The Official World Cup Thread (no.1)

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Weaker teams? Looking through the medal results since the very beginning, South American teams bagged almost 1/3 of the top 4 showings. That's far better than their less than 1/4 representation would allow. And it even suggests that given an equal number of teams from Europe and South America, that South American teams would win more games.

Or in 2002, the top 4 results would have either been 1 showing for Europe, 1 showing for the Americas/Pacifica, and 2 showings for Asia/Africa. Even making the "Turkey is European" argument, you end up with 1/2 European, 1/4 Americas/Pacifica, and 1/4 Asia/Africa, exactly the distribution you suggest. But this doesn't make an optimal distribution, it only shows that regions will perform according to the number of chances given them. Add more teams from outside Europe, and Europe will be less dominant.

So FIFA is basically protectionist in favor of European teams in selecting teams for the World Cup. Of course, there's a good reason for this, as Europe spends the most money on football.

 

Aldeth - It's not really worked out geographically I don't think. But the USA and Mexico have a REALLY poor qualifying section (N.C. America and Caribbean).

Bion - However funny that statement might be, it's cow **** . We've never had such a good squad as we have now, and never such a good chance.

 

Then explain to me why the English are always yelling "Keep the Faith!" at the TV. Like for the English to win would be a miracle or something...

 

What else would you shout? "Come on lads, we're going to win anyway, so no big deal"



I tell you what, as you seem to think you know a lot about football - list out the English first eleven of the last two world cups, and compare it to our team now.

 

as for the south american nations, only Brasil has a big change. argentina is an outsider. for europe we haver at least four serious contenders for the title and at least 4 outsiders so the balance is right. If more not european countries do better on teh long term fifia will adapt.

 

Actually, it shouldn't really matter with the qualification process. Even if Europe was disporportionately under-represented (and that claim is dubious), if they couldn't even get out of the qualifying rounds, then clearly they aren't the best team. Even if Europe only was allowed a handful of teams in the WC - like say only 4 European teams made it - if you weren't among those 4 teams, then chances are you aren't the best team in the world if you aren't the best team on your continent.

 

I don't understand what you mean, Aldeth.
This is about certain qualifying sections being far superior to others. So you get clown teams at nearly every world cup, and good teams who miss out a lot of the time.

Some people think the WC should be all the worlds best teams together to slog it out. As it is now, you get most of the good teams, but a few donkeys (Tunisia, USA etc.).

It should be mixed up more. You just have to look at Ukraine and Australia only this year making their first world cup, yet other worse teams get a free ticket each time.

 

This isn't Australia's first World Cup. It's just their first for about 30 years. For some reason, for such an amazing sporting nation like Australia, the Socceroos have usually been pretty weak. And when they don't make it through, sometimes it's because they lose to New Zealand in qualifying (who then go on to lose to someone like Vanuatu).

 

So here's a map where you can see detailed locations.
What team you think shouldn't be there and which one should be there?

I think that the problem of this type of qualification rounds, it that some teams get out of the WC because 'politically' there should be another, why? I think that Chile is better team than Saudi Arabian; Trinida and Tobago didn't play its chances in South America zone even that Trinidad & Tobago IS in South America .

So, if you check the European zone, there a lot of countries that maybe should be in the final WC, much more than another teams from other continents/areas.

 

What?! England's first eleven from the last 3 world cup teams? Is this a pub quiz?

I'm not that much of a zealot... but as I recall, England didn't seem to get much out of their forwards in 2002, and I remember being particularly unimpressed by Heskey (?). I'm almost always underwhelmed by Beckham; don't understand the hype there. Scholes seemed to make more happen. Owen was impressive, and in 1998, but he was playing injured in 2002, right? Rio Ferdinand was really, really impressive. Seamen seemed a bit past it, kindof soldiering on.

I don't even know the 2006 side. But from Euro 2004, Rooney was a sparkplug, though I'd guess his performance is a bit uneven. Terry seemed really solid. Can't say I've been following it more than that, so hey, maybe they're more solid this time around.

I'll admit though, that while 2002 might not have worked out so well in the end, at least you had the 5-1 against Germany...

 

From the past 2 world cups I can name idiots who wouldn't get anywhere near our team now, who got in.

Heskey
Seasman
Sinclair
Butt
Mills
Fowler
Brown
Keown
Sheringham
Southgate
etc. etc.

These have been replaced by the likes of Terry,
Rooney and Lampard. Also, our 'old guard' players such as Ferdinand, Gerrard, Beckham, Owen etc. are far more mature and technically sound now than they were. All round, our team has improved so much. It's all a question of whether or not they can make it happen.
It's rare that the team with the players win the world cup. It's more down to luck, form, injury's, teamwork, then more luck.

 

I'm not arguing that. What I'm saying is that the most important thing is that a deserving team wins the WC. You're saying some lesser teams that have no chance of winning get in when more deserving teams don't. My point is that regardless of whether or not these other teams are more deserving or not, they had no real chance of winning either, as they couldn't beat the better teams in the qualifying rounds. All I'm saying is if you argue the 40th best team in the world made it, while the 30th best team in the world didn't, it doesn't really matter, because the 30th best team or 40th best team will both be squashed by superior competition anyway. The lesser teams still get no glory, and the best teams still get an easy opponent - in the bigger picture, it makes no difference.

 

This whole debate is useless, do i really need to remind you all of what happened in Portugal 2 years ago ?

 

Well, maybe not everyone, but you could remind me. The last notable thing that happened for Portugal (in my mind) is the colonization of Brazil 500+ years ago.

 

Bacalau. Bacalau is pretty notable.

 

Greece won. A freak fluke. Won't happen again for a long, long time.

 

Can you be so sure of that ? Is there any logic in football at all ? The need of trainingcamps appears to be highly overrated as well, as was proven by Denmark winning the European championship in 1992. Because Yugoslavia was torn apart by the war, they couldn't compete, so Denmark, as the number 2 in the qualifying group, became their succesors. The Danish players were completely unprepared, in fact, they were all celebrating their summer holidays, on beaches all across Europe when they received a call to report for duty. No other team that was so unprepared has ever come up with such an accomplishment as the Danes did.

So again i ask you....is there any logic in football ? The answer obviously is...no, there isn't. On any given day, a team of amateurs can beat a professional team. It's a chance of one in a million, but it's possible. History has often proved us that the best team doesn't always win. Don't be surprised if this time someone completely unexpected turns out to be the next worldchampions.

 

Aldeth, the point is that the 35th best team in the world could win the entire thing during the right circumstances. There is a rather large segment of teams like Greece, Sweden, Denmark, Ukraine and so forth which have a hellish hard task just to qualify for the final round but given the right circumstances could (which has been proven by both Greece and Denmark winning the EC, sure no Brazil or Argentina but in general the EC is about as hard to win as the WC). Thus giving teams in the same segment (US and Mexico) free tickets and teams vastly inferior to this segment chances to qualify (Trinidad, Bahrain, Angola and so on) in a way which albeit is long and ardous still dont reflect the quality they have played compared to South American and European countries. My main peeve atm is the fact that Mexico and the US has free tickets in the middle/north American qualifying group. One big group, two direct qualifications which are always taken by the US and Mexico as they are vastly superiour to the other teams and then another spot which allows for further qualification. This could be simply remedied by just allowing the team finishing first in the group a direct ticket to the WC while the secnod and third has to go through further qualification. This would hopefully knock out one more blueberry team considering Mexico/US should easily defeat most teams they could cmoe up against while stile allowing teams a small chance to reach the final stage. Sure the small countries add flavour and are fun but when a team like Trinidad and Tobago is in the World Cup instead of teams like Denmark or Russia then I find it a bit odd. Is like a neighbourhood team in American football could qualify for the Superbowl while playing other neighbourhood teams while the other team has to qualify by playing other pro teams. The neighbourhood team might have to play more qualification games but it still doesnt compare to what the other team is up against.

 

I see what you're saying, but to me it is only delaying the inevitable. If teams like Russia or Greece cannot compete against the top European teams, then it doesn't matter if they lose to them in the qualifying rounds or in the final rounds. They still aren't the best team. Using your logic, we could just as easily say the USA isn't invited to the tournament either, because their odds of winning the whole thing are about a million to one as well. Just have the WC be a single elimination tournament of the top 8 teams in the world and be done with it.

If the qualifying rounds eliminated a top 10 team that would be a tragic injustice, but from what Barmy is saying that doesn't happen. We're talking about teams that are ranked 30th and lower. While I cannot discount the possibility that a lower ranked team could win the WC, the odds are so long as to be virtually negligible. Besides, this happens in all sports leagues. You have a regular season, in which certain teams qualify for the playoffs and others don't. While we cannot discount the possibility that a team that did not qualify for the playoffs could theoretically beat some of the playoff teams, they are still not permitted to compete. The WC basically works the same way, with the qualifying rounds determining which teams make it to the playoffs, with the playoffs in this case being the actual WC tournament.

 

Yes, but the big mistake in your thinking is that if a team knows it hasn't got a chance in hell of winning the WC, they're not bothered about going.

The WC is the holy grail for all football players. It's an honour for players to play in the WC, whether they get knocked out in the first round, reach the semi-final or win the whole damn thing. They just want to be there. And when good players have to sit out and watch from afar whilst the likes of Donovan, McBride and Cherundolo get a free ticket each time, it's not really fair on them.

Imagine, this is Andriy Shevchenko's first WC. Mental. This guy is one of the best strikers in world football and has been for the last 5 years or more. He hasn't missed out because the Ukraine are a lot worse than USA, Mexico, Angola and T&T, he's missed out because Ukraine face a harder qualifying group. Do you see? Or have you just got a different mindset about things like this? (I'm not being funny with you when I say that).