What constitutes a great game of football is a question as old as the sport itself. High-scoring affairs could be thrilling but without producing high-quality football. Dramatic see-sawing contests are treasured forever, but without setting the highest standard. Similarly, a high-quality tactical masterclass might not be a thriller or a goal-fest. The question has no clear objective answer, and perhaps is a purely subjective judgement. But a few common themes emerge when you fork out memories of great games—goals, free-flowing games, end-to-end action, quality, drama, tactics, melodrama or maybe an incident or controversy.
The Spain-Germany quarterfinal reproduced several of those traits, even though it lacked properties to consider it an epic (for example, clumsiness in the box). But the rest of the last-eight games hardly stirred any enduring memories of moments. Perhaps, the Bukayo Saka pearler would linger in the mind, or the trickery of Portuguese winger Rafael Leão, the acrobats of Dutch goalkeeper Bart Verbruggen, or the poise of French defender William Saliba, or Cristiano Ronaldo’s theatrics. Not that the games were outrageously defensive, or horribly boring and cynical, but they buzzed with unbound edginess, a fear of losing seizing their mind. Rather not concede a goal than score one. Football, perhaps, is in a dystopian slump.
Even the supposedly more entertaining COPA America quarterfinals failed to generate excitement. Colombia’s 5-0 hammering of Panama would spike the goals per game ratio, but the other three produced a combined haul of four goals. The Euro digits are similar—seven goals in four games. Shootouts decided three games in America and two in Europe. From a historic high of 2.79 goals a game last Euro, goals per game has dropped to 2.25, the second worst of this century. COPA America’s figure is 2.21. More than the number of goals, it’s the tedium of the games that capture the disenchantment. Of the kind associated with the final. The Uruguay-Brazil duel, for all the romance of the past, was a banal exhibition of rugged, unimaginative football.
Maybe it’s how modern tournament football is—numbingly unexciting, a test of patience for a scrap of drama, a thrush of excitement. Even the eternal football romantic Marcelo Bielsa accepts the bitter truth. “But there are fewer and fewer footballers worth watching, the game is less and less enjoyable. We favour business, because business means that a lot of people watch the matches,” he said.
A possible reason could be the emphasis on structure, shape and positional play, driven by rigid tactics. The sense of adventure is limited. The prerogative is to stay solid when being pressed and to beat the press trap. But football has lost its fun; embraced a suffocating order. The primary concern is to not concede a goal, but build the game incrementally, like batting in difficult conditions in a Test match. Like the patient stonewaller, they wait for the right ball to attack, the opponent to tire out. It’s an offshoot of the pressure that accompanies big teams in big tournaments. The public backlash, the fans’ ire, the incessant social media abuse, and the mental trauma of extreme levels too have contributed in teams adopting a more cautious approach.
The outcome, on the field has been the ubiquitous sight of this Euro and COPA. Teams passing side to side along the perimeter and then getting a cross in that goes nowhere, before the opponent performs the same sequence. The sequence plays out on a loop.
The textbook example of the malaise is England. Gareth Southgate possesses a rich stack of attacking power, a pack of youngsters, in the right hands, possess the gifts to display exhilarating football. Yet, the priority is not to concede a goal. Some numbers are instructive. England are third in terms of possession in the tournament, averaging 58.6 per-cent. Their pass-completion percentage is an impressive 90 percent, yet they have scored only five goals. They are eighth on the goal attempts per game, a number boosted by teams crashing out in the group stages and round of 16. After the group stages, they were 20th among 24 teams in this category. In the Switzerland game, they roused only after their adversaries scored, despite a potentially progressive change in formation. No sooner than they found the equaliser, they reverted to the old ways of holding onto the ball and pinging the ball among each other, mindful of Switzerland’s counter-press and losing the ball. The moment they lost the ball, every one fell back, congesting lines and covering the spaces like obedient schoolboys.
Neighbours France were equally watchful, stifling the prowess of their vastly gifted superstars. In fact they are yet to score this Euro from open play, their three coming from 2 own goals and 1 penalty. Relatively, the Dutch were more vibrant, though not operating at full pelt. The lone exception to their trend—the radical non-conformists—was Spain. No longer as obsessed about possession as they once were, they top the attempts on goal chart (102, compared to England’s 57). At the same time, they had been robust at the back too, letting just a couple of goals in the entire tournament. By far this Euro, they had been the most entertaining bunch too, from the ballast of their wingers to the foresight of the midfielders, getting the ball upfield much quicker to create goal-scoring opportunities. They have wriggled through defenses and dribbled an average of 22 times a game—courtesy Lamine Yamal and Nico Williams—and have the best crossing precision in the tournament too. Directness has made them the most potent team in the last four. How France would try to quell them is anyone’s guess. They would hog unthreatening possession in the centre of the pitch, looking to asphyxiate the wingers.
Perhaps it’s another stage in football’s evolutionary circle; perhaps it is exhaustion; perhaps, the semi finals would light up both America and Europe, though the hard evidence suggests that they could produce more of the same uninspiring football.
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101 Boring Football
* Goals per game are down from 2.79 last Euro to 2.25, second worst of this century. COPA America’s figure is 2.21.
* England are third on possession averaging 58.6 per-cent, with pass-completion percentage at impressive 90, yet they have scored only five goals.
* France are yet to score this Euro from open play, their three coming from 2 own goals and 1 penalty.
* Three COPA quarterfinals produced a combined haul of four goals. Euro scavenged seven in four games.
* Spain are the radical non-conformists – topping attempts on goal chart (102, compared to sluggish Southgate’s England with 57).
* Spain have dribbled an average of 22 times a game and have the best crossing precision in the tournament. England average 18.
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