Day 18 WorldCup2018
Stop. Don’t go there. It was just one bad day. It's been a fantastic 17 days. One day of, let's call it tactical football, will not spoil how wonderful it's been.
Even amongst what BBC called "largely disappointing", "dreadful" and "lacklustre" football there was still a huge amount of excitement. Two penalty shootouts will always guarantee that. And for the football fans who count the days for four years between World Cups even a day like today is a special one.
Let's get the easy one out of the way first. The hype surrounding Croatia looked very misguided today. They were on par with a very ordinary Denmark team, high on physicality and even shorter on skill than their norm with star man Christian Eriksen mostly anonymous. Luka Modric, the engine room and creative genius in the Croatian midfield looked like he had all his football smarts sucked out of him. The end result was for for him, luckily, redemption after he missed a penalty a few minutes before the end of extra time, a chance to not have his team go through the emotional torture of penalties. The two goalkeepers were the heroes in the shootout, but in the end one had to be better than the other. Croatia will move on to the quarterfinal that they were probably thinking about before the start of their match today, the "easy" quarterfinal against Russia.
And then there was Russia. A defensive masterclass. I'm sure some, or many journalists writing their match reports described Russia's win that way. And what did they say about Spain? That despite all their possession they couldn't find a way through the Russian defence? That they dominated the match and did not deserve to lose? That they were the team that tried to win while their opponents were happy to sit back and play for penalties? Or did somebody out there write about how Spain thoroughly deserved to lose for being so stubbornly arrogant, displaying no attempt at flexibility in their tactics and how this defeat will hopefully result in a massive overhaul of Spanish football?
Spain were forever the underachievers. Throughout the 1980s and 90s they had the big name players, there was huge potential, but tournament after tournament they failed to perform. Divisions between the Real Madrid and Barcelona players, tension between players from different regions in the country were amongst the often repeated reasons for the disappointments. Then Luis Aragones and Vincente Del Bosque worked out the magic formula and Spain were European Champions, twice, and World Champions. They came crashing down to earth in a first round exit in 2014, seemed to have found their way again in qualifying for Russia but this really could be it for a while for them.
It was hard to say the better team lost today or that Russia didn't deserve to win. Football is about defending and scoring goals. Spain's goal was a lucky own goal and Russia defence was not just stoic but also very well organized. Overall, it can be argued that Russia were the better team. They executed their game plan with more success than Spain did theirs. Sadly, Spain's plan was one with no alternative. They passed and passed and passed again. But they rarely went anywhere, or anywhere in the direction that mattered.
During Euro 2012, Del Bosque was accused of being arrogant by playing without a centre forward. How could he? How could he be so presumptuous as to believe his team could move the ball around so well and have anybody play in any position that goals would always come. Today, that arrogance came across in a different way. It was a smugness that despite almost losing to Morocco made the Spanish players believe that they could beat anybody by doing what they've been successful at for the past ten years: keep possession of the ball, have their opponents chase them to the point of wearing them down physically and emotionally. Iran and Morocco were not bullied by it. Russia definitely were not. It was almost sad watching Spain slowly passing the ball around their penalty area in the last minute when any other team would have been kicking the ball up to their opponents' penalty area in the hope of having one more scoring opportunity. The referee's final whistle as they took ten passes to reach the halfway line sounded not just like the sign that we were going to see the first match decided on penalties, but it was the sound of the end of this Spain, the signal that we've all had enough of it. Time to move on. Others team have evolved. Spain, it is not just frustrating anymore watching you hit over 1000 passes. It was sadly comical today.
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