The tournament, co-hosted by Australia and New Zealand, produced one surprise after another. The American team’s penalty shoot-out defeat to Sweden in the round of 16 ended their bid for an unprecedented three-time World Cup triumph.
Two-time champions Germany started with a 6-0 crushing victory over Morocco, but were defeated by Colombia and drew against South Korea in the group stage. Brazil started with a 4-0 victory over Panama, but were defeated by France and tied with Jamaica. Both Germany and Brazil were eliminated before the playoffs. Thus, the tournament can be compared to casino Mostbet, when an absolute surprise can happen at any time.
“This World Cup has been amazing. We see the gap narrowing between the smaller teams and the big nations,” said Manchester City and Jamaica forward Bunny Shaw.
What remains unclear is whether the unexpected results are a feature of this southern hemisphere tournament or a more permanent trend. We also found a few more tournament trends.
The growing importance of tactics
Although teams with fewer stars have to concede possession of the ball, they manage to be efficient. Jamaica’s tactical approach allowed her to go through groups that included France and Brazil without conceding a single goal. In the end, she lost to Colombia with a score of 1-0.
“Sometimes the decision when you go to a game is ‘Do I want the ball or do I want my opponent to hold the ball?'” said Jill Ellis, who has coached the US in two World Cups. “But if I want my opponent to have the ball, I want him to hold it because I want him to open up because my strengths are in the transition.”
So while Japan and Spain dominated possession, Colombia’s counter-attacking threat also proved effective.
It’s not trying to adopt this style for this team, but rather ‘What is my team really good at and how can I use it?’. This approach has become the main one, which in some way increased competitiveness.
Added time
This was a feature of the men’s World Cup in Qatar last year and FIFA continues to struggle with slow play. Long periods of time were added and games went well beyond the 90 minutes of regular time.
While this initiative has not been followed up by the top domestic leagues since Qatar, the English Premier League appears set to follow suit this season. Arsenal scored in the 11th minute of stoppage time against Manchester City in the Super Bowl.
This approach allows you to level the puffs of time and other unpleasant moments. It is especially important that now the players are required to maintain concentration even longer, until the very last second.
Growing interest
The Women’s World Cup attracts fans. Australia have twice played in front of crowds in excess of 75,000 in Sydney, limited only by the stadium’s capacity. The attendance of 1,533,545 fans in the first two rounds surpassed the previous record total of 1,353,506 when the World Cup was held in Canada in 2015.
More than 500,000 people visited the fan zones in the host cities to watch the games on giant screens. Although this tournament was expanded to 32 teams, the fact that 14 games in the first two rounds were attended by more than 40,000 people indicates the popularity of the event.
“This World Cup has gone from being a team-supported tournament to being watched by the whole world,” said FIFA President Gianni Infantino.
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