on his head’. In fairness to him, he got up after getting reduced time and again.
He’s done well for himself since and one has to respect that. Much like Brazil, however, I refer to you to the difference between respect and love.
Cristiano has not covered himself in glory at this World Cup and it came home to roost in Portugal’s superb performance over Switzerland, after Fernando Santos had finally learned the lesson that Erik Ten Hag learned months ago and that has been patently obvious for several years: he’s not what he was.
The crowd cheered for him. The commentators talked about him. The team won convincingly. But yet, Ronaldo chose not to celebrate, instead flouncing from the field solo.
Ronaldo has beaten a lot of opponents in his time, but nobody beats time. You can accept it, change your role in the team and become an elder statesman, or you can act like it’s still 2004, you’re still the tyro and everyone has to bow down. He’s a manchild.
As I say: respect, but not love.
Tim Cahill could usually be trusted to turn up big when the World Cup rolled around, but that doesn’t seem to be the case anymore.
He seemed positively surprised that someone might ask him about the potential implications of taking a shedful of Qatari cash to shill their World Cup and football academy.
Doubly bad was the FIFA PR person who told him not to answer, thus bringing the full Streisand Effect into play for what was a catastrophic moment for someone who is meant to be representing Australia on the biggest stage in football.
I’m usually a big Samuel Eto’o fan but when we’re talking ugly scenes, the head of a competing football association booting a fan has to come pretty high up there.
The Cameroonian FA chief, however, decided to take the ‘don’t back down, double down’ approach to scandals by turning his apology statement into a diatribe against fellow CAF member Algeria and their supporters.
“I had a violent altercation with a person who was probably an Algerian supporter,” he wrote. “I would like to apologise for losing my temper and reacting in a way that does not match my personality.
“I have been the target of insults and allegations of cheating without any evidence. I pledge to continue to resist the relentless provocation and daily harassment of some Algerian supporters.”
“Continue” is doing some awfully heavy lifting there, given that he just punted an Algerian up the arse.
Algerians are angry because Cameroon put them out of the World Cup, winning 2-1 in extra time in the knockout qualifier, leaving Eto’o to call for calm from their FA, asking them “to put an end to this unhealthy climate before a more serious tragedy occurs.
“I wish that they find peace and manage to overcome the disappointment of a painful defeat, now behind us.”
Kicking people probably won’t help, Sammy.