Transition Displaces Possession

Every four years the direction of football usually zigzags to accommodate what has led the champion team to the title.

Everyone, of course, tends to copy him from the concept of the game to the tactical drawing, only in this one it will not be possible because, how to imitate Argentina?

It would be necessary to have Messi, this strange autumnal Messi who manages the games by walking, and surround him with everything that suits him best, which is what Scaloni did after some trial and error.

But who has this Messi or something similar?

History only reminds us of two cases, the residual Pelé from Mexico-70, who played like that, and mutatis mutandis, that Roger Milla from Cameroon in Italy-92, almost forty-years-old, who he would repeat, already at 42, in the United States-96 .

Separate cases, of course.

So to look for models you have to look below and the first thing that appears is France, which was a hair's breadth from the title.

She showed an energetic model, with a fast transition and extremes.

It is what we have seen the most in the World Cup, where possession has not determined victories but energy.

An evolution that was already announced in the great European espressos.

In fact, we were already seeing how Madrid is going along that line because to replace their Gothic kings Modric-Casemiro-Kroos, who have set the pace in recent years, they are preparing a very different trio, Valverde-Tchouaméni-Camavinga.

Players with a good footing although without the excellence of Modric and Kroos, but far superior in energy and mobility.

Madrid was setting the clock on time before this World Cup indicated it.

For the rest, we have continued to see wingers on a different wing, almost all of them playmaker with no room for their natural vocation, converted into that new function in which they can shoot for the hypotenuse while making way for the corresponding full-back, a function that shows us types capable of repeated efforts over a hundred meters and ability to defend and attack.

Extraordinary players, perhaps not as valued either in public admiration or in contracts as they deserve.

And that they have been there for years, to verify it, it is enough to look back to the times of Kaltz and Gordillo.

Today you rarely see wingers play on your wing.

For those of us who lived in the era in which they reigned, we longed for the role of Di María in the final, where he was decisive, but he himself has done most of his career on the right.

We have also seen a lot of mobile center forward, in the manner of Kane.

The irruent Giroud has been almost an exception and it is clear that Deschamps preferred Benzema because he fit better into the formula, with Dembelé and Mbappé at the sides and Griezmann in the creation.

But it takes more, if it can be said that way, what the Argentines called nine and a half, half ten and half nine, capable of delaying to combine and score the last pass and also to be at the meeting with the goal enough number of times.

And we have seen the goalkeepers play with their feet.

Now everyone plays with their foot, everyone tries to start the play from them, but there are beginning to be doubts with the fanaticism for the formula, which has given away several goals in the championship.

There are already enough that in case of danger they burst it.

In general, there are few fanaticisms left, I have the impression.

That of the model above all else ("I'm happy because MY players have carried out MY plan to perfection", does it ring a bell?) gives way to the search for solutions according to the players available, and not the other way around.

Football belongs to footballers, saying this seems to discover the Mediterranean, but it should be remembered frequently.

Forlán recently complained in an interview in this newspaper that some coaches pretended to be more than the players.

And he was right.

And what happened to the tiqui-taca?

It fascinated me, of course, but that was woven around Xavi, Iniesta and Silva, and they are no longer there.

Without them, with others and with today's fast-paced football, it couldn't be the same.

The World Cup has made it clear to us.

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