All You Gotta Do is Shoot

At

St. Joseph's college, Darjeeling, we used to joke that the easiest job in the world was to be the football coach at St. Paul's, our traditional crosstown rivals. Their patented game plan was to hoof the ball in our general direction, hoping to catch our 'keeper unawares. All their coach had to do was point to our goal at the start of the game and say, "Shoot thataway." The tricky bit came at halftime, when he had to convince the dumb jocks that they now had to kick in the opposite direction! We, of course, played with dribbling skills, artful passing and subtle tactical nous. Even so, in the most fiercely contested school derby of the Indian Himalayas, St. Paul's sometimes won.

Football managers looking to the World Cup for clues to the state of their art might want to send away to Darjeeling for a certain (very thin) coaching manual. Because the most obvious lesson to be drawn from the first round of the tournament is that the simplest strategies are the most effective. The surprising success stories—Sweden, Ireland, Denmark—hewed closest to the St. Paul's school of football. They packed their defenses with up to eight large bodies and booted the ball up toward a couple of speedy forwards. It bored spectators to distraction, but delivered the results the teams wanted.

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The surprising failures—defending champion France and pretender Argentina—did the exact opposite. They played overly complicated football that often looked terrific but ultimately yielded too little of the only commodity that really matters: goals. Football commentators are sometimes accused of overintellectualizing what is essentially a kick in the grass, but this time the boot is on the other foot: France and Argentina were too cerebral for their own good.

The French went so far in trying to outthink Senegal, Uruguay and Denmark, that they outthought themselves. Their three first-round games were almost identical. Les Bleus dominated the midfield, stringing together long sequences of complex passes that would look impossible even on a coach's drawing board. These were designed to draw opposition defenders and create spaces for David Trezeguet, the French spearhead, to slip through. When the other side refused to come out and play, the French fell into their own trap: their defenders stepped up to help the midfielders, leaving behind huge gaps. Uruguay was unable to make much of these openings, but Senegal got a goal, Denmark two—while France drew a blank in all its games.

The most excruciating example of an needlessly elaborate game strategy came in Argentina's final outing, against Sweden. With the Swedes reluctant to leave their own half, the South American champs were easily able to feed the ball to Pablo Aimar and Ariel Ortega, who were in turn meant to create scoring opportunities for Gabriel Batistuta. Both of these diminutive players have had the misfortune of being tagged "the new Maradona." Perhaps the heavy burden of that label compelled them to show off their dazzling skills every time they received the ball, weaving one way, then the other, deceiving a couple of defenders, then turning again and accelerating away from a third. Why go for the old one-two, when you can try for a one-two-three-four? It was breathtaking to watch, but all this trickery took up valuable seconds, allowing a retreating phalanx of Swedish midfielders to crowd into the penalty box. When Aimar/Ortega finally passed to Batistuta, the striker had no room to move.

In their final games, both France and Argentina had the ball nearly twice as much as their rivals. The gospel of possession football, preached by coaches everywhere, promises victory to the side that keeps the ball the longest. But this only works when the opposition actually wants the ball. Against France, the Danes didn't: they were happy to let Les Bleus play around for as long as they wanted. And the team that won the "Group of Death," Sweden, had less than 50% possession in each of its first-round games. It isn't about how long you have the ball, but what you do when you have it.