Possession football is no longer the law for achieving success

Such was the dominance of Vicente del Bosque’s elegant side, whose devotion to metronomic pass and move also helped it win the 2012 European Championship, that few dissenting voices could be heard. 

If further evidence was needed, we were told to look at Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona, who kept the Spanish top flight and Champions League in a virtual choke hold for a few years from 2009. 

Yet if the World Cup in Russia has taught us anything, it is that possession is no longer the law in football and what was once deemed the only route to global glory is seemingly now a shortcut out of the tournament. 

The three sides who have bossed the ball the most in Russia, Spain, Germany and Argentina have all bowed out before the quarter-finals. Spain averaged 69 per cent of the ball in its four games, peaking with a 75 per cent share in its last-16 clash with Russia. 

It did not translate into goals or glory, however, as it was sent packing on penalties after labouring like an ageing heavyweight, seemingly bewildered that his once formidable jab was now little more than a minor irritation. 

Germany arrived as world champion, but left after the group stage having racked up a 67 per cent possession average in its three matches, which ended in two defeats and one desperate stoppage-time win over Sweden. 

Argentina fared little better having struggled through its first three matches and scraped into the knockouts and it was dispatched by France in the last 16, ending the tournament with a 64 per cent possession average. 

France won its match 4-3, having only had the ball 41 per cent of the time and if that sounds counter-intuitive then Uruguay’s last-16 win over Portugal was even more remarkable. 

Oscar Tabarez’s side mustered 39 per cent possession but completed a 2-1 win that far from being a smash-andgrab looked more like a perfectly-executed game-plan. “There is very often this mistaken assumption that ball possession leads to scoring opportunities,” Tabarez said. 

“But even if you don’t have much ball possession, you can still inflict yourself on opponents in different ways.” 

Perhaps it is too early to sound the death knell for possession football, which still has remarkably successful proponents. Guardiola’s Manchester City side blitzed its way to the Premier League title, often giving opponents little more than a sniff of the ball. 

Yet with even the smallest nations at the World Cup now capable of manning the barricades with rigidly organised defences, zealously guarding possession is no longer the cure-all it was once perceived to be.