Nearly all the press in the leadup to the World Cup has been negative, but that's not particularly new now is it?
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Do you feel less excited than usual for the World Cup? Do you feel like this year’s tournament doesn’t have the juice of years past? If the answer is yes, you’re not alone.
This isn’t anything new. Some say the World Cup doesn’tofficially begin until people start complaining that there isn’t any buzz around the upcoming tournament. Maybe that’s true but it doesfeel different this time.
It’s been hard to get excited for this World Cup. The World Cup has never been free of politics but there’s a political cloud hanging over this year’s tournament like we’ve never seen before. The tournament hasn’t begun and we’re already seeing immigration issues with team representatives, fans, and even a referee being denied entry into the country. So many people are having the life long dreams that were about to come true getting ripped away from them while FIFA just stands around and shrugs their shoulders.
Then there’s the costs.
The World Cup has always been about money but at least you used to be able tokinda sorta make the argument that primary purpose of the World Cup was to bring the world together for a great football tournament. You could still make the argument that football was the most important part of the event. That event also happened to also generate a ton of revenueand oh by the way the executives at FIFA were skimming off the top of that revenue - which is wrong - but we could look the other way because said event was awesome.
But this tournament is different. Instead of skimming off the top like the olden days, FIFA are unashamedly trying to milk the cow for everything it’s got. They’ve expanded the tournament, making the games less important but now there are more games to sell! Cooling breaks are now mandatory, and they’ll feature commercials. They are price gouging on everything. Tickets are outrageous, hotels jacked up their prices, public transportation to the stadium is insane in some cities. I live 20 minutes away from MetLife Stadium and I can’t afford to go to a game there. Even if I do get tickets I’m not even sure how I could physically get there. Everyone is trying to get their slice of the pie and fans are bearing the brunt of it.
The World Cup starts later this week and large amounts of tickets remain unsold. The stories in the media are setting this World Cup to be an unmitigated disaster. I’m not exaggerating when I say I’m less amped up for this World Cup than for any tournament in the past two decases.
And yet I feel pretty confident saying when push comes to shove this tournament will be… fine?
I will say itdoes feel different this time but this is not the first World Cup to be getting levels and levels of bad press in the buildup to the tournament. There were tons of question marks over South Africa in 2010. Brazilians were protesting on the streets ahead of the 2014 World Cup. Plenty of clouds surrounded how Russia and Qatar landed the two most recent tournaments. Russia ended up being a great tournament. Qatar lacked the fan experience and was played during the winter, but- as always - once the games started that all got forgotten and we just watched the games.
The focus this year is on the weather. The media can’t stop talking about how hot it is in North America during the summer. If you didn’t stop and do some critical thinking, you’d think this is the first time we’ve ever had to deal with this before as North America is apparently the only place in the world where it’s hot this time of year.
The 2022 World Cup was played in the winter but it was still hot in Qatar. Cooling breaks were introduced back in 2014 because - even though it was the Brazilian winter - it was still hot in Brazil1. The 2002 World Cup in South Korea and Japan was a hot one, as was USA ‘94 and both World Cups in Mexico.
I’m writing this from New York City where it’s 79 degrees today (27C), the current temperature in Rome is 88F (31C). Next week it’s going to hit 31C in Berlin and Paris (and did you see how hot it was during the French Open?). It’s summer time. It’s hot everywhere.
The stories about the weather and half empty stadiums are low hanging fruit for the media especially due to the experience at last years Club World Cup. Many games were interrupted by severe weather. Yes, the USA gets severe thunderstorms in the summer. I think last year was a bit on the extreme side but that’s an anecdotal statement with no evidence to back it up. What is a fact is there are more games in domed stadiums and many of those cities susceptible to that extreme weather aren’t hosting games this year.
The attendance at the Club World Cup was indeed a joke, which is almost entirely down to the fact that no one gives a shit about the Club World Cup. It was a shameless money grab with no history and no real demand. I’m far less likely to spend upwards of $200 to see Juventus take on Wydad AC than I’d be to see the Ivory Coast take on Curacao simply becauseit’s the World Cup. That experience means something.
Ticket prices may have been completely out of touch with reality but as the games get closer and the prices fall, locals will snatch them up. It’s the hospitality and tourism industries who were sold dreams of fans coming from all over the world that will lose out because those fans were priced out and chose to stay home. You probably won’t hear about that once there’s actual games to talk about.
If there’s one thing I’m worried about it’s the actual football. Will it even be good?
International tournaments areusually not that great. The last few have been particularly poor. The 2022 World Cup had 22 group stage matches with a 0-0 scoreline at halftime. That’s as many as the entire 2018 World Cup had.
Is that a trend that’s going to carry over into this years tournament? Teams have become very risk averse early on in the tournament. They know how damaging a loss in the first match is to their chances of getting out of the group, and all too often they end up playing for a draw.
The expansion to 48 teams changes the equation a bit. Eight third place teams will advance from the group stage giving teams extra breathing room to overcome a loss. That could allow for things to open up a bit more. However we’ve seen tweaks like this before only for things to go the other way.
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In 2016 the European Championships expanded from 16 teams to 24, opening the door for some third place teams to advance. Rather than teams feeling like they had insurance to have a go in the group stage and lock up qualification early, they got more conservative. At Euro 2008 37.5 percent of group stage matches had a 0-0 score at halftime. That number was 33.33 percent at Euro 2012. At Euro 2016 it went up to 44.44 percent!
It’s not unreasonable to think the influx of smaller nations will play very conservatively early on to try and increase their chances of getting out of the group. It’s not unreasonable to think the big boys will do the same, as they try to save their legs for the later parts of the competition.
That’s one way to approach the tournament but there is some good news on this front.
After that initial spike of 44.44 percent at Euro 2016, only 27.78 percent of group stage matches had a halftime scoreline of 0-0 at Euro 2020. Perhaps that’s because the Pan-European tournament meant there were a lot more “home” matches and that made the hosts more aggressive, but the number stayed pretty stable with just 30.56 percent of group stage matches at Euro 2024.
The 2022 World Cup also saw a sharp decline in goals from set pieces, which could easily have been attributed to the lack of training time each team had before the tournament (typically only a week). Given the current tactical meta of European football - specifically the Premier League - and teams back to having “normal” amounts of time, we can expect that number to go up. More set piece leads to more teams chasing games, which means more open games.
Nevertheless, more goals being scored in the first half Euro 2020 and 2024 weren’t particularly memorable tournaments. In fact I remember feeling the group stage of Euro 2024 in particular was a bit of a slog in the way the games played out which had me worried for the future of international tournaments.
International teams don’t press all that much. It’s just not really possible given limited time on the training pitch, the summer heat, and the fact that all the players are completely knackered from the draining club season. But given how prominent pressing, and being able to play through a press, is at club level the result is that every team has defenders who are comfortable playing with the ball at their feet.
We no longer get teams hitting the ball quickly up the pitch to their forwards to launch quick counter attacks. We don’t get teams going for second balls and creating gaps in that manner. Teams win the ball back and then are comfortable looking for a pass and then since they’re not being pressed they hold on to the ball. It leads to much slower games as center backs carry the ball forward often to the halfway line. There’s fewer through balls played in behind, fewer wingers running at fullbacks. Teams are just looking to pass the ball through the middle but nobody is actually open to receive those passes.
One highlight of Euro 2024 was “smaller” nations like Romania and Georgia having really good tournaments. Those teams didn’t have players in Europe’s top five leagues or UEFA’s top competitions and thus their players weren’t as tired as those from bigger nations. Their legs not as heavy. They used that freshness as an opportunity to have a go at the bigger teams and ended up playing very entertaining games.
For the optimist, that’s the hope for this tournament. The hope that some of these smaller nations can look to Romania and Georgia for inspiration. Understand that they are less tired than many of the bigger nations and try to use that to their advantage. It might not work but it will probably give us, more entertaining games.
I’m not going to argue that the vibes around this World Cup are bad. They seem worse than usual2. Maybe this time the tournament does end up being a disaster? Ultimately I think the most likely is what always happens, once the games start the negative stories just fade into the background. It’s only natural. It’s hard enough to keep up with all the matches let alone other things.
There are legitimate worries about fans being able to get to stadiums but authorities learn from past mistakes. At the end of the day, the tournament is probably going to be just fine. And FIFA will make boatloads of money from it, which will allow them to call it a huge success.
1
Cooling breaks only came into play if the temperature rose above a certain degree. Plenty of matches in Russia had them.
2
But maybe it only feels like that because this time I live in the host country?