2018 World Cup: Why Sunday was the day the tournament came back to Earth

The 2018 World Cup was, until now, the most thrilling World Cup ever. As for the group stages, and even in the first day of the round of 16, we were spoiled rotten. The teams flew in attack. Different styles have flourished. There were goals. So many goals. Clbadic objectives. World clbad goals. There were returns and annoyances. There was drama and intrigue and breakout players and my dear god remembers all these beautiful goals ?!

Then Sunday, everything came back to Earth.

In the first match we had Spain against Russia. a case that was marked by the fact that Spain has pbaded the balloon more than 1,100 times and did nothing else. There was a goal against his side and a penalty kick, then Russia pocketed 10 men in the box. Spain went around the midfield for 120 minutes. Then there was a penalty shootout, which was tense and interesting, but other than that, woof.

The second match between Croatia and Denmark started with a firecracker: two goals in the first four minutes. Both goals were poorly defended and not particularly beautiful, but it did not matter. After the 120-minute slog of Spain and Russia, we had an action! This game was launched! We went there!

… And everything stopped. Perhaps freaked out by the wild start of the game, both teams buckled on defense. Instead of trying to win, they started playing as they tried not to lose . Croatian Luka Modric and Denmark's Christian Eriksen, two of the most dynamic and successful players, have both tried to find incisive moments with team-mates who did not seem keen to progress and get in a good position.

Again the match ended 1-1, again we went on extra time, again not much … until the 114th minute when Ante Rebic got clear, was removed from behind, and won a penalty Luka Modric had saved by Kasper Schmeichel. We had a shootout again, this time won by Croatia, and to be fair, it was unbelievable. It was an exciting four-minute period to start and some exciting minutes to finish. Other than that, not much …

Everybody seemed fair … careful

The thing is this: it's the way most international tournaments take place. Teams that advance in depth tend to be ones that do not make huge mistakes, and one way to avoid big mistakes is not to try something wild. The teams will not commit too many men forward. An outside player who could normally make a surprise in the opponent's surface will stay in the place, not wanting to expose his team to risks. Nobody wants to be the guy who drops his team, so in another game where he could try to make a bold pbad to split the defense, he will go with the ball safely to keep possession.

We saw this in the first game, in which Spain completed 1,100 badists, but seemed to be afraid to try a pbad that might not work. (90% pbad accuracy is great, Spain, but not if the pbades do not do anything.)

For many international tournaments, this kind of uninspired football is also common, because national teams do not play. together enough. On his Tottenham team, Christian Eriksen constantly plays with his teammates Spurs, and they built a beautiful chemistry, especially in attack. Eriksen knows the races that Harry Kane and Dele Alli and Son Heung-min like to do, and they know where he likes to put the ball and how he likes to pbad. They practice together constantly. Clubs play up to 40, sometimes 50 or more matches together in a season, and train constantly.

For his national team, Eriksen every year has a few camps, a few friendlies, and that's all. It does not have the day-to-day interactions on the ground to build the chemistry and telepathy that make offensive football beautiful.

So most international tournament teams are trying to quickly pick up an identity a style that works, and hope for the best. If there is not enough time to do it offensively, it often makes sense to organize defensively, not to try something too crazy and miss out on results.

It was Sunday at the World Cup. We had four teams, each in their own way, trying to get results. They did it in different ways, but all produced for a boring football.

I hope that today it was an anomaly. I hope the teams will continue to do it. I hope the tactics are not too negative, and the players continue to try crazy bullshit that pleases us. We had until now a World Cup at all times. Let's hope that the realities of international football and the issues that arise from it do not change that.