What the shocking losses of England, Spain and Argentina have in common

In the span of just 18 hours, the world’s top-ranked team lost the Copa America Centenario final, the two-time defending European champions were knocked out of the Round of 16 by a team that was supposed to be the worst-ever version of itself and supposedly mighty England was dumped out at that same stage by an isolated island with a population of 330,000.

Which is to say that Argentina was beaten by Chile on penalty kicks after a 0-0 extra-time tie yet again, just like in the regular edition of the Copa America’s final in 2015. Spain was resoundingly outplayed by Italy in a one-sided 2-0 loss. And the English looked fetid and very English as they were sent home by Iceland, a nation that boasts the world’s 182nd-biggest population and 235th-largest population density – among independent countries, only Australia, Namibia and Mongolia count fewer heads per square mile.

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Picking through the wreckage of this flurry of upsets – or so-called upsets – finding strong correlations is a fool’s errand. Because of sample sizes and such. You might argue that Iceland and Chile are currently the beneficiaries of the prime years of a golden generation. But then Italy is actually in the midst of a notable down cycle and considered one of the weakest teams the country has produced in decades. On the other side of those results, Spain still has a very strong squad and England’s team counts more promising young players than it has since the late 1990s.

Neither, for that matter, can you argue that Argentina, Spain and England are all overrated or over-saturated teams. The Argentines are worthy of their billing as the top-ranked team in the world by ELO and FIFA, as their stupefying depth in every line makes them a favorite in any game they play. The Spanish aren’t quite what they were during their Euro/World Cup/Euro treble run from 2008 through 2012, but they have rejuvenated and reinvigorated well. And finally, a young England team isn’t yet in its prime – but it’s in front of it, rather than on the wrong end.

Meanwhile, to call Iceland a Cinderella story is to somehow diminish its accomplishments. Plainly, theirs is a dreamy run and they are obviously a bit stunned by their own success – although Ragnar Sigurdsson, who scored the sixth-minute equalizer, claimed he wasn’t surprised. Yet their progress into the quarterfinals is no fluke. It’s the product of a concerted and well thought-out plan to maximize every morsel of talent that its medium city-sized population can muster.

There is this, though: Chile, Italy and Iceland are more cohesive and organized teams than Argentina, Spain and England are, respectively.

The three teams have a clear identity and a coherent plan. Without delving into clichés about wholes and sums and parts, their players have defined roles and objectives. The tactical plans make sense and play to their strengths. They’re not aspirational in their play; they have few pretenses about how they get their results. They know what they are and what they’re good at, and they’re also good at being those exact things. And this pragmatism pays off.

Theorizing about results in knockout tournaments is easily overwrought. There were only three games. Let’s establish that before anything else.

But it’s nevertheless striking when three teams of obviously inferior talent claim such important wins in quick succession, and when none of those victories feels even remotely undeserved. Maybe you could argue that the club game is increasingly star-driven and that, consequently, it makes a weird kind of sense for the international game to swing the other way, given that there isn’t time to build systems entirely around the strengths of just one or two players.

Maybe it’s that talent is tightly concentrated at the top of the international game that what wins out isn’t individual ability but collectivism. That when elite talent is confronted with more elite talent – even if one team has slightly more of it than the other – what makes the difference is not the peripheral margins in particular skills but the unification of a mindset. The teams that have relied on a broader strategy, rather than counting on the flashes from a few standout players, were ultimately the victors.

Leander Schaerlaeckens is a soccer columnist for Yahoo Sports. Follow him on Twitter @LeanderAlphabet.