Possession remains the name of the game

EVERY World Cups needs its Matches that Made History, though sometimes you struggle to find them. Less than a week in, and we already have two candidates: the Slaughter of Salvador and the Stumble in the Jungle.

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.