In tennis, perfection is impossible… In the 1,526 singles matches I played in my career, I won almost 80% of those matches… Now, I have a question for all of you… what percentage of the POINTS do you think I won in those matches?
Only 54%.
In other words, even top-ranked tennis players win barely more than half of the points they play. - Rodger Federer
It had been a long time since I watched a live soccer match after the 2022 Qatar World Cup final. It was the 2024 Copa America opening match between Argentina and Canada. I enjoy watching Messi’s play, and observing the entire 90-minute game as a whole, rather than just highlights. watching the whole 90-minute games provides inspiration beyond soccer.
I expected Argentina, who won the 2021 Copa America and the 2022 Qatar World Cup, to easily defeat Canada, who was just making their Copa America debut. Looking at the result alone, it seems like an easy 2-0 victory. However, the content of the game I observed throughout the 90 minutes was somewhat different and made me think a lot.
Soccer has clear ‘enemies’, a 90-minute battle to ‘win’ against the enemy, and clear conditions for victory. When the final whistle blows after 90 minutes, if I shake the opponent’s net even once more than they do, I ‘win’ equally whether the difference is 1 or 5. And Argentina clearly demonstrated what actions a team with the habit of ‘winning’ throughout 90 minutes takes.
Observing
There were no goals in the first half. Since it has been so long i’d seen an Argentina game under Scaloni’s system, so i expected energetic attacking soccer and thought there would be a lots of scores from the first half. However, except for a few missed chances, Argentina focused on possession and observation. Rather, Canada often exposed the space behind by aggressively pushing their line up, and faced several decisive counterattack chances.
Throughout the game, Argentina seemed to be testing the opponent’s reactions as if playing poker. It’s also a characteristic of Argentina’s soccer under Scaloni’s system to increase possession and frequently change directions while watching for quite a long time how the opponent responds to this. When circulating the ball from the back, they absorb enough information by seeing whether the opponent breaks their line by coming out aggressively or maintains their formation, and how they respond to direction changes.
In this game, we could see them observing the opponent with a 92% pass success and 66% possession in the first half, and accordingly, we could observe some noticeable changes in the second half.
When Argentina tediously circulated the ball at the back, Canada often exposed themselves by breaking their formation and pouncing on the defenders. This pattern was repeated several times throughout the first half, and Argentina began to persistently exploit this aspect after the second half started. They started attacking by intentionally drawing the opponent into their own half, breaking their formation, and putting long forward passes into the empty space behind, which resulted in creating 3-4 one-on-one chances and even scoring a goal in the process.
In today’s game, Argentina patiently waited, making the opponent frustrated, and just watched and observed this reaction to create an information asymmetry. And when one or two opportunities came, they showed an impressive performance of using this information asymmetry to produce results.
Establish a clear communication system
In modern soccer, own goals are particularly common. They often occur due to communication errors about who will handle the ball that falls ambiguously between the goalkeeper and defender. If both assume it’s the other’s ball and pass on the responsibility, they concede to the opponent’s striker who infiltrates that space, and if they rush in thinking it’s their ball, an own goal occurs.
Argentina showed a perfect performance in communication between the defense and goalkeeper today. When going out to handle an ambiguously falling ball, the defender filled the empty space while the goalkeeper was coming out, and the goalkeeper rushing towards the ball clearly signaled to the defenders by extending both hands, indicating “this is my ball, so mark the opponent well.”
Victory cannot be achieved with just desire and passion. In situations where teamwork is important, a clear communication system for ambiguous situations is necessary. This becomes even more important in urgent situations. Instead of blindly rushing towards the ball, one must prepare for when the ball isn’t handled properly and resolve ambiguous expressions.
Acknowledge mistakes and cover quickly
I think the critical difference between Argentina and Canada in today’s game was in covering. Although Canada lost possession many times, Argentina also lost it more than expected. However, their awareness and response to these situations were very different.
Canadian players often showed frustration, raising both hands to the sky as if something wasn’t working out after losing the ball while dribbling. when they react like that, the Argentine player who stole the ball sent it to the far corner of the opponent’s half beyond the center line.
On the other hand, as soon as Argentina lost the ball, they either frantically ran to make a tackle or requested coverage from teammates, regaining possession within seconds in most cases. Despite Argentine players being much shorter in height on average, they gained possession of most aerial balls or balls falling into ambiguous spaces.
This point has significant implications. The results of a person who focuses on the situation and gets angry when making mistakes or when things don’t go as planned will inevitably differ from those of a person who quickly acknowledges mistakes and immediately tackles or requests support from teammates to make up for it.
Pursue practical benefits
Ultimately, to win a championship, you need to win. Especially in tournaments, you have to play many games in a short period and consider many variables such as condition management, injury management, and card management. While it’s important to create beautiful scenes, score numerous goals, and excite the audience, to win games and gain triumph in tournaments, you only need to score one more goal than your opponent.
It would be great if this process could evoke admiration like “As expected from Argentina”, “As expected from Messi”, “As expected from the champions”, but you should be able to win even if it’s not. And what I felt watching today’s game was that Argentina is a team that knows how to win despite everything.
Victory doesn’t always come in dramatic forms. And in intense games, winners and losers can be reversed by small variables. Even in today’s game, if Argentina had missed a chance or two more and Canada had capitalized on their chances well, the result could have been different.
The devil lives in the details. De Paul’s frantic run to regain possession even 3 seconds before the whistle blows at 95 minutes, Messi’s lowering the tempo and making a horizontal pass despite being able to make a risky forward pass, goalkeeper Martinez’s running while shouting loudly and waving his hands to signal “this is my ball, mark well” for ambiguously falling balls. I think these small differences combined to create today’s victory.
Flashy scissor kicks, game-changing goals in dramatic moments, or scenes where one crack player beats 5-6 defenders to produce results excite many people, but the soccer I love seems more related to the ‘victory’ created by the accumulation of small details.