The Biggest Takeaways From the 2018 World Cup

But it also brings an end to the World Cup as we know it. The 2022 tournament in Qatar will be played in the winter, running from Nov. 21 through Dec. 18, and could yet be expanded to 48 teams. It will also be played in a country of 2.5 million people with a smaller geographic footprint than Connecticut and no meaningful soccer legacy.

Even as the last of its kind, the 2018 World Cup will likely influence the game for years thanks to a series of transformative developments that took place in Russia and fundamentally changed what we know about international soccer.

So here’s a breakdown of the tactical and technical evolutions that unfolded from Ekaterinburg to Moscow.

POSSESSION SOCCER

International soccer had been ruled by the possession-based approach for a decade. Ever since Spain won the European Championship in 2008 by playing an elaborate game of keep-away, the teams that dominated the ball were the teams that dominated the biggest tournaments.

Spain followed its Euro 2008 win by claiming the 2010 World Cup and 2012 Euro, before Germany passed the opposition to death on its way to lifting the World Cup in 2014.

But somewhere on the way to Russia, that patient approach was surpassed by something more purposeful. The best teams at this World Cup still knew how to pass the ball effectively, but also exhibited a directness that made the likes of Spain and Germany look positively labored.

“I’ve never seen a World Cup like that. There was a leveling toward the top,” said France’s winning manager Didier Deschamps after Les Bleus won the final with just 40% of the ball. “The teams that commanded the most possession, almost every time, were punished by quick counters.”

SET PIECES

So many matches at this tournament boiled down to a simple question: How well did each team handle set pieces?

While teams that hogged the ball struggled to score, many of the most effective sides were able to tactically exploit free kicks and corners to give themselves a crucial edge—and at a higher rate than ever before.

At this World Cup, 30% of the goals were scored on set pieces, according to Opta. That’s a jump from 22% in 2014 and 26% from 1994 to 2014.

Every team that made a deep run here obsessed over these plays. Russia’s quarterfinal dash was buoyed by five set-piece goals. The only ones that scored more: world champion France and fourth-place England.

English manager Gareth Southgate was so laser focused on them that when he attended a Minnesota Timberwolves game in February, he saw it as an opportunity to see how NBA players manage to wiggle free and find space so close to the basket. Then, en route to its surprise run to semifinals, England racked up more set-piece goals than any other team in the tournament.

This trend was on full display in the first half of the final, too. For much of the early going, Croatia dominated possession and appeared to have the edge. But France’s first set piece was all it needed to get on the board first. Antoine Griezmann bent in a free kick that skimmed off the head of a Croatian player for an own goal. France was in front despite not having had a single shot on target.

Croatia retaliated with a set-piece goal of its own on a corner kick. Even France’s second goal, which gave Les Bleus the lead for the rest of the game, came from a dead-ball situation when Griezmann buried a penalty.

THE PREMIER LEAGUE

England didn’t get the World Cup triumph it was hoping for—football didn’t come home—but English soccer did manage to conquer the World Cup.

Of the more than 700 players who traveled to Russia, 107 of them spent last season at clubs in the English Premier League. Yet 40 survived all the way to the semifinals. When Belgium faced France, for instance, 14 of the 22 starters on the field plied their trade in England at clubs as storied as Manchester City and as unremarkable as West Bromwich Albion.

Players from Manchester United, Tottenham Hotspur, and Chelsea made up the spine of the French squad in the final, from goalkeeper Hugo Lloris to center forward Olivier Giroud.

“It’s a victory for the Premier League,” said former Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger.

VAR

Of course, the World Cup’s controversial replay review system was going to yield a controversial decision in the World Cup final.

Midway through the first half, with the game tied 1-1, France swung in a corner. It went out of bounds. And immediately, the French players were outraged: It was a handball in the box, they argued.

Following a delay on the pitch while the officials decided whether or not to review the call, the referee did just that. After another pause on the sidelines, he emerged with a decision: penalty kick for France. Antoine Griezmann buried it to give the French their 2-1 lead.

“In a World Cup final,” Croatia manager Zlatko Dalic said, “you do not give such a penalty.”

This was everything in a nutshell about video assistant referee (VAR)—the new system FIFA implemented before this World Cup, following in the footsteps of some leagues across the world. It arguably corrected a high-leverage call that was missed. But it also delayed the game while some weren’t even sure afterward that the final decision was the proper one.

There’s no denying VAR’s influence on this World Cup: Nine penalties were handed out because of the new system. Some games, such as Iran-Portugal in the group stage, were frequently interrupted because of VAR. French players in the final frequently looked as if they belonged at Bolshoi Theatre as they pantomimed the gesture for video review, wagging two fingers in the shape of a TV screen.

But no matter how coaches, players and fans feel about the system, it almost certainly isn’t going anywhere. If the recent history of replay review in leagues such as the NFL, NBA and MLB have shown us, the controversy around the technology sometimes results in it simply becoming more pervasive.

Love it or hate it, VAR will likely be a part of the World Cup forever.

Write to Jonathan Clegg at jonathan.clegg@wsj.com, Joshua Robinson at joshua.robinson@wsj.com and Andrew Beaton at andrew.beaton@wsj.com