Possession remains the name of the game
After Spain’s spectacular collapse on Friday, the near-universal opinion was that their possession game had been ruthlessly exposed by a Dutch masterclass. “Tiki-Taka is finished, it’s a triumph for Total Football,” was one succinct verdict on Twitter. But what the Dutch exposed was more like a bowdlerised version of tiki-taka: a lot of tiki, not much taka you might say. And just 24 hours or so later, Italy’s well-worked win against England suggested a different conclusion: possession football can be very effective, so long as you vary the point of attack and strike with speed.
Anyone with an eye for history would have warned the Spanish to be wary of the Netherlands in Salvador, and not just because the Dutch once sacked the city during their long war with Spain. Louis van Gaal spent nine years with Ajax and another four with Barcelona. Van Gaal could write the book about possession play and how to counter it and in this match showed how pressing high and playing the ball over the top to fast attackers can leave opposing defenders exposed.
It was a brave, risky strategy and it could have backfired. Both the Dutch central defenders advanced way up the pitch, sometimes beyond the midfield. There was space that Spain could have exploited much more effectively, and as it was, they nearly went 2-0 up close on half-time. A goal then and we’d now probably be using the word foolhardy rather than risky.
Spain then imploded, with Iker Casillas providing a shocking confirmation of the mental fragility he showed in the Champions League final. As Dónal Óg Cusack wrote in this paper after that match: “When you have to start thinking too much, when you can’t find that zone, when there is a disconnect between the see and act, the position you thought you mastered finally masters you.”
And when a keeper loses his nerve, an entire defence can crumble, but Spain’s decisive failing against the Dutch was that tiki-taka is not simply about keeping the ball, it is about pressure and relentless attack. Pep Guardiola’s original Barcelona side showed the way: swamp the opposition, isolate them, exhaust them, force errors, both with and without the ball. Vicente Del Bosque’s team failed to do that, the Dutch out-pressed them in midfield with both numbers and energy and Spain paid the price.
Italy’s performance against England was not perfect. For all the triumphalism after the match, Italian TV pundits at half-time pointed out defensive weaknesses England were exposing. Nevertheless they ended up controlling the game, partly because of another tremendous display from Andrea Pirlo, partly because conditions in Manaus made England’s high-energy game unsustainable but most of all because of Italy’s ability to keep the ball.
Passing statistics can be misleading and the Italians have such a history of retaining possession in their own half while running down the clock, that it has its own name — fare melina. This was different though. No team in the history of the World Cup has previously achieved 93.2% passing accuracy. The closest comparison is Denmark, when they beat Uruguay 6-1 back in 1986. Germany have also come close, but against much weaker opposition, most recently Australia. Italy’s passing between their midfield triangle was almost faultless.
But it was the way they used that possession as a platform for their raids down the right that won the game. Just as the Dutch had their left-back Daley Blind as a secret weapon, Italy had the even bigger surprise of their right-back, Matteo Darmian, to unleash. Neither of them are the greatest defenders, but both carried out their managers’ attacking plans perfectly.
A flying start for the Dutch, a most satisfactory one for the Italians. The question is how Spain will adjust when they face Chile tomorrow. There is some debate in their camp, judging by the different opinions of Cesc Fabregas and Xabi Alonso in their press conferences. But don’t write off possession football just yet.
