“With five substitutes, you can have half of your team change during a game, so you want different options for different moments of matches and for different stages of the tournament as well,” said England manager Gareth Southgate when announcing his squad for this World Cup.
The “finisher” was outlined as one of five tactical trends to watch this tournament, but how are teams having success with substitutes and who are the impact players?
A major tournament in an extreme climate, in the middle of the European domestic calendar and with preparation time limited to one week — games at Qatar 2022 were always going to be cagey, slow and better set for the second-half substitute.
GO DEEPER
Football's 'finishers': The psychology and tactics behind Holding's 'shutdown' role
And with more players in squads and more subs allowed to be used per game, they should be more involved in goals and game-defining moments. Though football does not always work as it should on paper, which this tournament has more than proved.
Throughout the group stage and the eight round-of-16 fixtures, substitutes have scored or assisted almost 30 per cent of all goals, comfortably higher than the last three World Cups (the average across those tournaments was 21 per cent).
WC | Goals by subs | Assists by subs | Proportion of goals involving sub |
|---|---|---|---|
2010 | 15 | 8 | 16.30% |
2014 | 32 | 15 | 28.30% |
2018 | 15 | 14 | 18.40% |
2022 | 26 | 17 | 29.50% |
This tournament is on track to break the substitute-goals record from 2014 (32), which had smashed the previous record of 23 in 2006. Therefore, it was fitting that the winning goal in the final eight years ago was scored by a substitute for the first time — Mario Gotze of Germany in extra time against Argentina.
Advertisement
Niclas Fullkrug’s equaliser against Spain was the first time since Gotze that day in Brazil that a Germany substitute has scored at a World Cup.
Fullkrug and Alvaro Morata (Spain) were the two strikers who ended that Group E game, with both teams having begun it with a false nine (sorry, Luis Enrique, it’s just simpler to say that).
Both teams set up to press, going player-for-player in central midfield and requiring a high-endurance forward to lead from the front.
The game opened up when the “traditional” No 9s came on, with defensive work-rate sacrificed for the possibility of a greater attacking threat without either side changing shape.
These changes produced a goal for both teams but they might have also contributed to them conceding one — “the subs for Spain have killed them a little bit. It’s affected their flow,” was the view of former Cardiff City head coach Steve Morison.
The attacking momentum graphic below visualises that, with longer bars (indicating more attacking actions and greater threat than the opposition) immediately following substitutions on both sides.
For Spain, Mortata’s introduction better suited their asymmetric full-back pattern.
Left-back Jordi Alba plays significantly higher than right-back Cesar Azpilicueta and central midfielder Pedri provides cover in the left-back zone.
Morata (yellow dot) positions himself up against the last line of German defence…
…and stays in Niklas Sule’s blind spot as the ball is worked wide…
…before running across his man at the last minute to get to the cross first — it’s not the sort of goal a false nine would typically score.
Southgate’s changes against Iran as England won their opening Group B match 6-2 could be added to this list of substitutes adding attacking quality but also losing control — Southgate said later he was “fed up” with how the game ended despite England winning by a wide margin.
Marcus Rashford scored the third-fastest goal as a substitute in the tournament’s history (46 seconds) and then Jack Grealish capped the scoring with the ‘passiest’ goal ever at a World Cup (35 passes). But Southgate hooking some of his starters also led to Iran’s best spell of the game, albeit in second-half stoppage time.
Substitutions are clearly a double-edged sword, offering the chance to change tactics and creating the opportunity for fresher players to attack tired defenders, but changing half your team seems to unsettle the remaining five outfield starters.
Of the 16 teams to reach the knockouts, only Poland used fewer than four substitutes per game in the three group games.
Yet the average minutes played per sub has remained relatively consistent when you compare the median at this tournament (21) to the past three World Cups (20 in 2018, 24 in 2014 and 21 in 2010).
They are partially forced by the limit of three in-game windows in which teams can make changes (excluding half-time) but coaches are making double or triple substitutions later in matches rather than spreading them out across the second half.
After that 2014 World Cup final in Rio de Janeiro, Germany head coach Joachim Low emphasised the importance of substitutes: “With these temperatures, in this climate, you cannot play with the same 11 the entire match.”
The climate in Qatar, even with the move to winter and air-conditioned stadiums, is comparable to Brazil in July but this only exemplifies the physiological demands on players who have already accumulated a lot of minutes.
Half of this tournament’s 48 group-stage games were 0-0 at half-time, as outlined by The Athletic’s Mark Carey in an analytical trends review. For substitutes to have a significant impact in the first place, they need matches to still be close when they come on.
Portugal versus Ghana exemplifies this — it was the fourth time a World Cup game has been goalless at half-time before seeing at least five second-half goals. Both sides scored after making their first substitutions (Rafael Leao for Portugal and Osman Bukari for Ghana).
Substitutions and tactical tweaks for comeback results
There have been eight comeback wins so far — where a team has fallen behind and gone on to win — which is more than in 2010 (four), 2018 (six) and only one fewer than in the entire 2014 tournament (nine).
Japan are the only team to win twice after falling behind, notably against two former world champions in Spain and Germany, with substitutes used similarly in both games.
Head coach Hajime Moriyasu moved from a back four to five at half-time against Germany in response to the left-sided attacking overloads that were exploiting his side.
Making changes to your line-up at half-time does not count as one of the three substitution windows, giving coaches more opportunities to impact the game later on. It also follows a principle, based on research from Bret Myers’ 2012 paper, to make your three substitutions before the 58th, 73rd and then 79th minutes.
Advertisement
Myers had analysed competitions with three substitutes, so his research does not directly translate to this five-subs-allowed World Cup, but the context is still comparable. He found that, when a team was losing, if the head coach made their three substitutions before those minutes mentioned above, it maximised their chances of not losing the game, and that pattern was followed most strongly in Qatar.
Moriyasu’s half-time switch of an extra defender quelled Germany’s attack, reflected by the shorter vertical blue bars on the momentum chart below.
Then Japan went and won the game by switching wing-backs Hiroki Sakai (right flank) and Yuto Nagatomo (left) for Ritsu Doan and Kaoru Mitoma, more attack-minded players. They came on in the 57th — principle followed.
“The players who came on as substitutes decided the game for us, which is not an easy thing to do,” said goalkeeper Shuichi Gonda post-match.
“(Ritsu) Doan always told me at the dinner table, ‘I’m going to come off the bench and score a goal’.”
He certainly stuck to that promise.
For the UK viewers…
RITSU DOAN DRAWS JAPAN LEVEL WITH GERMANY 🇯🇵🙌#ITVFootball | #FifaWorldCup pic.twitter.com/b4xExi5hJX
— ITV Football (@itvfootball) November 23, 2022
And those in the US…
A closer look at Japan's equalizer by Ritsu Doan 🔥🇯🇵 pic.twitter.com/zifs4fAWN6
— FOX Soccer (@FOXSoccer) November 23, 2022
The same approach produced the same result for Moriyasu against Spain eight days later.
Once again, he made half-time switches, bringing Doan into wide midfield and switching Nagatoma for Mitoma to play an inverted wing-back, giving Japan dynamism and directness on both flanks, with Junya Ito (a winger playing a wing-back role) on the right.
Japan were ahead by 51 minutes, with their wing-backs assisting both goals and Doan scoring the equaliser.
“We were dismantled,” said Spain head coach Luis Enrique at full-time.
“We didn’t have any danger in the first half and then at half-time I told them to be cautious because Japan had nothing to lose.”
Spain (Morata), Germany (Fullkrug), Brazil (Gabriel Jesus), Serbia (Dusan Vlahovic), Uruguay (Edinson Cavani), Wales (Kieffer Moore) and Cameroon (Vincent Aboubakar) are all examples of nations with a high-quality, traditional, box-prowling forward who was kept on the bench at some point in the group stage.
Advertisement
Aboubakar changed the game against Serbia, becoming the first African to score and assist at a World Cup as a substitute.
The most surprising part of this was not his attacking involvement but that he began that middle group game on the bench. He was Cameroon’s first choice at the Africa Cup of Nations in January, winning that tournament’s Golden Boot by scoring more goals than any AFCON player this century (eight).
“Pairing him with Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting at that point was just what we needed,” said head coach Rigobert Song post-match, who introduced Aboubakar after 54 minutes.
The tactical tweak from a 4-3-3 to a 4-4-4 (4-2-4) paid off, with Aboubakar joining Choupo-Moting and the pair flanked by the inverted Karl Toko Ekambi (left wing) and Bryan Mbeumo (right wing).
From 3-1 down with an hour played, Cameroon recovered to take a point.
Both goals are created off long passes from deep played in behind Serbia’s defence. The Cameroon front four is visible in both…
…even on the second goal, which is more transitional, and sees Aboubakar selflessly cross for Choupo-Moting.
Substitutions and tactical repercussions
There have been other standout individual displays with like-for-like substitutions.
Kai Havertz scored twice in 12 minutes as a substitute in Germany’s win over Costa Rica — he replaced Thomas Muller as the No 9 on 66 minutes that night but is notably more of an attacking midfielder than a penalty-box striker.
Beyond the physical advantages of introducing a fresh player against tiring opponents, changing forwards is a particularly valuable attacking weapon against such a passive, low-possession side as Costa Rica, since it forces them to defend against a different type of striker.
The 21-year-old Mallorca No 10 Lee Kang-in created a goal for South Korea within a minute of coming on against Ghana.
“Counter-pressing is very important, even more so today,” former AC Milan, Juventus and Japan manager Alberto Zaccheroni said as part of FIFA’s technical team analysing the tournament.
Advertisement
“While being very taxing, today there are five possible substitutions. So this is a tactic that can be used for the whole 90 minutes. With three substitutions, this wasn’t possible. Today, you can do it continuously, because five changes is half the team.”
South Korea had initially lost possession in Ghana’s half but Lee counter-pressed with intensity, won the ball and then crossed for Cho Gue-sung to score.
Lee came on at 57 minutes with South Korea 2-0 down; four minutes later, they were level.
Albeit a forced substitution due to injury, Theo Hernandez replacing his older brother Lucas in the 13th minute, with France 1-0 down against Australia in their group opener, catalysed a comeback.
Theo Hernandez is simply a more attacking and overlapping left-back, particularly when compared to France’s right-back Benjamin Pavard.
Similarly, Moore’s introduction at half-time for Wales against the United States turned the game, as they overcame a 1-0 deficit at the break to take a point.
“The good thing we’ve got, if you look on the bench now, we’ve got Brennan Johnson playing in the Premier League, he came on and made an impact, Kieffer came on and made an impact. We have strength in depth, I can look over my shoulder to the bench and we’ve got players who can come on and have a real impact on games,“ said head coach Rob Page post-match.
In the first half, a strike partnership of Gareth Bale and Daniel James brought Wales directness and pace but neither has a particularly strong hold-up game. Moore, at 6ft 4in (193cm), does have that.
Coaches must be more inclined to take tactical or personnel risks knowing that they could switch half their outfield team or change tact if it does not work.
One thing is clear, we are certainly entering the phase of football where the players that finish the game are just as important, if not more, than the ones that start it — this is the tournament of the finisher.
(Photo: Ercin Erturk/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)