During the World Cup, we brought out several different soccer trends in data uploads, which were visible in the World Cup. These include, for example, drawn-in full-backs or lower centers than before. However, the World Cup no longer acts as a trend-setter for the evolution of football, but more as a snapshot or a game.
The breakthrough of club team football and tournament football in this regard has been going on for many years, even decades. All possible information is more easily available to the coaches, and the time resource used by the club team is clearly larger in team training and playing, so the course of development is natural in this regard. If you want to see possible future trends in football, you need to take a closer look at the top leagues.
However, the tournament also produced several interesting phenomena to be analyzed. However, the World Cup is a laboratory of its own, with many matches played by the best players in a short period of time.
An interesting overall consideration relates to the fact that success in a tournament-style competition does not follow only the same principles as success in a series-style competition. The tournament’s own rules regarding penalty kicks and group games change the situation. Of course, the effect of chance with a small sample of the tournament cannot be underestimated either.
Let’s try to dive deeper into what kind of phenomena were found in the tournament in addition to the gaming trends already highlighted earlier.
Surprise competitions
We compared the results of the tournament to the betting odds, which generally predict the odds well. Based on them, many surprising results were seen in Qatar. For example, no team has won all their matches. Saudi Arabia overthrew Argentina in the group stage with a probability of less than four percent. Similarly, Japan surprised both Germany and Spain.
And the surprises didn’t end there. Hardly many people predicted Morocco’s survival in the top four, knocking out Spain and Portugal, among others, and winning their own group. Morocco’s playoff victory over Portugal was given as little as 16 percent probability. It is the biggest surprise of the playoffs for a long time in the history of the World Cup.
Australia and Japan’s continued survival from their tight groups can also be considered a surprise. Especially when you consider that the probability of Australia winning against Denmark was only 14 percent.
– Sometimes it’s hard for us to understand what level football is in, for example, some African countries. Another significant factor is the short preparation time. In football, it’s basically easier to break than to build, that’s why many teams managed to knock down their bigger ones with close defense. It is impossible to organize the spherical phase to a high level in a week. The same logic also applies to special situations, which resulted in significantly fewer goals than in the last games, Miika Nuutinen states.
Where did the pressing go?
Pressing has been a football megatrend in recent years. As you can see in the graphic, the change in terms of press work has been significant compared to the previous games. Of course, the games have seen countries that have tried to press the opponent actively, but if you look at the countries that made it to the top four, all of them have invested more in tight block-shaped defense.
A similar change can also be seen on the club team side, when the season interrupted by the corona virus dropped the press readings, and at least so far it has not returned to the same level. However, on average, the press releases of the big leagues are clearly higher than those of the current World Cup. Of course, there are several explanatory factors behind this as well.
– Possibly the teams are trying to save energy, especially in the hot conditions of Qatar. On the other hand, it also tells about the special features of tournament football. In practice, no top club team builds success on the same principles as, for example, France, which has been one of the least pressing teams at the World Cup, Nuutinen states.
How to succeed in tournament football?
Tournament football is therefore its own art form, where in order to be successful, you have to work through slightly different rules than in a series competition. England head coach Gareth Southgate researched the success factors of the previous WC and EC championships with his large analysis team.
The 2018 World Cup, which ended with the French championship, was under special investigation by the team, but similar data was collected from the 2016 European Championship and the 2014 World Championship, among others.
England’s and Southgate’s findings can be summarized in a few points in the big picture. Differences in tournament football are definitely a growing phenomenon. However, let’s examine in more detail how these points of Southgate have been realized in these games in relation to the most successful teams.
The list seems to hold true for these games as well.
1) Close defense
– Morocco played no less than four clean sheets in the tournament on their way to the semi-finals. Against Argentina, on the other hand, before the final, the least number of goals expected during the entire tournament was created. Croatia and France have also done well in this regard, Nuutinen states.
2) The importance of penalty kicks
– Three of the four semi-final teams needed a penalty shootout on the way to the semi-finals, Croatia no less than twice. Penalty kicks were one of the most talked about things at the Games, a psychological battle for which preparation has been emphasized, Nuutinen opens.
3) Load management of key players
– France rested almost all key players against Tunisia, Argentina had a constant rotation. It was also visible in the role of the players when With Kylian Mbappé and With Lionel Messi had their own freedoms to whistle in the team’s ballless phase, Nuutinen says.
4) Success does not require winning all games
– Both teams in the final had a loss in the first group, Croatia cleared their way to the semi-finals with one win. In the tournament, sometimes even a small loss can be enough for a place in the next round. An example of this was Poland’s match against Argentina, Nuutinen says.
5) Special situations
– Measured by goal expectation, both Argentina and France were strong in special situations in both directions. The number of special situation goals in these games is a little lower than four years ago.
The champion of the 2018 World Cup, France, was precisely the champion by these measures as well. France, for example, did not hesitate Antoine Griezmann a full match in the first four games, but in the semifinals and the final he played full minutes. In the 2018 World Cup, France also played four clean sheets out of their seven tournament matches. The 2014 champion Germany was also able to do the same.
It will be interesting to see how the preparation for the next value competitions will possibly change and whether the differences between series and tournament competitions will continue.