1) This was a brilliant World Cup, perhaps my favourite ever. But the rush to call it ‘the best’ or rank it objectively against others is misplaced.
- The magnificence of the World Cup lies in its universal popularity and yet its simultaneous ability to mean a million different things to a million different people. Your enjoyment of a tournament depends largely on your personal and professional situation.
- Was this the one where you came of age, long afternoons spent in hazy beer gardens in a fog of beery bliss? Was this this the one where you wowed at 100 goals in silence, dancing on the inside as you tried to hide the tiny live stream window in the corner of your work computer screen? Was this the one where you watched the highlights every night with your newborn baby in arms, fizzing with happiness to the point where you thought you might burst?
- What is certainly true is that World Cup 2018 had all the right ingredients. There were goals in quantity – more per game than in three of the last four tournaments – and quality. There were controversies, upsets and memorable matches between traditional heavyweights and new-found favourites – France vs Belgium, Spain vs Portugal, France vs Argentina. There was a worthy winner and a memorable final.
- In fact, the only possible issue with this tournament is that France lifted the trophy having beaten Argentina, Uruguay, Belgium and Croatia and yet still left us with the sense that they didn’t play at their best. A wonderful tournament, but the highest-quality winner? Not for me.
2) There’s nothing better in football than realising how little we know. Part of sport’s attraction lies in having your assumptions turned on their head.
- We watch for entertainment in the football, but also in the unknown. Were you told the winner of every competition at the start of the season, it would soon get dull.
- This World Cup did that in spades. We expected Germany, Spain and Brazil to be strong, and would have laughed at anyone who predicted that only one would make it to the quarter-finals. We expected Neymar to shine and the Germans to play as a team. We expected Russia to flunk and expected very little of England.
- Look back at our World Cup predictions and call us fools. But only if you accept that you are also foolish. Picking France to win the thing was just about the only thing anyone could have expected to get right.
3) I was delighted that Luka Modric won the Golden Ball, but there is no doubt which player used the tournament to elevate his status to superstar.
- If that sounds a ludicrous thing to say about the second-most expensive player in the game’s history, see Paris Saint-Germain for details. As with Cristiano Ronaldo in 2009, Kylian Mbappe’s extraordinary transfer fee could soon look like a bargain.
- At 19, Mbappe now has the world at his lightning quick feet. He was France’s best player in only one of their seven matches at the World Cup, but picked his moment perfectly. The two goals to knock out Lionel Messi’s Argentina did feel like a changing of the guard, a baton of greatness passed on. Messi remains the king for now, and his brilliance will cover for his advancing years for a good while yet, but Mbappe is established as the crown prince.
4) Despite Mbappe’s rise, this was a tournament that re-established the importance of the collective over the individual.
- For those of us who have bruises from banging our heads against a wall every time two people argue about the merits of Ronaldo over Messi or vice versa, this was welcome respite.
- Belgium finally linked together the excellent individual components to create a team, France had magnificent stars but their best two players were N’Golo Kante and Raphael Varane. England found a togetherness that was lacking during the years when they had a team worth less than the sum of its parts. Croatia battled through on hunger and grit, perhaps matched only by hosts Russia.
- But this trend was made most obvious in Sweden, who eclipsed all expectation with their run to the quarter-finals despite the absence of superstar Zlatan Ibrahimovic from a major tournament for the first time since 2002. Scratch that: Sweden eclipsed all expectation with their run to the quarter-finals because of the absence of superstar Zlatan Ibrahimovic from a major tournament for the first time since 2002. This is the power of the team.
5) Another clear theme is European dominance: It will now be 20 years since a South American country won the World Cup when the next one comes around.
- That comes as little surprise, in truth. The lack of funding and disorganisation – and corruption – within South American football is finally coming home to roost, with European sides now able to match their South American counterparts on technical ability. With North America, Africa and Asia still unable to mount a meaningful challenge, Europe has enjoyed the cakewalk.
- There is hope, of course. Argentina must now undergo a self-imposed cleanse if it is to respond again following years of dependence on Messi, but Brazil remain in rude health despite their exit. Tite’s team outplayed Belgium for long periods of their quarter-final and could well have given France a stern test, while Belgium themselves came close to exit at the hands of Japan.
- But that doesn’t alter the cold, hard statistics. Only one of the last eight World Cup finalists (Argentina in 2014) have come from outside Europe.
- FIFA President Gianni Infantino believes that this should be a wake-up call to non-European nations.
- “So, at the end, it comes down of course to the quality of the players, and it comes down as well, I think, to the work and to the professional attitude and of course to the way of operating in football, and I think that this World Cup shows by the results and dominance of the European teams,” Infantino said.
- “I think that the results of this World Cup for the other continents outside of Europe — well, it should be a catalyst and a motivator for them to work even harder, to train, to invest in training.”