Russia 2018: VAR makes its debut, Croatia comes close to glory and Spain sacks Lopetegui two days before the tournament
- VAR makes its debut at the 2018 Russia World Cup as a play review system in a tournament of this magnitude
- Croatia reaches the World Cup final but fails to win the title, coming close to glory in the championship
- Spain dismisses Lopetegui as coach just two days before the start of the World Cup
2018 is the World Cup of weird goodbyes and unexpected heroes. And also the one where football finally accepted that a referee could actually look at a replay.
🇷🇺 The 2018 World Cup by numbers
- Host
- Russia
- National teams
- 32
- Champions
- 🏆 France
- Runners-up
- Croatia
- Final
- France 4-2 Croatia
- Stadium
- Luzhniki · Moscow
- Attendance
- 78,011
- Top scorer
- Harry Kane (England), 6 goals
Lopetegui's sacking
Spain arrived in top form, unbeaten for two years. Then, just two days before their opening match, it was announced that Julen Lopetegui would be Real Madrid's coach next season. The Spanish FA president, Luis Rubiales, sacked him the very next day, right in the middle of their training camp.
Fernando Hierro took over the team on an emergency basis. Spain drew 3-3 with Portugal, beat Iran, drew with Morocco and crashed out in the last 16 on penalties to the hosts, in a match where they had over 1,000 passes but barely any shots on goal.
It's probably the most heavily criticised elimination in recent Spanish football history, and the debate about whether the sacking derailed everything still rages on.
VAR makes its debut
Russia 2018 was the first World Cup with video refereeing. Dozens of plays were reviewed and 29 penalties were awarded — far more than at any previous World Cup, where the previous record was 18.
The first VAR-awarded penalty in World Cup history went to France against Australia. And VAR also got involved in the final: handball by Perišić in the Croatian box, penalty, Griezmann's goal.
Croatia, four million inhabitants
The tournament's fairy tale is Croatia's story. A country smaller in population than Andalusia that topped their group, knocked out Denmark on penalties, Russia on penalties and England after extra time. They played three consecutive extra-time matches: 360 extra minutes before the final.
Luka Modrić took home the World Cup's Golden Ball. It's the best result in their nation's history and probably the biggest physical toll ever seen in a tournament.
That video assistance would eliminate errors and arguments.
That it corrected clear errors, and that's measurable — FIFA put decision accuracy at over 99% with VAR versus 95% without it — but it didn't end the controversy, because it just shifted the argument from «did he see it?» to «what counts as a handball?». Eight years later we're still bickering about exactly the same thing, just with more cameras. What did disappear completely are ghost goals and howling offside decisions.
That Spain went out of the World Cup because of the sacking, or the other way round, that it had nothing to do with it.
That neither version holds water on its own. For the first: the team lost its manager two days earlier, with no Plan B, and played without a coherent idea. Against it: Spain didn't lose a single match in 90 minutes the entire tournament and went out on penalties, which is a lottery. The honest take is that the sacking created unnecessary chaos and the exit was decided from the spot. Anyone using it as the whole explanation, whichever way they lean, is just choosing the version that suits them.
That the defending champions went out in the group stage through complacency and overconfidence.
That the hard numbers are there: lost to Mexico, scraped past Sweden in injury time and lost 2-0 to South Korea. This was the third straight defending champion knocked out in the group stage, after Italy in 2010 and Spain in 2014. That's no longer an isolated case: it's a pattern. The explanations analysts actually use are more mundane than arrogance — generations all ageing together, burnout from ridiculously long seasons and the difficulty of refreshing a championship team — but «they got lazy» always sells better.
What remained
France's second star remained, and a generation — Mbappé was 19 and scored in the final — that would reach the final again in 2022. Croatia remained as proof that a country's size doesn't decide anything anymore. And VAR stayed, for good.
- The final photos are from Tasnim news agency, licensed CC BY, via Wikimedia Commons.
