10 things we learnt from the FIFA World Cup 2018
THE WORLD CUP: ACTUALLY, QUITE GOOD
Is the World Cup still the pinnacle of the game? Probably not. The very best Champions League games still outstrip it. At times last season, Manchester City played a style of football more intricate and sophisticated than anything we’ve seen in Russia. But in terms of sheer size, scale, scope and drama, its ability to unite nations and bridge worlds, its ability to make hearts flutter and focus billions on one event, the World Cup is still without equal.
TEAMWORK IS STILL A VASTLY UNDERRATED
Great players are fine, but if you’re trying to pick winners, give us a great team any day of the week. Spain, Argentina and Germany were all overhyped going into the tournament despite significant internal ructions that ultimately derailed their campaign. Teamwork helped Belgium, Croatia, England, Sweden and Japan to outperform both their size and previous tournament pedigree. Team spirit is the great intangible: you can’t measure or map it, and it doesn’t always show up until the very biggest moments.
NO PRIZES FOR STYLE
The easy way out in international football is to park the bus. Managers don’t get much time with their players so why not just teach them to dig in, be patient and wait for the breaks? It works for Iran, Portugal and Sweden. That’s why it’s so admirable – but also so difficult – when teams like Peru and Morocco try to throw everything at their better-organised group stage opponents. Both teams played some thrilling stuff. Neither got out of their groups.
LATIN AMERICANS MAKE THE WORLD CUP
The incredible atmosphere in Russia was down to Latin Americans, who travelled in remarkable numbers when Europeans were shunning a World Cup on their own doorstep. Argentina’s fans are always outstanding, Peru came en masse, Panama partied their way to the happiest of group-stage exits, Brazil and Colombia filled the streets with canary yellow and Uruguay went further than the rest of them.
EUROPE’S DOMINANCE IS NO LONGER A BLIP
All four semi-finalists; a fourth consecutive European winner; a combined record of 21 wins and eight defeats against non-European sides: as the game’s centre of gravity shifts ever more inexorably towards its birthplace, Europe’s dominance is becoming a big problem. It’s not that the rest of the world aren’t improving; it’s just that the European sides are improving so much faster, with their industrial talent production lines, their greater resources, their concentration of coaching expertise and sports science, the best players coming up against the best players every fortnight. And yet when the World Cup increases to 48 teams, Europe’s representation by percentage will drop further.
TURNS OUT, LIONEL MESSI DIDN’T NEED AN INTERNATIONAL TROPHY
You hear learned, respectable people saying that Messi needs to win something at international level in order to… well, what? Why? How would Messi winning the World Cup with Argentina tell us anything that we didn’t already know? Would it make him retrospectively better at football? And by the same token, would Messi be a worse footballer if for some reason he ended his career without the World Cup? It’s nonsense. Football is a team game, sometimes your teammates are idiots, sometimes your coach is a buffoon, and sometimes the bounce of the ball just goes against you.
ARGENTINA FACE THE UNKNOWN WITHOUT MESSI
Who knows what now for Argentina. There’s a chance that, shorn of the need to feature Messi, they could become a better team in the mould of a post-Zlatan Sweden. There’s also a chance their utterly inept federation and broken youth system sees a drying up of talent presided over by sub-standard coaches and devoid of organisation or planning.
NEYMAR’S ENIGMA REMAINS
Watching Neymar play for Brazil, he looks like a man trapped on an emotional rollercoaster. But it is a rollercoaster he has built for himself. It is not enough for him for Brazil to win, he must be the man to win the game himself. Hence him breaking down in tears after the 2-0 win over Costa Rica – the indignity of seeing Philippe Coutinho open the scoring and his own added-time goal meaning nothing to the broader context. It speaks of a similar attitude to leaving Barcelona two years after winning the Champions League to join a PSG side who have never come close.
WE LIVE IN THE ERA OF THE BIG NO 9
You weren’t anybody at this World Cup unless you had one. Olivier Giroud, Mario Mandzukic, Harry Kane, Romelu Lukaku, Artem Dzyuba and Edinson Cavani all made their mark on the tournament in various ways, and proved their worth not simply in weight of goals but in their defensive work and the space they created for team-mates.
VAR MAY ACTUALLY NOT BE A TOTAL DISASTER
There were controversies and there were human errors, but no glaring foul-ups, and best of all it was pretty quick.
Is the World Cup still the pinnacle of the game? Probably not. The very best Champions League games still outstrip it. At times last season, Manchester City played a style of football more intricate and sophisticated than anything we’ve seen in Russia. But in terms of sheer size, scale, scope and drama, its ability to unite nations and bridge worlds, its ability to make hearts flutter and focus billions on one event, the World Cup is still without equal.
TEAMWORK IS STILL A VASTLY UNDERRATED
Great players are fine, but if you’re trying to pick winners, give us a great team any day of the week. Spain, Argentina and Germany were all overhyped going into the tournament despite significant internal ructions that ultimately derailed their campaign. Teamwork helped Belgium, Croatia, England, Sweden and Japan to outperform both their size and previous tournament pedigree. Team spirit is the great intangible: you can’t measure or map it, and it doesn’t always show up until the very biggest moments.
NO PRIZES FOR STYLE
The easy way out in international football is to park the bus. Managers don’t get much time with their players so why not just teach them to dig in, be patient and wait for the breaks? It works for Iran, Portugal and Sweden. That’s why it’s so admirable – but also so difficult – when teams like Peru and Morocco try to throw everything at their better-organised group stage opponents. Both teams played some thrilling stuff. Neither got out of their groups.
LATIN AMERICANS MAKE THE WORLD CUP
The incredible atmosphere in Russia was down to Latin Americans, who travelled in remarkable numbers when Europeans were shunning a World Cup on their own doorstep. Argentina’s fans are always outstanding, Peru came en masse, Panama partied their way to the happiest of group-stage exits, Brazil and Colombia filled the streets with canary yellow and Uruguay went further than the rest of them.
EUROPE’S DOMINANCE IS NO LONGER A BLIP
All four semi-finalists; a fourth consecutive European winner; a combined record of 21 wins and eight defeats against non-European sides: as the game’s centre of gravity shifts ever more inexorably towards its birthplace, Europe’s dominance is becoming a big problem. It’s not that the rest of the world aren’t improving; it’s just that the European sides are improving so much faster, with their industrial talent production lines, their greater resources, their concentration of coaching expertise and sports science, the best players coming up against the best players every fortnight. And yet when the World Cup increases to 48 teams, Europe’s representation by percentage will drop further.
TURNS OUT, LIONEL MESSI DIDN’T NEED AN INTERNATIONAL TROPHY
You hear learned, respectable people saying that Messi needs to win something at international level in order to… well, what? Why? How would Messi winning the World Cup with Argentina tell us anything that we didn’t already know? Would it make him retrospectively better at football? And by the same token, would Messi be a worse footballer if for some reason he ended his career without the World Cup? It’s nonsense. Football is a team game, sometimes your teammates are idiots, sometimes your coach is a buffoon, and sometimes the bounce of the ball just goes against you.
ARGENTINA FACE THE UNKNOWN WITHOUT MESSI
Who knows what now for Argentina. There’s a chance that, shorn of the need to feature Messi, they could become a better team in the mould of a post-Zlatan Sweden. There’s also a chance their utterly inept federation and broken youth system sees a drying up of talent presided over by sub-standard coaches and devoid of organisation or planning.
NEYMAR’S ENIGMA REMAINS
Watching Neymar play for Brazil, he looks like a man trapped on an emotional rollercoaster. But it is a rollercoaster he has built for himself. It is not enough for him for Brazil to win, he must be the man to win the game himself. Hence him breaking down in tears after the 2-0 win over Costa Rica – the indignity of seeing Philippe Coutinho open the scoring and his own added-time goal meaning nothing to the broader context. It speaks of a similar attitude to leaving Barcelona two years after winning the Champions League to join a PSG side who have never come close.
WE LIVE IN THE ERA OF THE BIG NO 9
You weren’t anybody at this World Cup unless you had one. Olivier Giroud, Mario Mandzukic, Harry Kane, Romelu Lukaku, Artem Dzyuba and Edinson Cavani all made their mark on the tournament in various ways, and proved their worth not simply in weight of goals but in their defensive work and the space they created for team-mates.
VAR MAY ACTUALLY NOT BE A TOTAL DISASTER
There were controversies and there were human errors, but no glaring foul-ups, and best of all it was pretty quick.