World Cup: The team with best wide players will be favourites to win Qatar 2022: Wenger

AL RAYYAN, Qatar – The team with the best wingers and wingbacks will be favourites to win the 2022 World Cup, said Arsene Wenger, Fifa’s head of global football development on Sunday.

The former Arsenal manager was discussing a technical analysis of the group stage, which saw a staggering 83 per cent rise in goals scored in open play that came from the flanks, compared to 2018.

The Frenchman believes this will hold the key to who will lift the trophy come Dec 18.

Wenger added that there was a trend of defences protecting the centre of the final third, meaning teams were forced to go down the left and right channels to create chances.

“It means the best teams who have the best wide players have the best chance to win the World Cup,” he said in a presentation.

Jurgen Klinsmann, a member of the Fifa technical study group, said the pattern of packing the defence was also impacting the attempts from outside the area.

“It’s really difficult for teams to break through the middle,” he said.

“Defensive and midfield lines are so close together there’s no change to pull the trigger.”

That defensive pattern also led to a 33 per cent reduction since Russia 2018 in the number of “take-ons”, or players in possession running at defenders and beating them, while many were being forced out wide.

Ex-Germany coach Klinsmann said the data showed this favouring South American teams far more than Europeans.

“It’s their way of doing things. It’s the love for the street football games still... the kids take on each other, one against one. So it’s not surprising that they’re leading on this,” he said.

Another big change was how often goalkeepers made themselves available to receive passes to their feet, up from 443 times during Russia’s group stages to 726 times in Qatar.

“This means the technical level of a goalkeeper distributing with his feet has become a vital element of quality of a team,” Wenger said. “He is becoming a real part of the team; now they’re part of the team, it’s the modern part of the team.”

Wenger also favoured the increase in the number of World Cup teams from 32 to 48 when the next edition is co-hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico in 2026, saying it would encourage countries to raise their domestic standards.

“I’m convinced that if countries have more opportunity to go for the world stage, they do more in that country,” he said.

But he added Fifa has yet to decide whether to have 12 groups of four teams or 16 groups of three teams, which would bring an end to the simultaneous fixtures in the final day of group action which has produced much drama at this World Cup. REUTERS