Last Sunday, there, around 19: 50, when the big final between France and Croatia ended, the final titles for the 21 World Cup fell. The end of this, as is logical, always opens the relevant discussions about how good or successful it was - from the spectacle within the playing field to the hosting of the host country - with everyone presenting the positive and negative we have watched in this one month and here in the Russian stadiums.
Although the opinions in such cases usually differ - the opinion, on the other hand, is always subjective - the feeling we made after this was rather positive and in general, this year's World Cup is considered to be successful on all sides, or we are talking about a spectacle within the playing field, or almost the slightest parade inside and outside, or the excellent hospitality of this year's hostess of Russia, even in the use of VAR, which this year was the newest innovation.
At 2014's World Cup in Brazil, it was the use of the sprays by the referees to define the points of execution of the foul and to ensure (as much) as possible the best fitting of the wall of the defending group in these cases. Some years earlier, 1990 was the introduction of a ban on the goalkeepers to block the ball with their hands on their partner's turn in order to eliminate this phenomenon once and for all because it had led to very dull and monotonous games due to the degrading to annoying use of this tactic by many teams.
This year, innovation was that VAR and in our humble view, it was another step in the right direction in terms of improving the sport. Clearly, it was not entirely good to use it - some of them were not avoided in one instance by the referees - but in general it helped to make the most of the arbitrators to make the right decisions.
Beyond that, we saw a total of 169 goals, ie 2.64 on average per game, and one of the most outstanding features of this year's event was just ... a 0-0 as a final result, and we remind you that this may have been more conjunctural because it was a good match for Denmark and France, resulting in a bad game with little risk, otherwise we could not even have this white draw, something that has to happen from the very distant 1954. In addition, from 169 these goals, we had 9 scored on or after 90 'minute and that made wins, which is a new record (4 was the previous one) while we still had 4 that led to avoiding a defeat. We had, in general, many late goals, as we say.
Speaking of goals, in general, we had a fairly wide range of scores, with the only one that 4-0 was missing this year. Otherwise, I recall, among other things, the 3-2 of Belgium with Japan, we had a 3-3 in Portugal - Spain, we had the 5-0 of the premiere in Russia - Saudi Arabia, while 5-2 was equally impressive. Belgium Panama, as of course 4-2 we saw in the big final between France and Croatia. However, despite the big enough scores for the lovers of the numbers, it is worth mentioning that the undertakers have come out in the battle with over (35 versus 29) while in the goal-no goal you have scored ... X , with the "score" here 32-32.
A new record, in addition, was also the one we had in this World Cup - twelve, six in the previous record - but also in terms of the number of penalty shoot-outs. More specifically, the referees whistled a total of 29 penalties (22 of which aptly), with VAR of course having a very important role in achieving this. Finally, we had a record of having to do with goals from the so-called "phased phases", as the teams overall showed an accuracy of 43%.
As far as some statistics are concerned, the trophy from France is placed in the closed club of the teams that have conquered it more than once, while in an even more closed "circle" came its coach, the coach Didier Desam, as he was only the third in the history of the World Cup to conquer both as a player and as a coach, making it ... now with Mario Zagallo and Franz Beckenbauer. Also interesting is the fact that the two conquests from France occurred with a difference of just twenty years (1998-2018), which incidentally happened with Uruguay (1930-1950) and Germany (1954-1974), and after 2002 and Brazil, has become the first team ever since it did not need any of its knockout games to play. The last team, which scored four times in a big final was Brazil 1970, with 4-2 as a result of his appearance for the fourth time.
Staying in France, history has also written Kilian Empape, one of the top players in this year's tournament and in fact doubles as he became the second youngest player to score two goals in the World Cup (he did against Argentina) and also became the second youngest player to score in a big final. In order to realize the magnitude of the achievement, it is enough to say that in both of these cases, the youngest player in the history of the World Cup and the relative list is the great Pele.
Closing this final assessment of the World Cup, we think that some of the "new" players who stood out or, if you prefer, shone, are worth mentioning. Four years ago, for example, it was Hames Rodriguez with the amazing performances and goals he scored with the Colombian jersey. This year, among others, another Colombian stood out, the tall 23-year-old defender Jerry Mina, who, in addition to his basic defense duties, helped the aggressive piece, scoring very important goals in three consecutive games of his team. His presence is also excellent Cherischev for hostess Russia, with the Villarreal player even coming from quite "tired" by season injuries, even taking the final position in 23 literally at the last minute.
Beyond that, the top players in the tournament were undoubtedly the Dane Casper Smahile of Leicester, who, among other things, was rejecting 91,3% of his opponent's efforts against his home team while he had also wiped out three penalty kicks against Croatia in the Russian roulette process. Finally, a special mention is worthwhile Inu, being one of Japan's top players, with Betis (its new team) definitely rubbing their hands with satisfaction while the English Cieran Tripeir should undoubtedly be considered by the revelations of the renewed England, greatly assisting his team not only with a halt but also with the great blows in the set phases, resulting in an amazing goal-foul against Croatia.
