巴西世界杯教给我们的十件事_时事_双语阅读-查字典英语网

巴西世界杯教给我们的十件事

3) Passion alone does not win you football matches

The debate between the supremacy of passion or cerebral tactics as a means to win football matches will rumble on. Essentially whichever side you’re on is a projection of your personality. Without passion, you don't get Luis Suarez's performance against England. Without tactical know-how, you don't get Costa Rica’s march through the tournament or Holland coming within a couple of penalty kicks to the final. There is a balance to be struck and most obviously Brazil got it painfully wrong when they opted to embrace the fervour of a nation and ended up overdosing on emotion, consumed by the Neymar frenzy. Passion overload brings witless football and Brazil's performance was a useful reminder.

4) Attacking football is here to stay

So Argentina and Holland did their best to buck the trend in last night’s semi-final. But the move towards positive football, initiated by Barcelona and Borussia Dortmund in Europe, has been given added impetus here by the most exciting South American teams in Chile and Colombia. Counter attack can still work - Carlo Ancelotti delivered a masterclass against Bayern Munich in the Champions League semi-final - but we live in an era where an awful lot of coaches choose to seize the initiative. And that just wasn’t the case ten years ago.

5) England players are still over-rated

England may not be quite as bad as their results here suggest. But even in this period of self-flagellation about how awful English football is, as a nation we still default into assuming that players that have done well for big clubs in the Premier League will be up to World Cup standard. One former leading European coach noted of the England team here: 'When it comes down to it, the first touch of most of their players is still short of the other top teams.’ That, and a lack of tactical nous and intelligence, ultimately holds back English players and until they are bothered enough about it to think about how they might improve, not much will change.