FIFA’s 289-page Technical Report on the 2010 World Cup – in 15 points
Iker Casillas: "very reliable goalkeeper with good reflexes and excellent composure, excelled in one-on-ones"
This week, FIFA have unveiled their ‘technical report’ on the 2010 World Cup.
Technical reports are, in FIFA’s words, “published after each and every FIFA competition in order to analyse how the game is progressing”. Some of the information is not particularly fascinating, an example being the revelation that “all successful teams have excellent strikers who arecapable of converting goalscoring opportunities that come their way”. Nevertheless, the document does identify some intriguing patterns, and offers a variety of interesting theories about the success, or otherwise, of the 32 teams competing in the tournament.
Even the most ardent football fan would struggle to find the motivation to read all 289 pages of the document, so here’s 15 key quotes, and some comment.
Formations
1. “Of the four semi-finalists, only Uruguay played in a formation that resembled 4-4-2, although the position occupied by Diego Forlan merits further examination. Although he was in principle a striker, he mostly played in an advanced midfield position, behind the team’s main striker, Luis Suarez. In effect, Forlan had a free role and was always looking to keep play moving before driving forward.”
This was the tournament that confirmed the decline of the 4-4-2. Not simply because of the above statement, but because so many sides playing 4-4-2 did poorly and had problems stemming from the system – England, the US and Switzerland notable cases here. Although Uruguay did play with a fairly basic 4-4-2 in some games – in particular the penalty shoot-out win over Ghana, we should note that in addition to the factor of Forlan dropping deep, Uruguay also fielded the Arevalo-Perez combination in every game. Those two are both holding players, both sat very deep and rarely ventured forward, and acted no differently to the double pivot in most 4-2-3-1s. Therefore, even though Uruguay have been identified as playing 4-4-2, the system was not much different from a 4-2-3-1.
2. “The Netherlands, Germany and Spain all used a 4-2-3-1 formation, but even so they all interpreted this system in their own way.”
This is an extremely important point. Jonathan Wilson noted, in his tactical lessons of the World Cup, “what has been noticeable in South Africa has been the vast range of 4-2-3-1s.” The key is that those three sides were adapting the shape to suit the individual players they had at their disposal. Spain and Holland, in particular, played lopsided systems - Spain often had Andres Iniesta on one flank, level with the midfielders, and David Villa on the other, looking to connect with the strikers. Holland ended up playing something similar by the final, with (in the first picture here), Dirk Kuyt level with the central midfielders, and Robben practically playing as a striker. And Brazil, probably the most impressive side in the tournament until their second half horror show against Holland, also had a lopsided 4-2-3-1. The formation may have reigned, but it was the subtleties that made it successful.
3. “To sum up, it is fair to say that the most successful teams at this World Cup all stayed true to their basic tactical formations. Although they did make minor adjustments whenever necessary, such as when Uruguay brought on a third striker, Sebastian Abreu in their quarter-final, as a general rule they did not stray too far from their beliefs.”
In other words? Teams who have settled systems do well. England, Italy and France were faffing around with new formations days before the tournament started, whereas the likes of Spain, Holland, Germany and Brazil were always going to play their individual shapes. Again, Uruguay are slight exception – they did start with a three-man defence.
Strategy
Diego Forlan: "dominant striker, dangerous in front of goal, good vision, dangerous at set-pieces and from long range"
4. “Teams were successful if they started a game with a set strategy but were able to adapt during the match. It was interesting to see Brazil, an experienced and well-drilled team, lose their focus after the Netherlands’ equaliser in the quarter-final as they were unable to adapt.”
A plan B is essential. Brazil are the most obvious example, of course. Their game was based around both patient passing and rapid counter-attacks, at different times. Unfortunately, neither of these lend themselves to situations where you desperately need a goal – the former because you need to get the ball forward quickly, the latter because the opposition are reluctant to come forward, and instead sit back and defend. Spain constantly shifted their focus in games – in all four of their knockout ties it was 0-0 at half-time, before second half changes resulted in them winning 1-0.
5. “An increasing number of teams are now able to adapt their tactics according to the state of play and the scoreline.”
Similar to the above point, this seems an obvious one. A special mention should go to Marcelo Bielsa’s Chile here – they immediately responded to Honduras switching to 4-4-2 (from 4-5-1) by switching their 4-2-3-1 into a 3-3-3-1. Keeping basic principles are important, as discussed above, but flexibility is also key.
Attacking
6. “In modern football, it is difficult to get in behind the opposition defence, as teams are often very compact at the back with eight or nine players behind the ball. That is why teams now need outstanding individual players who can make their mark in one-on-on situations down the centre of the pitch, but particularly down the wings, there they can drive as far as the opponent’s goalline to create space that often does not exist down the centre of the pitch.”
Here we have an apt description of (despite the predominance of 4-2-3-1 formations) the decline of the classic number 10. Whilst Wesley Sneijder, Mesut Oezil and Xavi all played broadly in that position, Sneijder and Oezil were so close to the forwards that they were more reminiscent of withdrawn forwards, whilst Xavi played a unique role where his priority was ball retention, rather than creativity. It is notable that Germany and Spain, probably the competition’s two best sides, featured players in wide positions (David Villa, Andres Iniesta, Thomas Mueller, Lukas Podolski) who had all spent the previous domestic season playing in central positions – Villa and Podolski as strikers, Mueller as a ‘link’ player, Iniesta (generally) as a creative central midfielder. There is a need for width, if not necessarily a need for ‘natural’ width, because players cutting in from wide positions can be more dangerous than players who start from central zones.
Thomas Mueller: "Dynamic and hard-working midfielder, dangerous in front of goal, good technique and passing"
7. “Balls played in behind the defence from the centre created a significant number of goals (31) and chances, mainly because the weaker teams did not stagger their defence, which meant they were easier to bypass.”
On first glance this might seem to contradict the above point, but a large proportion of these goals surely stem from balls played from the central midfield zone in behind the opposition full-backs (rather than the centre-backs), for onrushing wingers and wide forwards to run onto. This is a better ball to play than a straight ball through the centre of the pitch – in that situation, the ball is always running away from the forward, and towards the goalkeeper, but these diagonal balls from in to out are extremely difficult to stop.
8. “Successful teams were also able to switch quickly between defence and attack. Counter-attacks were successful if teams could bypass the midfield quickly and make accurate, well-timed final passes.”
Counter-attacking is the predominant strategy in top-level football at the moment. Counter-attacks are often thought of in their most extreme extreme example, of a side getting the ball in their own third and getting to the other end of the pitch quickly. But even moves originating from midfield positions can be, in effect, counter-attacks. Lukas Podolski’s goal against England is a good example of a side attacking quickly.
Defending
9. “Most of the teams had compact defences and used a zonal marking policy, but could switch to man-marking if necessary. This is a general trend in international football at the moment. Nevertheless, there were some relatively significant differences in terms of how the teams interpreted this tactic. Teams such as Brazil, Germany, Argentina, Spain and Ghana had very powerful defenders, but they also received support from the midfield and from one of the strikers (when they played with two men upfront.) This enabled these teams to switch quickly between defence and attack.”
The two interesting points here are the first and last sentences. The final sentence makes the case that teams who defend in numbers were more successful at quickly building attacks, which is an interesting point on the subject of counter-attacking. The mention of compact defences is also interesting, and this does seem to be overwhelmingly the best option to defend against top-level sides who want to use precise passing and pace to break down the opposition. A good example of this was the Switzerland v Spain game, where the Swiss defence was extremely compact, and Spain were unable to score:
Swiss compact defence
10. “There were two main tactics to gain or regain possession. Teams such as Algeria, Uruguay, Portugal and Switzerland lay in wait in their own half of the pitch before launching quick counter-attacks to catch opponents off-guard. Other teams, such as Spain, Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Chile aggressively tried to win the ball back in the opponent’s half of the pitch, or close to the halfway line at the latest. This tactic prevented opponents from building attacks as they were not given time to construct moves.”
This is probably the most interesting issue, the biggest ‘debate’ in football tactics at the moment. The latter stages of last season’s Champions League was a particularly good example of the differences here – on one hand Barcelona’s incredibly intense pressing high up the pitch seemed to be devastatingly effective, but then they were knocked out by an Inter side that didn’t press until the final 25 metres of the pitch, to the point that Jose Mourinho claimed, “We didn’t want the ball because when Barcelona press and win the ball back, we lose our position – I never want to lose position on the pitch so I didn’t want us to have the ball, we gave it away.”
Xavi: "tireless playmaker with impressive vision and excellent passing"
11. “Players who slide in only put their own team at risk. Defenders need to stay on their feet and try to win the ball back with controlled aggression without clattering into opponents.”
ZM’s Team of the Tournament was particularly favourable to Portugal’s defenders – they were probably the best defensive side in the competition, along with Spain. Under Ricardo Carvalho’s entry, it was noted that “he seems to be more inclined to stay on his feet these days – his occasional rash tackles were the one downside to his game.” This was a notable part of Portugal’s defending – although one might suggest that it’s somewhat of a chicken-and-egg situation, since it was their excellent organisation in the first place that means they didn’t need to slide in. But the point must be reiterated that scrambling last-ditch tackles doesn’t equal great defending – cool, calm precision does.
12. “In 46 of the 64 games, the team that opened the scoring also went on to win the match. As there were also six goalless draws and another eight matches in which the team that conceded first came back to equalise, this meant that there were only four matches in which a team came back to win after conceding the first goal. The psychological effect of a lead was undoubtedly why teams wanted to avoid falling behind at all costs, and why they generally played it safe by making sure their defence was solid.”
Little to add here, but it does put forward a good case for why teams were, on the whole, so negative. Four in 64 is an astounding figure.
Cohesion
13. “Successful teams work together when on the attack, but they also try to stay compact and defend as a unit too. Playing in this manner means that players have to have high levels of fitness and stamina. It should also be mentioned that full-backs have an extremely important role to play in this regard. Not only do they have to operate well in defence, they also have to be able to switch quickly into attacking mode. This position is extremely important in modern football as all successful teams have excellent full-backs or wing-backs.”
The focus on full-backs is particularly interesting, particularly their key role in constructing attacks. It was notable how many attacking full-backs had good tournaments – Maicon, Sergio Ramos, Mauricio Isla, Joan Capdevilla, Maxi Pereira, Philip Lahm, Ashley Cole, Carlos Salcido, Giovanni van Bronckhorst, Fabio Coentrao and Simon Poulsen all excelling. And equally, it was painfully obvious when teams had problems in that area – take Jonas Gutierrez’s stuttering start to the competition and Argentina’s lack of quality there in general, Patrice Evra’s disaster against Mexico, or Michel Bastos looking uncomfortable throughout the tournament.
Arjen Robben: "right-sided attacker, quick off the mark, good dribbling skills, passing and shooting"
14. “The teams that were particularly successful were those with excellent technique and passing. They also worked hard to regain possession after losing the ball, showing a high level of aggression. Argentina did not do this during their quarter-final against Germany, for example.”
Defending in numbers is crucial, and another reason for the death of the 4-4-2 system (unless one striker drops back), because you can no longer afford to defend with simply eight outfield players (and two strikers offering no variation in their positioning). Argentina tried to do so with simply five against Germany – the back four and Javier Mascherano, with two attacking players (Maxi Rodriguez and Angel di Maria) fielded as carrileros on the sides of the diamond. Joachim Loew commented after that game that Germany found it easy to play through Argentina because their side was not cohesive enough – there would be some level of pressing from the front three or four, but then the rest of the side would sit back, leaving 50m of space in front of Mascherano and the back four.
15. “The best and most successful teams have a number of excellent substitutes who are the equal of their team-mates on the pitch.”
Three points to make on Spain here. First, Vicente del Bosque used 20 of the 23 players in their squad. Only the two back-up goalkeepers and central defender Raul Albiol did not get playing time. Second, three of the four goals Spain scored in the knockout stages came after they had made a substitution, and shifted their system slightly. Third, their substitutes bench was comprised of players who gave them a different option, rather than being lesser versions of their first choice XI: Cesc Fabregas gave them driving runs that are not Xavi’s forte, Fernando Llorente was a traditional targetman and thrives on balls in the air, not a particular feature of David Villa or Fernando Torres’ game, and Jesus Navas was an old-fashioned winger that liked to get to the byline, whereas Villa, Andres Iniesta and Pedro Rodriguez liked to come inside. Fabregas is the best example of a useful substitute – he didn’t start a single game, but was a crucial factor when he came off the bench on four occasions.
FIFA’s complete technical report can be viewed here, in PDF format
FIFA’s 289-page Technical Report on the 2010 World Cup – in 15 points
Interesting stuff. On the subject of point 6, do you think that this will lead to a rise in defensive minded wide midfielders in the mould of Dirk Kuyt for example, and a decline in the defensive central midfield stopper (who’s job was to stop the now declining number 10). Will we see a Van Bommel type player moved to a wide position to stop the creative spark?
Quite possibly. Park Ji-Sung’s another example of someone who does that well. But then if creative players are now being played out wide, we might see full-backs have to become more defensively-aware…
Excellent analysis – objective and clear. The FIFA official documents provide plenty of ammunition to criticise, they can be bland and vague. Nice to see you focussing on the incisive points.
Although the FIFA report certainly makes the World Cup sound a lot more interesting, always going to be slightly biased, they won’t criticise their flagship product!
Excellent synopsis and saves us trawling through 300 odd pages for the interesting tit-bits. A lot of the findings seem to echo what has been written on here already, so a chapeau to ZM for that.
I was just wondering whether the 4 comebacks form losing positions was a slightly misleading stat. One one hand it shows the crucial nature of the first goal in a game, but on the other hand it shows the risky side of setting your side up to be primarily hard to break down. Given that any side can concede a fluke goal at any time (Spain v Switz) could it not also be looked as an indictment of setting your side up to be too cautious? It is difficult to change you side’s focus to be more attacking when the game is underway, making it a bit of a chicken and egg situation.
Yeah, that’s a good point actually. They specifically noted that there was a defensive atttude in each side’s first game. So maybe, on similar lines, the teams struggled to open up later in the competition?
I’ve had a scan through it, and I’ll read it in full later. For those who’ve not seen it, don’t worry, it’s not all that long. They’ve put everything in Spanish, French, German AND English, which accounts for most of the length.
This is a much better analysis than anything you’ll get in the papers. Judging by the guardian’s reaction, their policy was to pick it up, skip straight to the bit on England and find something to ridicule.
Just because you have to take it with a pinch of salt, being a FIFA document, doesn’t mean it’s all worthless. Well done to ZM for doing a good job on it.
Maybe we’ll see something about it in ZM’s new column in the guardian. Using chalkboards, of course
To be fair, the Guardian piece was just from the Press Association.
But yeah, it’s worth going through.
Thanks so much for the summary; I would never read this report, so glad that you did it.
Aside from the fact that 4-4-2 is dead, and the 4-2-3-1 is now de rigueur, the most important points seem to me these: teams are compact in defense, and look to the counterattack as a major weapon.
Jose Mourinho is the greatest coach of the modern era because he understands how to execute better than anyone these two critical tactical approaches.
Moreover, these approaches give teams with less technical skill than other teams a chance to beat the big boys. I am of course thinking of the USA. When you look at the USA side on a player by player basis, their club resumes are weak. No USA player, except maybe Landon Donovan, could break into a top 4 club in the top leagues. Yet the USA can collectively give the big international sides a tough time because they are organized defensively and can spring the counterattack. This approach allows them to consistently beat a much more individually talented Mexico side (who eschew the counterattack in favor of extended possession) or even beat a Spain.
In other words, give me 11 great athletes with reasonably good skills who make no mental errors over a team of, say, 11 great individual dribblers. Great technical skill is beautiful, but can be made irrelevant when teams fail to play coherently as a unit. It is a lesson that, alas, Lionel Messi learned the hard way.
“No USA player, except maybe Landon Donovan, could break into a top 4 club in the top leagues.”
I wouldn’t go that far. Tim Howard is, of course, the glaring exception — he would be the starter for the majority of the 16 clubs that make up the top 4 in the top leagues, I think — but there are others you can make a pretty good case for. Clint Dempsey and Michael Bradley would see significant playing time for most of those clubs, I think, Oguchi Onyewu is actually on the roster of one of those clubs, and while Jermaine Jones hasn’t yet picked up a cap for the US, he is a starter for the club that finished second in the Bundesliga last season.
It’s been fashionable for a long time to think of the US national team as being gritty scrappers playing over their heads against big superstars, but that’s just not the case any more. Obviously we’re not generating the talent of Brazil or Spain or even England, but the number of top-level American players is on a par with second-tier European nations like Croatia or Switzerland. It’s time to start finding new excuses.
I actually think that Michael Bradley was very, very good in the last World Cup and so was Dempsey. Bradley’s passing was mostly spot on and his defensive work was also very good. Dempsey constantly put himself into good positions but he should have finished better at times.
I’m surprised you mention Oguchi as he went on walkabout for most of the tournament and isn’t that good a defender. If we’re talking US players, I’d take the prime of CJ Brown over him any day of the week. Sure the US has had wonderful keepers and I’m sure Arsenal (well everyone there except Wenger apparently) would love to have Howard, Friedel, Keller, or some others instead of Fabianski and perhaps instead of Almunia. But while the US has good Keepers, that’s where the talent pool ends. We’re talking Champions League-caliber teams and nobody on the US team save a keeper would be good enough to make it onto the bench. Sure, they can play for Fullam, West Brom., and Everton which is a marked improvement from the past but right now, nobody from the US is playing in Europe on Tue. or Wed. nights.
As for Bradley, the kid has some talent and might get better but let’s not get carried away with the one goal he scored. He’s missed many chances and there’s a reason he wasn’t starting every game. He will in the future, but he needs to improve.
As an American myself, I’m going to have to disagree a little bit. While Howard is an excellent goalie, he would only replace Almunia as a guaranteed starter in the English league alone, much less Spain and Italy. Reina, Van der Sar, and Cech are all at the very least his equals and more than likely his superiors.
As much as I would love to go on and on about how our players have progressed (and they most definitely have), they still are scrappers with huge hearts and relatively little skill. Bradley would not see any playing time for any big 4 team in England and Dempsey can’t hold down a starting position at a mid-table Fulham. I will acknowledge Onweyu’s injuries have played a part in his time at Milan but I can’t help but think that he won’t get any playing time there even when fully fit. This is not meant to slam the American players of whom I’m very proud of but to not go overboard with the praise. We’ve upset some much better teams over the years but we’ve also been beaten rather easily by these same better teams. I think the last couple of years of dominance over Mexico may be coming to an end based on the excellent young players they have produced.
I do agree that in years past we have been very organised at the back. We have been very hard to beat at the expense of not scoring many either. Coach Bradley has tried to make us a more attacking team that has undone the defensive solidity. The US’s performance at the WC is kind of hard to explain seeing as how we went an early goal down in half our games. I don’t think we were particularly well organised defensively. We seem to have only won our games through throwing every tactic out the window except for all out attack. Great effort and determination from our players but it will never be consistent enough against more technical and better organised sides.
Howard would start easily for Arsenal, Roma, Sampdoria, Milan, Bayern Munich, Schalke, Valencia, or Sevilla. That’s half of the “top 4 teams in the top leagues” from last season, and I also suspect he’d push Gomes for playing time.
Bradley was a key starter for a mid-table Bundesliga club; I don’t think it’s a stretch to see him pushing Frings or Borowski for playing time at Werder or Huddlestone/Palacios at Tottenham (or Lucas at Liverpool if you don’t like thinking of Tottenham as top 4). I don’t think he’d have any problem at all getting playing time at Valencia, Sevilla, or Sampdoria. It’s not like those clubs are setting the world on fire with their play at central midfield.
As for Onyewu, I personally don’t think he’s good enough to play for AC Milan, but I can almost guarantee he’ll start at least ten games for them if he stays fit, since either he or Sokratis Papastathopolous is the backup to the ancient Alessandro Nesta.
I don’t think it’s going overboard with praise to say that having four or five players of that caliber is just about what nations like Switzerland or Denmark have, and nobody seems to talk about the dearth of talent with them.
This is speaking in pure hypotheticals. Sure, it’s fun to argue that USA’s top players deserve a place on the likes of Werder, Spurs, and Valencia, but then why are they all on smaller clubs. Of course there’s nothing wrong with that, but you have to look at the facts.
And the fact is, USA does not have close to the talent (especially depth) of teams like Croatia, Switzerland, or Denmark, who are chock full of European professionals and whose stars (Modric, Frei, Bendtner) have resumes USA fans can only hope our players can one day achieve.
Golfstrom beat me to it.
If our players were truly capable of playing in these Champions and Europa League teams then these teams would be trying to sign them. Especially when you consider the paltry transfer fees and wages that would be required to procure them. Nobody is beating down the doors of these players to sign them. Even Donovan has had multiple stints in Germany and couldn’t get playing time.
Well, hold on — you can’t on the one hand dismiss the idea of Bradley, Donovan, Howard, et al playing for top clubs as hypothetical hogwash and then claim that other mid-tier European nations have better talent because of that on the other. There isn’t a single member of the Danish squad named to today’s match who’s at a top 4 club, and Switzerland has three.
mlyons,
I’m not sure exactly what point you are trying to make. I do not feel that SWI or DEN are significantly better teams than the US. I also feel that certain US players are capable of making it into certain top teams. Obviously these teams feel differently. Donovan and Howard are by far our two best players. Donovan had good results at Everton but failed to make an impact in multiple stints in Germany. Howard played at ManU but was ousted by the less error prone and consistent Van der Sar. No shame in that.
Bradley may have a future ahead of him. He’s still young and yet to hit his prime. I, personally, have not been hugely impressed with him. I am not able to see his Bundesliga games so everything I have seen is national team performances which have been decent. His aggressive attacking play seems to be the best part of his game. He seems to be great at timing late runs into the box. I’ve been underwhelmed by his defensive displays as he seems to be out of position a lot and relies on his tackles to make up for an inability to read and position himself defensively. His passing seems adequate. From what I have heard, in Germany he is playing as a DMF and not exactly taking the league by storm.
Your argument that because he is solid at a mid-table BL team, he should be able to make the step to a top club doesn’t really make sense. How many midfielders from mid-table English teams are going to step into starting spots in teams playing in the Champions League?
Howard would definitely not start in Schalke ahead of Neuer. Neuer & Adler will likely be holding the goal keeping legacy of Kahn & Lehman, and given his age, Neuer did well in his tournament on international stage. He will only get better.
That being said, Howard is an excellent goalkeeper that would indeed make it on many teams.
Regarding Bradley, while Frings may be on the decline, he definitely would not lose his spot to Bradley yet. Borowski yes, but that is because Borowski is struggling badly who I would expect to see little playing time this season given his current state of performances. Bargfrede has already inherited his former position, which now leaves Borowski basically fighting with Hunt and the new Brazilian Wesley.
. He played well and it looks like he can conserve his WC form. But he would not make it on a top four Bundesliga team (and saying that, there are no real ‘top four’ in the Bundesliga anyway, it is more likely Bayern being trailed by seven teams).
Bradley impressed me at the world cup because his level of play was much better than I remembered it from the Bundesliga. His team just had the game of their life time, crushing Leverkusen 6-3 last weekend (amazing game, almost as good as Mainz 05 making a comeback from a 0-3 and beating Wolfsburg 4-3
I think Mönchengladbach is a good fit though that does very well in developing players, so he will only get better.
Donovan was impressive at the world cup, but he sadly didn’t give any comparable performances during his short loan at Bayern in 2009. Top four clubs I’d call unrealistic, but he is a great player and could be a starter on many Bundesliga teams.
I know one thing and that is Howard won’t start for Schalke and Sevilla. Replacing Neuer and Andres Palop is pretty difficult for another goalie.
But the US didn’t use 4-2-3-1, they had a 4-4-2.
Nothing to do with tactics per se, but the statistics on refereeing in the report clearly show that far from becoming worse, referees have never been so competent. 96% of correct decisions is astonishing.
I picked up on this during the tournament, told a lot of people that I thought the standard of refereeing was excellent, then erroneously decided I might be going mad since everyone I spoke to about it said “Nah, the refs are sh!t etc, etc”.
I feel vindicated. I’m taking this stat to work on Monday just to rub it in the faces of my nay-saying colleagues.
Yes the officiating was by and large outstanding.
That’s why the really hideous gaffes stand out.
I know FIFA likes to be “diverse” and “inclusive” but if the best African refs suck, don’t assign them. The tournament is too important to be politically correct here.
The percent of correct discussions is largely based upon calling throw-ins and goal/corner kicks the right way. Most people think refs are bad when the big stuff is missed like the phantom call preventing the goal for the U.S., the Tevez offside goal or the crossbar incident preventing the goal for England. The percentage doesn’t capture this.
I too thought the standard of refereeing was excellent. The final and the goalline decision in England v Germany marred it sadly, at least in Britain.
some HUGE mistakes (lampard, tevez offside) but generally the refereeing was excellent. there were a couple real stonkers but fifa seemed to drop them pretty quickly.
i also think howard webb did really well in the final, despite what the dutch of spanish might think.
As has been pointed out, the “percentage” standard is a bit misleading. I don’t think the refereeing was nearly as bad as some made out, but by the same token there were a few egregious decisions that never should have been missed and were deservedly derided: Lampard’s goal, Tevez’s offside, U.S. goal ruled out vs. Slovenia, Fabiano’s double handball vs. Ivory Coast (this one didn’t get nearly enough media attention because of the Brazil love that neutrals have, it was a clear handball, twice, and effectively killed the match, and somehow the referee was later shown joking with Fabiano himself about it).
i really couldn’t believe my eyes when i saw the ref asking fabiano if he’d handballed it and then having a little giggle when he said no. so unprofessional. you can see fabiano was really quite uncomfortable and shocked when he asked. incredible
#15 was probably the most debated issue here in Brazil since Dunga estabilished his team (after the 2008 Olympic Games, where he discarded a lot of young players). the fact that he didn’t use the third sub against Holland and replace LF for Nilmar instead just strengthened the criticism. even Dunga’s worst “enemies” (that’s how he saw them!) acknowledged a good first XI, but warned about the lack of excellent players in the bench (and quite a few could be there but were not)
I don’t know if it was sheer arrogance on the part of Dunga or plain stupidity but the fact that he went all-in with a “barely playing on one leg Kaka” and no substantial back up is mind boggling to say the least.
“all successful teams have excellent strikers who arecapable of converting goalscoring opportunities that come their way”
hahaha…
Tell that to Robben and his wonderful misses in the final.
As always, a delight to read. I particularly liked point 15. Not enough managers realise that the bench is there for different options, not just players who aren’t good enough for the first 11.
Yep, and it is a deserved nod to del Bosque, which ZM pointed out elaborately during the tournament and again in this article.
@ZM
Thanks, great piece. In case you remember, were the parts concerning reffing worth glancing at or rather to general?
Cheers. I must say I didn’t really read the reffing bits, sorry!
Aye, guess I am gonna have to take a look myself heh
Hey ZM,
RE 6 & 7: you say that keepers coming out have made balls over the top that are straight down the middle less favorable while balls to the side are better. We saw keepers come way out of their box a few times this tournament. Do you see charging keepers to be on the rise or the decline? Specifically, I’m wondering if it wouldn’t make sense if playing against someone like Robben who likes to stay right to have the keeper come out to his left to prevent balls over the top for Robben. Sure he’d still have to cover the audacious chip but I think it’d be worth it to stop such a forward.
Yeah, interesting point. I must say I haven’t really considered whether there’s been any rise in terms of goalkeepers off their line. Can’t think of many examples of it at the WC, aside from Bravo dashing off his line against Spain, and Villa scoring…
I would also say that having four banks was essential. Even teams that played with a formation with three bands (i.e. 4-3-3, 4-4-2) would modify it, with a player dropping deeper out of midfield to create the extra band.
Indeed, it still amazes me how a coach as experienced and successful as Capello made such a basic mistake in playing a 4-4-2 (lacking a true defensive-minded player) against Germany’s 4-2-3-1.
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While point #15 is certainly true in general, the Dutch have flaunted that rule and were still pretty successful, proving an exception. In my opinion, the difference in quality between our first XI and the bench was vast. Van Marwijk was lucky not needing to rely on his subs too much.
But Elia made a very good impact from the bench in the opening rounds, to be fair
He did, certainly, even if his perfomances in the later stages were less successful. And André Ooijer did surprisingly well against Brazil. But the difference in quality between for instance Van Bronckhorst and Braafheid is shocking, as well as between Van Bommel/De Jong and De Zeeuw/Schaars.
As a result of the world cup, I now understand why international football is the best. (Most of) the best players in the world come together, along with the latest in football tactics. Teams can’t rely so much on players long developed instinctive awareness of each other like club teams do, they’re left with tactics and talent.
Looking at this report in terms of England’s performance, some of these points seem to have been adopted by Capello and the team at the World Cup, while some clearly were not. With Heskey and a lethargic Rooney we weren’t set up to counter attack. But with Johnson and Cole we have attacking energetic fullbacks looking to exploit the space in the top corners. Our two centre midfielders – Barry and Lampard, were not sufficiently disciplined to hold a central position, so we didn’t defend well against Ozil and Germany’s 4-2-3-1.
Capello has since immediately altered the system to a 4-2-3-1, but one can only assume that world football will have moved on again by the time the next World Cup comes along – will we have moved too?
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Excellent aalysis of the tournment by both you and FIFA. Nothing much to add!
My only quibble is you say Michel Bastos looked shaky – I thought he played well and did not look like a left winger playing left back. Going forward he was obviously good but I can’t remember him being dodgy defensively? Is it just the old cliche of saying a full back who is good going forward can’t defend? I still feel people are too harsh on Glen Johnson. His defensive work is usually fine – the times he is ‘didgy’ is usually just a case of him not actually being at right back, because he has been attacking. That or his teammates have been pulled out of position and he is left in precarious situations (happened a lot last season at Liverpool). That said he has had an indifferent start to the season to say the least.
I’m surprised you think he didn’t look shaky!
Tom Williams is a big fan of his, but as he put it “4/10. Never looked at ease at left-back and the frailty of his performance against the Netherlands sowed the seeds of Brazil’s undoing. Lack of up-and-coming competition means he may get another chance.”
And describing him against Holland: “A humiliating end to a disappointing tournament. Bastos was always going to have his work cut out against Robben, but he looked terrified every time the Dutchman came near him and went through the back of him three times before being cautioned in the 37th minute. Extremely fortunate to escape a sending off after bringing Robben down again with another desperate challenge early in the second period, and from the resulting free-kick the Netherlands equalised. Replaced by Gilberto in the 62nd minute, his misery complete.”
Thanks for your kind words
I like your website and the articles published very much, but in this case, I think you could have provided the information, that less than 150 pages of the report are actually text (I mean no statistics, pictures or informtion about the authors etc.), which again is presented in four different languages. This leaves “the most ardent football fan to find the motivation to read only about 35 pages of the document” and afterwards, maybe, flipping through the statistics section.
Greetings from Germany and keep up the good work (not only focussing on the PL)!
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