Euro 2016 demonstrates how a manager is now more important than ever in international football

Let’s do what the sport obsessed do best. Let’s make a list. Four lists, actually.

- Major teams that failed at Euro 2016 despite a squad stocked with quality players: Croatia, Spain and England.

- Major teams that have done well despite lacking depth in big-ticket players: Italy and Iceland (yes, they are a major team now).

- Team with one lone superstar that remain: Portugal, Wales and Poland (Sweden has Zlexited).

- Teams with depth of quality players, left standing: France and Belgium.

- And Germany. (Always a list by itself, a rule to itself, as also its own exception).

Italy and Iceland have surprised us because they weren’t expected to do as well as they have. The managers of both these teams were the talking points, not the players. Italy manager Antonio Conte made his approach clear. “Right from the outset I have said that the only route forward to achieve a semblance of success is to try and be a like a club team,” he was quoted to have said by several news agencies. “There is no point in hiding it, this is not the rosiest period for Italy in terms of talent. We have been working very intensively for a month now, tactically and physically, in a bid to surprise people and we have already succeeded.”

Iceland joint-manager Lars Lagerback used tactics learned under the influence of English managers in the ’70 and ’80s – most prominently under Roy Hodgson, who was in charge of England in France – to beat the English team. There is not one superstar in the Iceland squad. But the players have looked hungry and disciplined, willing to act out the plan laid down by their manager.

The approach and tactics of both Italy and Iceland have been clear from the outset. It’s not just the players themselves, even the opponents of Italy and Iceland have known what each player will do, what the team will work towards collectively. And yet they’ve been surprised.

Now consider Croatia, with a wealth of talent that wowed everybody after they defeated Spain. Manager Ante Cacic’s second-string team – five players who had not started the first two games – impressed more than his first choice team. In the knockout stage, Cacic went back to his first choice, overlooking something better that had happened. Which is exactly what Hodgson was doing with England. Trying too many things

Spain were, by contrast, doing what they do. But everybody has known what they do for so long – six years, is it, or eight? – that there is no surprise. Besides, manager Vicente del Bosque is known as a hands-off manager. For all the talk of Andres Iniesta being better than Xavi Hernandez, it was clear even against Croatia, that Spain were struggling to control games like we have seen them in the past. The leadership has gone missing. Ball possession doesn’t matter that much when you don’t do much with it.

Among the single-superstar squads, Poland have looked good, even if they don’t have the goals to show for it. While all the attention was on captain Robert Lewandowski, former captain Jakub ‘Kuba’ Blaszczykowski has had a hand in all of Poland’s goals. He has scored two and assisted another; Kuba is proven performer, even if he has had a bad couple of years due to injury and poor form. Poland’s defence had looked capable; the midfield has looked better than expected, with Arkadiusz Milik shining in attack and Gregorz Krychowiak has been the outstanding central midfielder in France. Manager Adam Nawalka’s team seem to be playing under a plan, even if they have missed too many chances. England and Spain and Croatia also missed their chances, but their lack of organisational clarity meant they gave too many to their opponents.

Portugal are the survivors in France. They do have quality, but the team appears weighed down by its captain Cristiano Ronaldo. They managed to get out of jail in the group stage when Ronaldo finally came to the party against Hungary to draw the game. They were lucky against Croatia; their late winner was their only shot on target. We have seen Ronaldo raging and gesticulating against his teammates on the pitch, who look sheepish in his presence, like schoolchildren being castigated by the class monitor. Even the Portuguese fans will admit: this team has not impressed; it has merely survived. What will give them hope is that Ronaldo didn’t take the free kicks against Croatia, offering his heading services inside the box for a change. If an all-time great like him can put the team ahead of himself, the team will get a lift. He certainly has the quality. And in the young and talented Renato Sanchez, they have an emerging leader, who can dominate a game from the middle of the pitch.

Wales were touted as Gareth Bale+10. But the team has actually punched above its weight, and it’s not just Aaron Ramsey and Ashley Williams. Besides, Bale has done well, not just in terms of scoring goals but in how he has collaborated and led from the front.

With a great depth in quality players, France and Belgium have had relatively disappointing outings. They are genuine contenders, but both have lacked consistency. The managers have too many options, and one wonders if having that many options is really such a good thing in international football.

Then how about Germany, with more quality options than any other team? Germany is the outlier in football, consistently finding a way to stay ahead of the curve. Once held up as the epitome of unattractive but successful football, its miraculous renaissance has transformed and regenerated the game in Germany. How the current team plays was forged, in part by current manager Joachim Loew’s predecessor Jurgen Klinsmann, and in part by how Bayern Munich plays, given the domination of the richest club in the Bundesliga over the national team. Loew is not the designer or the mechanic of Die Mannschaft, merely its conductor – and a capable and successful conductor at that. But his ability will be tested against Conte’s in the quarter-final. Italy haven’t a patch of the technical quality and depth Germany have, and yet they seem equally matched. That’s the aura of a great manager like Conte.

International tournaments have long stopped being the showcase of the best football. They are annual events, with national teams being cobbled together from club footballers playing across the range. As Conte said, the only way is to play like a club team. Spain (Barcelona) and Germany (Bayern Munich) have done that in the recent past. The Italian team is playing a lot like Conte’s Juventus teams, even if they lack talents like Andrea Pirlo.

So here’s the pre-quarter-final take home: the manager is even more important now than ever in international football. When you have only a few weeks to prepare a team for a major tournament, it matters a lot how you set them up, how simple you can keep the message to the players, and how clear you are about what you want out of each player. How you foster the atmosphere of a squad.

Which is the exact opposite of what is required for sports marketing, which relies on stars with big reputations and millions earned each year in advertising revenue. As the English team’s repeated failure shows, you can have a glittering and financially successful domestic league without investing in your young players. You can have an array of stars, but they will fail to do – consistently, at least – what a well-knit team with a good manager can achieve.