The French Left "Jogo Bonito" to Brazilians, but Went to the Final!
"Jogo Bonito" ("the beautiful game" in Portuguese) is the kind of football Brazil played during Pele's time (or so Wikipedia says).
Now even Brazil doesn't play "Jogo Bonito", but still their play style kept them away from the World Cup title at football for 16 years already, which I'm sure it's not easy to handle, being the team who won the cup the most times.
Do you remember how Brazil played against Belgium? They attacked! Let's be clearer: they tried to play their usual attack game against the best team at this World Cup on counter-attack.
Was it wise? In hindsight, we can say it wasn't, Belgium led 2 - 0 at halftime, and I'd say Brazil was lucky, considering Belgians simply wasted many counter-attacks with serenity.
Yes, Brazilians had many opportunities to score, and they finally did, but they lost the game in the end. And although I am generally a fan of their game, this time I realized it may be... long outdated.
How did the French play in the semifinal? They mostly waited for Belgians, blocked them, as did Belgians with them. Despite quite a few chances to score, it wasn't a great match to watch for a neutral party who wasn't interested in tactics. But... it worked. French team won, but the table could have been turned just as well, because it was a tight match.
What won was not the attack, not the counter-attack, but defense and tactics instead. And one of the teams is in the final now. Who said Italy was not at this World Cup? It was and it... multiplied.
I'm not sure if it's fair, especially for the public to sacrifice spectacle for winning. But it's widely practiced, and as you can see, effective.
Even with so much tactics involved in football matches these days, I can't complain. We had some very interesting matches at this World Cup, and it's not over yet.
Things change... Why would football be any different?
The France versus Belgium game was more of a tactical football game plan as both team was technically sound, the both played to instructions not wanting to make mistakes but the French team was more cohesive in their approach to the game. They makes good use of their chances to score and was able to score the only goal of the match. Congratulation to France for qualifying for the final of the world cup @gadrian
Yeah, they were more precise indeed. Thanks for your comment.