For a while, the modern winger seemed to be losing some of his wildness.

He still mattered, of course. But too often he was asked to hold width, recycle possession, follow the pattern and wait for the full-back’s overlap. The winger became a system player in a position that once belonged to provocation and flair.

This World Cup has pushed back against that.

Michael Olise, Lamine Yamal, Jeremy Doku, Vinícius Júnior, Anthony Gordon and Yan Diomande are not the same player, but they belong to the same argument. The aggressive winger is thankfully not dead. In fact, against compact blocks and carefully rehearsed defensive structures, he may be more valuable than ever.

Olise is the tournament’s most elegant example. The Guardian boldly described him this week as perhaps “the best player England has developed”, tracing his rise from Hayes to France’s World Cup side and reporting that he had delivered more assists than any other player at the tournament. Le Monde, reviewing France’s run after their 2-0 win over Morocco, placed Olise alongside Kylian Mbappé, Ousmane Dembélé and Désiré Doué in a French attack the international media has long regarded as the team to beat.

Olise plays as if the defender has already shown him the answer. His game has elements of the great Arjen Robben, constantly cutting in onto his preferred left foot. You know it is coming, but can you stop it? He slows, waits, draws contact or pressure, then releases the pass at the moment the defensive line has turned its hips. He is the kind of winger who not only beats his man but breaks the line behind him.

Yamal offers something different. Since bursting onto the scene two years ago he has become known for his tricks and wizardry, regularly deceiving opponents and making something out of nothing. His game is more visibly insolent, in the best footballing sense. Spain’s 2-1 win over Belgium put him back at the centre of the tournament, with The Guardian naming him man of the match and noting his relentless attacking influence. At 18, he has already won the Euros and La Liga and has an extremely bright future ahead of him.

Doku remains the purest one-versus-one threat of the group. Pep Guardiola once described him as the best in the world over ten metres, and the description holds. His method is more straightforward than the finesse of Olise or Yamal: he is either pulling the ball with him down the wing or chopping inside into space, and one-on-one, if the space exists, he will beat you to it. Doku does not always look like a player solving the game. Sometimes he looks like a player tearing it up and seeing what survives, and that is useful too. Against an organised defence, chaos can be a tactic.

Vinícius Júnior belongs in this company even though Brazil have gone home. The Real Madrid winger scored in all three of Brazil’s group games, becoming only the fifth Brazilian to do so at a World Cup, and no player at the tournament has carried the ball into the opposition penalty area more often. His game is the classic inverted threat, a right-footed player attacking from the left and weaving between opponents at pace, and for three weeks he looked determined to settle his international argument for good. Then Norway beat Brazil 2-1 in the round of 16, and the tournament delivered its counterpoint: a great winger can carry a team a long way, but he cannot carry it alone.

England’s tournament has made the same point from the opposite direction. Thomas Tuchel spent the group stage searching for answers out wide, rotating through all four wingers in his squad, Bukayo Saka, Marcus Rashford, Noni Madueke and Anthony Gordon, without ever quite settling. Gordon has risen above the shuffle, and he has done it the old-fashioned way, by running at his man. Brought on against DR Congo in the round of 32, he set up two goals for Harry Kane in a 2-1 comeback win, the first time a substitute has registered two assists in a World Cup knockout match. Restored to the starting XI against Mexico, he won the penalty that broke the game open. He now sits among the tournament’s assist leaders, and his directness has given England’s attack an edge it lacked while the wide roles were still up for grabs.

Then there is Diomande, the tournament’s breakout star. The 19-year-old scored 12 Bundesliga goals for RB Leipzig this season, but it was in Philadelphia that the wider world caught up. He was named man of the match in the Ivory Coast’s opening win over Ecuador without scoring, taking 12 touches in the opposition box and creating a match-high five chances while Jay-Z, whose Roc Nation Sports agency represents him, watched from the stands. Against Curaçao, he provided the assist that sent Ivory Coast into the knockout rounds for the first time in their history, becoming the youngest Ivorian to assist at a World Cup. By the time Norway ended the run in the round of 32, he had become the only player since 2000 to complete ten dribbles and create ten chances in his first three World Cup games. He never scored. It barely mattered.

One good wide player gives a nation an escape route. He can carry the ball 50 yards, win a foul, force a second defender across or turn a clearance into an attack.

The wider tactical point is simple. The more teams discuss blocks, compactness and rest defence, the more precious the true winger becomes. Football can structure many things. It can choreograph build-up, pressing traps and rotations. It can plan how to enter the final third. But what it cannot fully automate is the moment when a winger receives the ball, faces his full-back and takes him on. Those are the moments that captivate kids all over the world, and send them outside to take on the world around them.