The Official World Cup Thread (no.1)

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Perhaps we do have a different mindset (and I'm being serious too). It just seems that we have this in all types of world competitions, and more generally all sports.

I'll handle the two separately, because they are two totally different things:

1. In regards to the WC being the holy grail for football players, there's a "holy grail" in every sport. In baseball, it's the World Series. In (American) football it's the Super Bowl. In hockey, it's the Stanley Cup. etc. etc. etc. I'm sure every sport is like this. I'm sure there's some type of Championship in cricket, although hell if I know what it's called. And yes, in those sports it's considered an honor to get to play in the big event, even if you don't win. However, sporting events confined to one particular country (or two if you include things like the NHL in hockey) sometimes do not translate well to the world stage in which you have different countries competing, which bring us to:

2. World events, like the WC. The best comparison I can come up with here are the Olympics. Like the WC, it's considered an honor just to be able to go to the Olympics. But just because you play a sport doesn't mean that you automatically get to go, even if you have a good team. If you want a real life example, look at baseball. The U.S. baseball team FAILED to qualify for the 2004 summer Olympics. Now are you trying to tell me that the U.S. is not one of the best baseball teams in the world? That there weren't other teams that weren't as good that did qualify? Why did we fail to qualify? Because like the WC, qualifying is done regionally, and it just so happens that baseball is extremely popular in the Carribbean nations, and some of the best players in the world are from those countries. Since there are only a couple of accepted entries from each region, the U.S. missed the cut. But we didn't whine about it. The attitude was if our team isn't good enough to beat Cuba, then Cuba deserves to go and we don't. If we can't beat Cuba, we're not the best team.

 

I was serious too when I mentioned the mindset thing .

In 2. would you say that both USA AND Cuba are both better than a few other teams who did manage to qualify for the Olympics? If so, shouldn't the Olympics be a competition between the best of the best, rather than the best of selected areas? It should be either a completely random group selection, or a series of completely random play-offs. That way, you do get only the best going and competing and nobody can grumble about having it tough. It doesn't matter that the USA weren't good enough to beat Cuba, if some other donkeys got in the Olympics purely on the basis of having it easy in qualifying. Whether or not the US had a whine about it or not, it's still a bad way to go about things IMO.

It's obviously difficult to compare the WC and the Olympics, but I see it being pretty similar. The WC is a more 'important' competition I guess though, well, in Europe anyway.

 

Aldeth, top10 nations has failed to qualify to World Cups. I am pretty sure both England and France failed to qualify for the 1994 WC (roughly top10 teams) and I think Holland failed to qualify for a pretty recent tournament as well. Of course it is their own fault that they fail and maybe they arent top10 if they fail to qualify but the fact still remains some teams have a much easier qualifications. I do understand the reason for this even if I am not sure I agree with them. FIFA wants the WC to be a *world* cup with teams from everywhere even if they lack the ability to field a good enough team. It would be boring if it had been a competetion between Europe and South America but then again it wouldnt even if according to me and Barmy. Teams like USA (which have about as good a chance to take it home as Sweden or the Ukraine imo very small but existing), Japan, South Korea, quite a few African nations should be in the World Cup, they are more than good enough but I cannot be convinced that a team like Trinidad and Tobago should be there, they faced off against Bahrain in a play off and that is just sad. Their greatest star is an old has been who once were great but now is not so great and really has a tenous relation to T&T at best which goes for pretty much their entire team. A bunch of Brits whose parents or even grandparents (or any relative at all it seems) moved to the UK and whose sons now play somewhere in the tangle of British football.

I would also like to add that this same argument goes for Baseball, it is not right that the US is not in the Olympics if some country from Europe might have gotten in or something. Regional play-offs is a bitch in all sports. I still cant fully advocate non-regional play-offs, first many of the smaller countries simply dont have the money to send a team half way around the world several times a year and secondly it would take too much time and I doubt the clubs the players play for normally would be happy if they have to let go of their players for twice as many days as now. They are grumpy enough as it is.

 

@ joacqin and Barmy:

While I do not remember the exact field for which countries made it and which didn't make it for baseball in the 2004 Olympics, since both Cuba and the U.S. are considered to be among the best in the world, I would have to say that, yes, there were teams in the Olympics that weren't as good as either Cuba or the U.S. I can't site specific examples, but if the field included more than say, 8 teams, then there had to be teams worse than both Cuba and the U.S., as there aren't 8 teams in the world that are better than both those countries.

@ joacqin: If top 10 teams failed to qualify, that is an injustice. However, given what happened to the U.S. in baseball (and the U.S. is certainly top 10 in baseball), it does seem that such a thing is possible.

I guess what we really need to come up with is some type of alternative. Complaining about the current system when there is no alternate is kind of pointless. So here's my suggestion. First of all it should be noted that I don't know how many teams qualify for the WC. 30? 60? I honestly don't know.

Anyway, for arguements sake, lets say 64 teams make it (and I stand to be corrected). I'm picking 64 because it seems like it would have to be a multiple of 2, so 32 or 64 seems like the most logical options. Here's my proposal. If it's 64 say the top 20 teams in the world based on FIFA rankings get automatic bids to the WC. Teams outside of the top 20 have to compete to get in. If it's only 32, then say the top 10 get automatic bids. Here's the key to my proposal though - the geographic locations of those top 10 or 20 teams should be irrelevant in deciding where the other teams can come from. For example, say England, France, Germany, and Italy are all top 20 teams and therefore get automatic bids. Other European countries should not be penalized for Europe already sending these 4 teams to the WC. The flip side of this arguement is that because we're giving automatic bids, the number of countries we take from specific geographic areas have to be reduced. For example, instead of north and central america getting 2 bids, now they may only get 1. If Africa used to get 4 bids, now they only get 2. Or something like that. You can preserve the idea of it being a "World" Cup, and yet ensure that you get the best teams.

 

The problem there is that nothing can be based on the FIFA rankings. They are even moire flawed than the qualifying sections. Nobody takes the seriously (except for the Mexicans and the Yanks!)

 

True Barmy, but no matter what ranking system you go by (even if you chose a method other than FIFA) there's going to be arguements regarding who's better than who. I mean, if you take the top 20 according to the rankings, can we really be sure that the 20th ranked team is better than the 21st ranked team? Of course not. But at least with a method similar to this, we would avoid the most grevious errors in the current system. There's no perfect fix out there, but if the goal is to maximize the number of good teams in the Cup chase, while still maintaining its international and intercontinental flavor, this compromise appears to be as good as any.

 

The ranking is based on the results over a certain period of time. The Netherlands is currently ranked third, because we went through our qualifying rounds undefeated. We also won most of our friendly matches over the past two years, so that would explain our high ranking.

In second place, is the Czech republic. People who don't understand the system would probably imagine that that means that the Czechs are a better team than ours, but we had them in our qualifying group, and on both occasions we beat them with 2-0, so that theory doesn't fly. The only reason why they outrank us, is that they have played more matches than us over the same period of time and had better results, which is also hard to imagine seeing that they had at least three defeats in the last 12 months. Two against us, and one against Romania.

So you see, it's kind of a complicated system, and doesn't make much sense to even the ones that do understand how the system works. The only ranking that's without any doubts is Brazil, but they are usually ranked first, so that's nothing out of the ordinary.

 

OK, so my system seems to be flawed. Soooo, if the current system is as bad as it seems, what recommendations do others have for a better system?

 

Complaining is easy, coming up with constructive alternatives is hard.

 

I'm not complaining, why should i ? The system ranks us third, although i personally feel that's a little overrated. I'm not tapping myself on the chest because of our position neither, because i fully realise the meaning of the FIFA ranking system and what it's worth.

You can't blame me for having a good laugh now can you ?

 

England Manager - Is Martin O'Neill going to get it?

 

Hope so. I wanted for Scolari to get it, but I've changed my mind after how he's acted. I hope MON gets it now.

 

You need a traditionalist after Goran's wild ways. I say let Harry Redknapp get the job!

 

The Curse of England strikes again!

Rooney likely to miss World Cup, Owen injured again after his comeback, and Terry picked up an injury yesterday.

That damn metatarsal again!

 

Just like the NZ cricket team. Goes to show that a champion side needs to have some depth in the whole squad.

 

Okay, England's down.

Which team's next?

 

Bah, I never rated Michael Owen as a player anyway. And plus he's a smug bstrd. I think Sam Allardyce should get the England job

 

Theo Walcott included in the England squad!

He's not even started a game for Arsenal yet, and Sven's included him.

Could be a master stroke. He's an unbelievably talented player.

 

keep the faith England. It takes weeks to complete the first round so Rooney has time enough to make the second round.

I only hope that the referee's do their job properly and give advantage to the attacking teams. Offside for instance. Sometimes it looks that the men in black are afraid to go against favorites, or as in englands case in portugal, the homeside.

 

I just hope we get some goals this year. I seem to remember far too many nil all draws last time I watched soccer.