The legendary Italian coach Arrigo Sacchi once said there had only ever been one genuine tactical revolution in men’s football — Ajax and the Netherlands’ Total Football of the 1970s.
It was at that point, believed Sacchi, that football changed from being a predominantly individual game to being a predominantly collective one.
Football is in a peculiar situation at the moment because it has never been more collective tactically, while coverage of the sport has never been so based around individuals. And while this has become a dominant factor in the men’s game, with some seemingly more invested in Lionel Messi versus Cristiano Ronaldo than in clubs’ performance, it is even more pronounced in women’s football.
Walking around Sydney over the past month, it is obvious the Women’s World Cup is taking place here because you’re constantly noticing photos and billboards featuring the co-hosts’ Sam Kerr, Ellie Carpenter, Mary Fowler or Caitlin Foord. You rarely see the Australia side those players are part of pictured as a team, though.
The recent development of women’s football has been driven by brands, by marketing, and therefore by the cult of the individual.
This is perhaps a reflection of modern society in general, in the age of social media and influencers. But it’s also in keeping with what female consumers of sport are accustomed to; the women’s sports which historically enjoyed a relatively high level of interest and media coverage, such as tennis and athletics, were (largely) individual sports. People became invested in Serena Williams or Jessica Ennis or, here in Australia, in Cathy Freeman, more than in teams.
That, it seems, has now carried over into football, where there is a fascination with players rather than their teams.
More people would be able to tell you what Megan Rapinoe’s political views are than which club she plays for. Marta is more famous than all her Brazil team-mates put together. Alisha Lehmann has five times as many Instagram followers as her club, Aston Villa.
“As the World Cup plays out around the world, the question every marketing executive is asking is: who is the star?” wrote The Athletic’s Sarah Shephard last week.
And that’s the funny thing. There isn’t one.
Look at last year’s Ballon d’Or standings.
Alexia Putellas, Beth Mead and Kerr, the top three vote-getters, have all been either absent entirely through injury (Mead) or unable to significantly contribute because of it. Ninth-placed Catarina Macario and 11th-placed Vivianne Miedema also missed the tournament through injury. Twelfth-placed Christiane Endler’s Chile didn’t qualify. Lena Oberdorf (fourth) and Alexandra Popp (sixth) didn’t make it out of the group stage. Neither Ada Hegerberg (seventh) nor Alex Morgan (13th) looked right — neither scored and neither of their teams made it past the round of 16.
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Therefore, of the players at the top of the list, we’re left with Aitana Bonmati (fifth), Wendie Renard (eighth) and Lucy Bronze (10th). The latter two are veteran defenders — still reliable, but both arguably peaked a few years ago.
That just leaves Bonmati and while she was impressive against Costa Rica and Switzerland, scoring similarly calm finishes in both, she was overrun in Spain’s 4-0 group loss to Japan, marked out of the 2-1 quarter-final win over the Netherlands by Jackie Groenen, and not overwhelmingly involved against Sweden in the semis. In other words, against genuinely good opposition, she has been quiet.
Amandine Henry, arguably the best midfielder at the previous two World Cups, is another who missed out this time through injury, and Keira Walsh, the most expensive player in the women’s game, has been hampered by a knee problem she picked up in the second group game against Denmark. Some of Spain’s most renowned players are absent because of a dispute with their federation.
There’s no requirement for this year’s star to be an established player, of course, but has anyone stepped up?
Lauren James’ sensational form briefly seemed set to make her into the tournament’s star, but her red card against Nigeria in the final group game means her knockout-phase contribution has been negligible, notwithstanding the potential for a sensational return in Sunday’s final. Her team-mates Alessia Russo and, in particular, Lauren Hemp have performed well in James’ absence, although this time last week Russo was considered to have been enduring a difficult tournament.
Hemp’s knockout-phase goals have helped England to the final (Joe Prior/Visionhaus via Getty Images)
Plenty of players have performed well in this World Cup.
Japan’s inside-right, Hinata Miyazawa, scored five goals and combined brilliantly with team-mates. Daphne van Domselaar enjoyed another excellent tournament in goal for the Dutch. Sweden’s Elin Rubensson was superb in the quarter-final win over Japan and then their best player in the defeat to Spain.
But these players haven’t become superstars.
Curiously, the only player to have delivered two decisive performances in the knockout stages hasn’t started either of those matches. Salma Paralluelo was introduced from the bench against both the Netherlands and Sweden and was transformative, scoring in both cases. If she replicates that in the final… well, can you have a player of the tournament who was only a substitute in the crucial games?
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All this is partly circumstantial due to all those injuries and this is maybe something of an anomaly from a small sample size of matches. But it’s difficult to escape the feeling that this marks a shift away from the individualism in the women’s game which still felt obvious when the USWNT triumphed at the previous World Cup in France four years ago.
Then, Rapinoe won both the Golden Ball as best player and Golden Boot as top scorer. Team-mates Morgan and Rose Lavelle won the Silver Boot (second-top scorer) and Bronze Ball (third-best player) respectively. The Americans were a good team, of course, but to a large extent that was because they boasted individuals who could tear through the opposition.
The coach of that side, Jill Ellis, agreed there has been a marked change when asked by The Athletic ahead of the Spain v England final: “It is really interesting — I think that’s a great analysis of where we are,” she said. “Are there those players that can pull the rabbit out of the hat and do it solo?
“Teams are so organised. You look at what Nigeria did in terms of how they decided to defend against Lauren James (by tightly marking her) and you’ve now a higher level of sophistication in dealing with those special players who can suddenly change the game. So it’s a higher level of awareness of the game plan. I also think it’s a better structure and organisation in terms of the whole team.”
Ellis believes teamwork has dominated this tournament, in part because the overall level has been raised. “I think the teams that have got to the final are teams that are playing as teams,” she continued. “They play both sides of the ball. They’re not just going to sit in (and play) in transition. They’re not a team that’s going to dominate the ball and not score goals. Their personality is very balanced in what they provide both sides of the ball. And so then it isn’t reliant on that just one special player.
“Now, that’s not to say there aren’t phenomenally incredible players here, but I think you could look at it this way: do they not shine and sparkle as much because there are more of them? Maybe that’s also a way to look at it. You look at Spain and there’s a player you’re like, ‘Oh my goodness!’, and then there’s this player (of a similar level) and — to your point — it’s hard to say ‘Well, that one player is the one that stands out’ when perhaps the whole bar has gone up in terms of talent. It’s exciting.”
The women’s game has evolved considerably over the past four years and two defining features of this competition, in a tactical sense, have been the compactness and physicality on show. Therefore, the flair players who might have dominated and dictated games in previous editions of the Women’s World Cup have found it difficult to receive possession in the first place, then struggled to impose themselves under such strong pressure from opponents.
Maybe things would be different if Miedema, Mead and Henry weren’t out, or if Kerr, Putellas and Walsh were fully fit.
But in a sense, women’s football has undergone its equivalent of total football, and in a world obsessed with individuals, this has been a remarkably system-focused tournament.
(Top photo: Ulrik Pedersen/DeFodi Images via Getty Images)
