Post by Ainesh Ravi

Spain's win over France yesterday reminds me of the strong link vs weak link games episode from Malcolm Gladwell's Revisionist history. France had the best players in the world, but fell convincingly to a Spain team who had comparatively much less starpower. That's because soccer depends largely on pulling up the bottom. Any goal takes multiple passes to score - so one botched pass in the chain eliminates a would-be goal. On the flip side, one bad foul could lead to the other team scoring. And that's exactly what happened. France committed a grave mental error in the box to hand Spain their first goal. And they could never construct a chain of passes to create any big chances. Spain on the other hand was able to create multiple goal scoring opportunities - this game could've had a final score that was much more lopsided than 2-0. Two other takeaways for me: 1. Do the boring things well. Spain won this game because of their defense and midfield. No flashy attacks. Just precise passing in the back third and middle third of the field suffocated France. 2. Systems beats talent. Spain's national team consisted of players that fit well into Coach Luis de La Fuente's system. On the other hand, Coach Didier Deschamps was handed the best individual talents out there and had to create a style of play around them. And just to preemptively put any fluke arguments to rest, Spain has now won their last three matchups against France. #worldcup