Have ball possession and strong middle-fields been proved to be overrated and inefficient during this tournament?

Have ball possession and strong middle-fields been proved to be overrated and inefficient during this tournament?
Many extremely defensive teams with fast counter attacks won against all odds.

Shameless self bump for a serious discussion.

Defense with a fast counter on the break won Leicester the BPL.
however not enough teams are playing 4-4-2

I would say it's mostly because of the pitch.

In many cases, it's slippery as fuck. Meaning anything other than fast counter attacks with 1-3 passes and Lang Baals works perfectly. Try too much passing and you just eventually pull a Gerrard.

I think winning a game is mostly correlated with shots (on target), not possession.

Whole tournament has been pretty shit so far.

Not all pitches were bad but I agree, a slippery lawn is a disadvantage for technical player.
Deschamps's solution against defensive teams has been to change the system to a 4.2.3.1 with one forward to disrupt the defence.

That's true but it's also what people say about each tournament. If you're old enough to remember 2004 then you'll reckon that it was was pretty shit too.
People say having 24 teams was a mistake but I actually find it interesting to have an open tournament where Wales and possibly Iceland can reach the semifinal.
In the end Germany or Italy will win it tho.

the problem is so many teams are playing 4-3-3. what 4-3-3 does is turn the game into a straight shootout, as it's the formation that arguably allows the best players to shine, when combined with good teamwork. however, the teamwork of most NT's is shit because they barely spend time together. this means that they get torched on the counter and don't have the ability to break defences down like they would at club level. this is the era of shit bus parking NT's getting a lot further than they should do, and has been since greece won in 04. idk why anybody expects good football in tournament games any more, it's nearly always shit anti-football

It depedns what do you do with your possesion, teams like Germany and (more in the past years) Spain made it sucessfully, while teams like Belgium just fail at it. That's because keeping possession is not the only thing you have to be able to do, you be able to make fast plays to take davantage from the holes you create moving the ball side to side.
tl; dr It's not about how effective a play style is in general, it must suit your players and it needs to be as refined as possible (just try to think Spain playing counterattacks football or Italy playing possession, they would both fail

2004 was great though.

Can you give an example?

>extremely defensive teams with fast counter attacks
It seems to be the savest tactic, but its the most boring games to watch.
I really hope Italys defence loses their shit after some whacky Müller goal and we can steamroll them 7-1.

pretty sure Deschamps's solution is get the ball to Payet

Wales, Italy and Iceland?

we have won 2 world cups with strong defense and fast counter attacks.
It's always been effective, but it requires good defenders and great forwards.Because they'll ge very few chances and will mostly have to play alone against the other team's defense.
And it also requires a strong middle field. BUt of strong defenseive middle fielders rather than technically skilled ones.
I can't comment in the 2 cups before the ww2.

At that point only Payet and Griezmann can lead France to win the Euro (it won't happen tho), our defence has been a disaster so far and with Evra as its leader it's a miracle we didn't concede more goals.

Lloris has been pretty good.
Tbh I couldn't believe Evra got selected. He's well past his prime

2bh, Spain could've won with a competent coach.

But the same 11 starters played the 4 matches, Iniesta, Juanfran, Cesc, Nolito and Busquets got tired in the third match. Koke, probably the one in better shape, didn't play a single minute.

It was also Ramos' fault, he still makes like 3 silly mistakes per game and blames the others.

But even with that tired team, Spain could've tied if it wasn't for Buffon (it could've been 4-0 if it wasn't for De Gea too).

pic related team could've at least tied against Croatia, and Spain would've faced Portugal, Poland and Wales.

Some say Evra has a big influence on the team. Nobody knows why since he's bad on the pitch but he apparently has an aura and authority other players lack.

Spain has a great team but del Bosque should have retired a long time ago.
His system didn't work during the last WC and he kept using it hoping it would work this time.