5 Things we learnt from Round 1 of the World Cup

#2 Defense. Defense. Defense.

Attack wins you games, defense wins you trophies. And the first round has been a testament to this.Uruguay could manage with a last gasp winner against the Egyptians but teams like Argentina, Brazil, Germany and to an extent Columbia, France and Poland were subject to sublime defensive masterclasses.

The Iceland defense absolutely frustrated Leo Messi. Source: LA Times

The key here was that the teams that shocked these "giants" held a really good shape and closed down attacks by shrinking the space and suffocating the front-line. This is not exactly a case of "parking the bus" but rather really intelligent defending by means of really good positioning. Only in the closing moments of the game did they defend in numbers and understandably so.