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World Cup: Fast-passing style slowly spreads around the globe
By Simon Kuper in Rio de Janeiro
There is no obvious winning team yet, but there is a dominant style
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As I write (admittedly on the world-famous beach of Copacabana in Rio), it has been a surprisingly joyous World Cup. The group stage is ending with an average of close to 3 goals per game, the highest since 1970. More than that, the most impressive teams (as opposed to the one-man bands) are converging around a similar style: fast, forward passing. There is no obvious winning team yet, but there is a dominant style.
The key, as the US coach Jürgen Klinsmann (legendary German forward, national team captain and coach) always tells his players, is that both ball and man must move quickly. That requires lots of running into space. This is what we have seen from the Colombians, Chileans, Germans, Americans and Ghanaians. The Dutch, too, practise fast-passing attack, though almost only on the counter-attack. These teams have all learned from Spain that fast passing wins matches. It is just that the Spaniards seem to have forgotten this.
From the early 1970s until recently, this high-speed passing game was peculiarly western European. But what we are seeing in Brazil is that the style is spreading globally. Chile were inspired by the Dutch, the US by the Germans, while Colombia came around to fast passing after their own slow passing of the 1990s failed. No wonder that fast-passing teams such as the US and Algeria feature several European-raised players.
The best teams at this World Cup play like European clubs such as Barcelona or Bayern Munich, but with one missing element: teams rarely press opponents to win the ball. It is just too hot in Brazil, especially in the north, explains Germany’s coach Joachim Löw, who has kept his team more “compact” than usual.
To pass fast, you need lots of players who can pass. The consequence is that almost every player in the best sides looks like a passing midfielder. In fact, Chile’s three-man defence includes two original midfielders. The new footballer is an all-rounder who can attack and defend, as exemplified by France’s midfielders Paul Pogba, Yohan Cabaye and Blaise Matuidi. Holland’s coach Louis van Gaal has said he wished he had a Pogba or Matuidi.
Specialists are dying out. Good teams here do not field wingers glued to the touchline, midfield ballwinners who specialise in tackling and cannot pass, or big non-ball-playing centre-backs (only England stuck with that one). Relatively stationary centre-forwards such as Brazil’s Fred or Belgium’s Romelu Lukaku are struggling. “Players must be mobile nowadays,” says Löw. “Static strikers do not exist anymore.” Germany’s lone forward, Thomas Müller, runs and passes like an attacking midfielder. The tournament’s best strikers, such as France’s Karim Benzema or Robin van Persie of the Netherlands, are playmakers as well as scorers.
Only two big teams are winning while ignoring almost every tenet of contemporary football. Brazil and Argentina have each parasited off a lone genius, Neymar and Lionel Messi respectively. Argentina have defenders who do not like having the ball, while Brazil’s central defence delights in leisurely square passes. Each of these two team’s strategy seems to be, 1. Somehow get ball to genius, 2. Hope he does something. So far, this has more or less worked. Neymar has scored four of Brazil’s seven goals. Messi has four of Argentina’s six, while one was an unprovoked own goal, and another went in off Marcos Rojo (Argentine defender)’s knee. Playing three modest teams, Argentina won each game by a single goal.
Brazil and Argentina have diagnosed themselves with pretty much the same problem: slow passing from central midfield. Brazil has tried to cure this by replacing Paulinho with the quicker, more forward-passing and running Fernandinho. Messi – raised in western European football – seems to have told Argentina’s coach Alejandro Sabella to field playmaker Fernando Gago to improve the team’s forward passing from midfield. This has not helped much so far, but perhaps if you have a genius you can win the World Cup playing outdated football.
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