England U20s became the first England team to lift a World Cup at any age level since the home victory in 1966.

England’s possession game

The main feature of the first half was England’s play in possession. Their starting formation was a 4-2-3-1, but this shifted somewhat in possession. The right-back Kenny occupied an advanced position on the right touchline. Bournemouth midfielder Cook would drop to the right of the centre-backs, filling the vacated space. Onomah took up a more central position in front of the centre backs. Carter-Vickers on the left side wasn’t quite as highly positioned on the left wing as Kenny was on the right, and often stayed in the 2nd line, increasingly so as the first half went on. Right-winger Dowell acted mostly in the right halfspace, with Solanke alongside him, both of them looking to receive passes behind Venezuela’s midfield line.

Venezuela pressed in a basic 4-4-2, with loose man-orientations. 4-1-3-2 structures were also common as one of the central midfielders, usually Herrera, stepped forward to help the two strikers against England’s centre-backs and double-pivot.

In the earlier stages of the game Venezuela attempted a fairly high press against England’s buildup, which was reasonably effective. England were sometimes slightly unstable when facing this press due to the higher positioning of the full-backs when the ball was in the first line, meaning they didn’t really have the easy option to play wide in order to escape pressure. It required some strong individual press-resistance from Onomah in particular to escape these situations. Throughout the game he showed this part of his game, using his dribbling prowess and upper-body strength in order to attempt find solutions in the buildup phase, both individually, and through combinations with teammates.

Venezuela’s general defensive game when they weren’t high pressing against England’s buildup however, was poor. They lacked compactness, particularly horizontal compactness, with the distances between the central-midfielders and wingers being far too large. As a result England found it relatively easy to find line-breaking passes through the halfspaces, which were afforded by the aforementioned lack of compactness in the midfield line.

The compactness (or lack of) was also compounded by the effects of Cook’s positioning on Penaranda, the left midfielder for Venezuela. With Cook dropping to the right side of the defence, Penaranda sometimes moved slightly forward, orienting himself towards Cook, trying to anticipate passes into him in order to be able to pressure Cook or intercept the pass. This was ultimately unsuccessful for Penaranda, and the overall effect was to further weaken his side’s defensive compactness.

Still difficulties for England

Despite the weaknesses in Venezuela’s defensive game, England didn’t necessarily manage to create a high number of chances. Once they had managed to find the line breaking pass to beat Venezuela’s midfield line, they then faced the problem of how to proceed in the final third. Many of the line breaking passes were vertical, and the player receiving them had a bad field of view and was closely pressured from behind by a defender. There was a lack of third man running and layoff options in these situations for England, making it difficult for the receiving player.

Even aside from this, the buildup play for England wasn’t always effective. In particular, there were some problems with the dynamics on the left side of the team. Carter-Vickers, being a right-footed player playing at left back often looked to play inside, rather than down the touchline on his left foot. When receiving passes from the right, he would look to play inside, against the direction of Venezuela’s ball-oriented shifting. This led to a couple of regains for Venezuela as they were able to press the receiving player from behind. Again the problem relates to the recipient of the pass having a poor field of view when receiving the ball, thus being susceptible to pressing. The exact same problem was faced by Lookman, who often made dropping movements in the left halfspace in order to receive the ball, and was unable to gain any advantage in doing so.

Despite the issues in attack England were able to score what would be the only goal of the game in the 35th minute thanks to a Calvert-Lewin’s work in contesting a long free-kick from Cook, which resulted in him scoring on the rebound after his first shot was saved.

Solid in defence

A positive aspect for England was the solid defensive performance. England played fairly deep in the defensive phase, which was at least in part due to Venezuela’s attacking strategy. The South American side didn’t really look to play a constructive game from the back. Their attack was largely reliant on individual skill, which is certainly possessed by players such as Penaranda and Soltedo, the latter of which would come on as a subsitute in the 2nd half. They played a direct game in what was roughly a 4-2-4 shape, they looked to find their talented forward players quickly, both with passes into the feet or chest of one of the forwards, or through passes from the wings into depth.

England, as mentioned, sat fairly deep and compact in their defensive 4-4-2/4-4-1-1 shape. A highlight was their responsiveness to any passes that did make it into the defensive block. They used their compactness in order to quickly collapse their shape onto the ball carrier and win the ball back with multiple players pressuring him. Sometimes the team was slightly slow in shifting up the pitch when their strikers moved forward to press backwards passes from Venezuela, leaving a distance between the strikers and midfielders which was perhaps slightly too large, but overall the defensive performance from England was strong.

2nd half

The press from Venezuela after half time was more aggressive than in the first half. Both central midfielders now took up more aggressive positions against England’s double pivot, whereas before, they had been more reserved in pressing.

The response from England was an effective one – bypass the press with (controlled) directness. In the 2nd half England didn’t really show the same buildup structure seen in the first half, instead staying mostly in their 4-2-3-1. Within this, they used direct passes into the narrow front four in order to escape the pressure. This was effective because the Venezuela central midfielders were now higher in the defensive phase, thus finding it difficult to contest second balls. Also the response from the Venezuela defenders wasn’t ideal, as they sometimes dropped unnecessarily deep when defending the long balls, meaning the defence and midfield for Venezuela had an even larger amount of space between them for England to exploit with long passes and the front four counterpressing any 2nd balls with relatively little opposition. The physical prowess of England’s forward players also helped them to dominate these situations.

As a result of Venezuela’s higher pressing and England’s reaction, a fairly unclean and transitional game was seen for some of the 2nd half. England’s direct game, although effective in escaping the Venezuela press, didn’t get them much further. Venezuela arguably benefitted from the more transition based game, as it allowed them to use the individual skill of their forwards in counter-attacking situations.

As the game approached it’s end England were content in dropping deeper and defending their lead. Before this though, they were fortunate to retain it. They conceded a penalty, after Penaranda was fouled in the box as he latched onto a long pass from the wing. Luckily, Woodman was able to save the spot-kick.

Conclusion

England’s first World Cup win in over 50 years was a deserved one. Though not outstanding, they were the more accomplished team in the final against a Venezuela team who gave an underwhelming tactical performance.