Event often low on thrills
Tourney has tough act to follow after drama of Champions League.
A spirit of chaos and adventure swept through this season’s Champions League, serving up a record number of goals and almost nonstop drama when the top teams collided. It was club soccer at its most thrilling. Fans might never have had it so good.
So can the World Cup, supposedly the zenith of the international game, come close to matching it? History suggests we shouldn’t get our hopes up, despite most of the world’s best players on show in Russia.
“National teams often lag behind the clubs, and it’s understandable why,” said Jonathan Wilson, author of “Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics.” “There’s a tendency to keep things pretty simple at international level.”
Wilson’s prediction for the next few weeks in Russia?
“I think there will be a lot of games featuring teams with eight men behind the ball and just seeing what happens,” he said. “It could be pretty unedifying.”
This viewpoint stems from the simple notion that international coaches don’t get as much time with their players as their club
counterparts, and that it’s much easier — especially for the weaker nations — to organize a compact defense than a fluid attack.
There are other factors in play, too. There’s no transfer market in international soccer, so it’s harder for coaches to mold their ideal team. The best coaches are often found in the club game because of the financial riches. And there’ s often an in-built conservatism at major events.
Carlos Alberto Parreira, Brazil’s World Cup-winning coach from 1994, is now a member of FIFA’s techni- cal study group — former players and national-team coaches who will analyze games and produce a report later this year — and he predicted an approach that will see teams “defend with as many players as possible” and play on the counter- attack.
“Very compact teams, with lots of players behind the ball, closing down space and playing at pace on the attack,” Parreira said. its 4-2-4 in 1958 — arrived
FIFA, of course, is hoping at World Cups deploying for a festival of soccer over innovative formations that the coming weeks, following dumbfounded opponents. on from a World Cup in Bra-The most common formazil in 2014 that the govern- tions this summer will be 4-2ing body’s panel of coaching 3-1, which was widely used experts said saw teams “play in 2010 and 2014, and the positively and do everything 4-3-3 used by Liverpool and to win a game rather than Real Madrid on their runs merely ‘not lose.’” to the Champions League
There were 171 goals that final. However, the threetournament at an average man defense has made a of 2.67 per game, tying the comeback of sorts this year, record set in France in 1998. and England, Argentina and In 2002, 2006 and 2010, the Belgium are among those set average did not get above to adopt it in Russia.
2.52. Most coaches will play
In this season’s Champiwith one out-and-out striker ons League, however, there and want to dominate midwere 401 goals at an aver- field. Having a pressing age of 3.2 per game — risgame is the vogue — Braing to 3.6 per game in the zil, under forward-thinkknockout stage. It was the ing coach Tite, is the latest highest total since the tourhigh-profile nation to do so, nament’s rebrand in 1992, joining the likes of Spain, with only the 1975-76 Euro- Germany and England — pean Cup delivering more, but that requires time to as coaches saw attack often perfect and master, even as the best form of defense. at club level.
Don’t expect tactical sur“No team will win the prises in Russia. The club World Cup without pressgame has left international ing,” Wilson said. “But I teams in its wake since the think there will be a far 1960s, before which nations greater tendency to sit deep — like Hungary with its 3-2and try to absorb pressure, 1-4 in 1954 and Brazil with because it’s easier.”