Moscow
With eight teams left at the most wide-open World Cup in recent memory, predicting the winner in Russia is as risky as a double-vodka at breakfast. But as the tournament heads into the quarterfinals, one thing is now certain: international soccer’s era of possession football is over.
Eight years since Spain won the World Cup by turning the sport’s toughest matches into a game of playground keepaway, and four years since Germany dominated the ball on its way to lifting the trophy in Brazil, the last three weeks in Russia have shown how far—and how fast—the game has evolved.
The best teams at this World Cup still know how to keep the ball, but they have added extra purpose. No longer content simply to pass the opposition to death, sides such as Brazil, Belgium, England and France can vary the pace of the game and cut through defenses at breakneck speed. Like millions of fans who had tired of watching Spain’s tedious buildup play, international soccer has run out of patience.
“In 2008, 2010 and 2012…we played at a level and in a style that nobody had done before,” Spain manager Fernando Hierro said. “Now we’re in 2018 and many things have changed. There are a lot of direct balls and quick transitions.”
The numbers tell the story starkly. Only three teams in Russia have possessed the ball for more than 60% of their games, on average, according to Opta Sports. Spain led the way, controlling the ball for a staggering 74.7% of its four games, followed by Germany and Argentina. But all that possession didn’t add up to much. None of those teams made it beyond the round of 16.
By contrast, Brazil, Belgium, England and France have all controlled the ball more than their opponents, but they have also exhibited a directness that the likes of Spain and Germany often lacked. Each of them has produced at least twice as many direct attacks per game (plays in which 50% of the movement is toward the opposition goal) as patient buildup sequences.
Nothing exemplifies this like Belgium’s marauding counterattack to score a last-minute winner against Japan this week. From the time goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois rolled the ball out to Kevin de Bruyne, the move took just two more passes and nine seconds for Nacer Chadli to slam the ball home.
“I did not expect that kind of super counterattack,” Japan manager Akira Nishino said. “My players didn’t expect that the ball would be carried into our half in the space of a few seconds. It decided the match.”
In its four games so far, Belgium has scored three times on high-tempo counterattacks that started in their own half of the field, which amounts to 25% of its total goals scored. Brazil, Croatia, and Sweden have also found the net after one of these breakaways, meaning that a focus on quickly turning defense into attack has helped pave the way for four of the eight teams in the quarterfinals.
Germany and Spain, meanwhile, stuck stubbornly to their more painstaking approach. They were in a group of just three teams that relied less on direct attacks than slow buildup sequences of at least 10 passes. The other member of that exclusive club: Saudi Arabia.
Four years on from its World Cup triumph, Germany discovered to its cost that opponents had figured out how to break from defensive positions quicker and in greater numbers than before. The defending champions attacked as they always have and bypassed an average of 40 defenders per game with their passing and dribbling—a reflection of how aggressively they moved up the field. But they were unprepared for what came next.
Germany’s opponents, namely Mexico and South Korea, countered at speed, running directly at the heart of the German defense, keenly aware of what awaited them if they forced a turnover. The result was that the Germans allowed their own defenders to be bypassed an average of 56 times per game, according to Impect, which tracks player movements. Once among the sharpest teams around, Germany looked downright plodding.
“In this tournament we didn’t deserve to win the World Cup again,” Germany manager Joachim Löw said.
Brazil, Belgium and the rest still owe a lot to the likes of Germany and Spain. They’ve lifted the best parts of their models, from packing their lineups with as many technically gifted players as possible to pressing the opposition high up the field, but infused them with two key ingredients: youth and urgency. England and France were the youngest teams to make the knockout rounds, with an average age of just 26.
“We’ve played in a style that has really shown what young English players are capable of,” said England manager Gareth Southgate. “They’ve been able to change perceptions of how an England team might play.”
France has also bucked its reputation for cautious, defensive play under manager Didier Deschamps. Of the remaining eight teams, only Brazil and Belgium have made more direct attacks per game than Les Bleus. And no one can match the speed at which they attack, thanks in large part to having the fastest player at the tournament: Kylian Mbappé. He was clocked at a top speed of 37 kph against Argentina, quicker than Usain Bolt’s average over 100 meters, according to the French team.
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To be sure, this new spirit of adventure isn’t without its drawbacks. What these teams gain in attacking edge they sometimes sacrifice in defensive fortitude. One of the overlooked aspects of Spain’s death-by-a-thousand-passes approach was how it could be used to close out games late on. The top teams at this tournament are bolder, but may also be more vulnerable. Even as Mbappé tore apart Argentina last weekend, France still managed to surrender three goals, while England coughed up a lead on a stoppage-time equalizer in its round-of-16 win against Colombia.
Still, for most of the World Cup’s remaining sides, it seems that sacrificing control for a sharper edge is a trade-off they are willing to make.
“There is very often this mistaken assumption that ball possession leads to scoring opportunities,” said Uruguay’s Óscar Tabárez, whose side advanced to the quarterfinals despite holding the ball for just 39% of its round-of-16 showdown with Portugal. “Even if you don’t have much possession you can still inflict yourself on opponents in different ways.”
Write to Jonathan Clegg at jonathan.clegg@wsj.com and Joshua Robinson at joshua.robinson@wsj.com
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