World Cup 2018 Recap
A quick summary of lessons learned, defining themes and final thoughts on the World Cup that just was not to mention some predictions going forward on the national team circuit and rankings.
What have we learned from this World Cup and what themes emerged?
Lesson One: Soccer is changing. I say changing not evolving because I think this is a cycle of the pendulum swinging back to a varying trend in play. That trend? An open offensive style of attack that leads to chance after chance and counter strike after counter strike usually leading to goals, goals and more goals. With 169 total goals this World Cup is second in most goals scored behind the 2014 and 1998 cups tied with 171 in first. This cup had only one match end in a 0-0 draw and 34 matches were completed before that happened. It's the age where a more offensive style of play is yielding more effective results over the ball controlling defensive approach.
Lesson Two: Youth is beating experience, in abundance! This WC knockout stage was littered with the up and coming young stars most of whom were making their debut on the global stage. Most of whom had some length of a coming out party at this cup as well. Mbappe (FRA), Rodriguez (COL), Odriozola (SPA), Lozano (MEX), Sisto (DEN), Bednarek (ENG), Sanchez (COL), Alvarez (MEX), Pavon (ARG), Lukaku (BEL), Jesus (BRZ), Kane (ENG), Eriksen (DEN), Kante (FRA) and that is just from the knockout round squads, you know, the same round many of the older stars spent watching at home after one match or none. Look out Messi, Ronaldo, Neymar, Kroos, and the like; the youngsters are hot on your trail. Will there be enough advertising deal money to go around?
One defining theme of this World Cup was own goals. From the second match day to the final there was a total of 12 own goals scored. For comparison, there was only 41 other own goals scored over the previous 20 World Cups with the previous high being six in the 1998 World Cup in France. With 53 total own goals in World Cup history now, 17% of them occurred this year which is a huge percentage for any one cup to own.
Another theme was Video Assistant Referee (VAR) and from its overall successful implementation it appears it is here to stay. Hopefully, we will see the continued improvement of how and when it is brought into play but I can only think of one match where I felt it lengthened play to an extreme extent. That could be the result of improper use by the referees or exacerbated by the players rambling all over during each call that happened as well. Overall, VAR really helped show what the correct calls on the field should be in all cases where it was used. Unfortunately, it will likely continue to get blamed when the refs either choose not to use it or stubbornly keep their on field calls despite being shown evidence to the contrary since it is still their judgement that leads to the final call.
One last lesson from this World Cup that I believe will turn into a theme in coming years is that the sport of soccer is growing in popularity almost everywhere. You can see the skill level increasing in nations that were once thought of as a lower class of talent and ability. Nations like Iceland, Nigeria, Croatia, Belgium and Serbia having success and sustaining it while typical giants like Germany, Spain, Argentina and Portugal are fading is the first stage in a changing of the guard atop the football summit. While common national powers like France, Brazil and England all still sit inside the top five, the list is full of the "lesser knowns" who are paving paths of success up the pitch. Keeping that in mind I'll wrap up with my top 15 world rankings following the cup.
What should the next top 15 world rankings look like?
1 - France
2 - Belgium
3 - England
4 - Brazil
5 - Croatia
6 - Denmark
7 - Uruguay
8 - Sweden
9 - Germany
10 - Spain
11 - Mexico
12 - Columbia
13 - Portugal
14 - Switzerland
15 - Argentina
My closing record of picks from Knockout stage:
16-14-4 (9-9 match winners; 7-5-4 O/U)