Tiki-taxi for Spain as the style becomes vice against the rearguard of Russia | Barney Ronay | Soccer

T iki-taxi for Spain. During a slow and increasingly fierce afternoon at the Luzhniki stadium, the outstanding team of the time produced an extraordinarily quiet performance, coming out of the World Cup with the losing match the most statistically dominant ever made.

drained into the central circle, ranged as red claws in the same static formation that had seen them pbad and move and pbad and pbad their way through the previous 120 minutes.

No matter, for now, that of Russia, Colombia, Croatia, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland and England will participate in the World Cup final in two weeks . Watch for a moment the heroism of the rearguard of Russia, a team that continued to retreat into the endless steppes, allowing its adversaries to advance ever deeper into the spaces that would end by smothering them

. you half hoped to look up and notice that Spanish players had come to Moscow in their ragged summer uniforms and boiled their boots for soup.

For now, it 's worth talking about Spain and the anatomy of a team. and a style finally eating. As the red shapes moved through their patterns, as the ball went through them, it was a journey into the dark heart of advanced possession football.

What is the comparison of experience? It was football that evoked the feeling of being slowly asleep in a restless sleep by the whirlwind of the room's walls late at night after too many limoncellos.

Russia is a moderate team with a lot of spirit and discipline. They showed heart and willingness. It was enough to train the Spanish team of feathers technicians in a kind of strange darkness.

Isco hit the ball 194 times in total. Spain completed 1,029 pbadages. More than 120 minutes of possession to 74%, Spain has managed nine shots on target. It was an agony of rehearsal, with Spain lost in its own style, harnessed in a single circuit of the Luzhniki Stadium.

Before this match, Artem Dzyuba had called for a "little miracle". Dzyuba was probably a bit out of beam. In reality, Russia needed a major miracle. And yet, in one way or another, they have one.

It was cruel for Iago Aspas, who had run nicely, that he should miss the decisive penalty, well saved by Igor Akinfeev. But it was also inevitable that someone in red suffers. Towards the end of the extra time, with the score of 1-1 thanks to the penalty of Dzyuba, the local crowd had reached a pre-triumph state of delirium. Would Spain be able to face penalties after all that cosseting of the ball, that feeling of falling back on itself? Would they remember shooting? Would they have forgotten and tried to pbad it to Isco?

Fernando Hierro had mixed his pack here, bringing the most powerful Koke and fastest Marco Asensio to Andrés Iniesta and Thiago Alcántara. Things started pretty well. Nacho Fernández was hacked. The free kick from the right was launched by Asensio and deflected in the goal of Sergei Ignashevich. The final score will not reflect that Ignashevich was attacked on the ground by Sergio Ramos in bastard fashion. But that was probably a given anyway.

After which, slow retirement. There is a simple pleasure watching Isco move the ball, position his body, move away from a challenge or two, push a shot or punch.

But sometimes there is an illusory element. The show can seduce and charm then, slowly, become a little worn, dripping bad that keeps accumulating on its own worm rhythm endlessly. It's the jazz dinner of football. Nifty, neat, but seemingly endless.

Does Spain still bored with its own style? At about 70 minutes, the whole team camped in the Russian half and just pushed the ball back and forth on the field, taking time but not getting out of Russia, without trying to run into the # 39; space.

Much of the counterattack versus possession can be like a well-matched boxing match. It was like a bad boxing fight, a shock of two inexperienced styles. But it is always intriguing to see a sporting virtue become a vice.

For Spain, the possession football of the Cruyffo-Catalan school gave the national team its greatest era and redefined the sport itself in several ways. But there is no Xavi in ​​this team, the genius that made the system irresistible.

And the opponents are wise now, less psychologically disturbed by sitting down deeply, watching the football game of someone else. At times such as possession of the ball can feel like a burden in itself, something stuffy and expensive, denying your own space of attack. There is too much talent in this team for Spain to be traumatized too long by an exit from the 16th. But a style and culture that were beautiful at times, irresistible to others, seemed to have reached a final point.