Yet despite all the those players from Europe's top leagues, Poland, Greece, and Slovenia have been absolute sh*t in recent WCs, always going 3 and out, finishing behind the likes of Korea, US, Ecuador, etc... So much for having players in Europe's top leagues.
That's because having players in top European leagues doesn't mean anything by itself. I imagine many players in, say, the J-league are better than the bench warmers in Palermo.
We're obviously talking about national teams only. Clubs with money can fill gaps in their squad by buying new players and improve team chemistry by exchanging one good player for another. For NTs its much more difficult and that's why this Spanish team is so rare. It has quality and depth in almost every position, good team chemistry and players who excel in big/high pressure matches.
I believe that Spain has been benefitted by having a great team in an era when all the other usual world powers have not had good generations. I dont remember another era like this one, where most of the usual traditional soccer world powers have really sucked, in my opinion. Go through them: Italy, just now showing some signs of life Germany, good team but lacking their traditional grit and fortitude, getting worse Brazil, omg, this has probably been their worse decade in history, look at them now, their best hope for 2014 is Neymar, for god's sake. England, I believe they're on the right track now, finally. They'll be in it in 2014 France, nobody near Zidane's class, and the lack of discipline have really taken a toll Argentina, Messi is the best player in the world, but when he says "i'll play football as long as I keep having fun", I dont know, makes me really queasy, it's not what Maradona would say. Not the warrior mentality that's needed to win a WC. So I dont know That left Portugal and the Netherlands, two "softies"(and i'm being kind) in soccer history, to contend with. Now 2014 will be a different story I think, with Italy, England, maybe Argentina? coming up and the resurgence of Uruguay. We'll see how good Spain is then.
^^LMAO @ you trying to reduce Spain's success to the fact that the other teams are not good enough stating laughable motives in some cases. Teams from other generations had issues too. Truth of the matter is that this Spanish generation is great and is the best team ever imo, and i'm not even Spanish.
WTF are you smoking europe doesnt have any knockout rounds in their qualifying all they have to do is top their group and they qualify and each group has one or two good teams tops... look at group A that's a sorry a.s.s group group B only italy is any good group C Germany has an easier qualification than mexico in concacaf group D netherlands and a bunch of sorry teams Group E not one good team imagine if iceland or albania or cyprus qualifed lol that's funny you can look at every group and you would find that qualifying in europe is easy and UEFA is way overrated the thing is they have so many slots that of course the law of percentages gives them a bigger chance of winning the world cup []__[]
As opposed to finishing in the top half of their groups. Yes, clearly much easier to finish top of a group than mid-table.
This post is lame. There are 16 teams in Euro and 13 teams from Europe go to the World Cup. 7 out of 13 teams in World Cup dropped out in group stage. 6 of these 7 teams were knocked out by at least one non-European team. South Korea beat Greece. Australia and Ghana beat Serbia. Japan beat Denmark. Group A: Poland, Greece, Russia, Czech Republic. Each of these teams failed to make it pass the group stage in their last World Cup appearance and on each of those occasions at least one non-European team made it ahead of them. Poland, Russia and Czech Republic all lost out to Slovenia for a place at the last World Cup as well. Slovenia failed to make it to the knockout stage of the World Cup as the USA (non-European) topped the group. How is it harder when teams like Czech Republic, Poland, Russia and Greece can progress to the knockouts when these same teams would be eliminated in the group stage of World Cup? Sweden finished behind Denmark and Portugal in 2010 qualifying. Denmark couldn't make it pass their group in World Cup (outclassed by Japan). France finished bottom of their group against 3 non-European teams. Ukraine lost a play-off against Greece so they didn't qualify. Greece didn't make it pass the group stage. In 2002, Mexico knocked out Croatia in group stage. In 2006, two non-European teams knocked out Croatia in group stage. Most of the European teams you listed are rubbish.
Team v t e PldWDLGFGAGDPts Switzerland 2 2 0 0 4 0 +4 6 Iceland 2 1 0 1 2 1 +1 3 Albania 2 1 0 1 3 3 0 3 Cyprus 2 1 0 1 2 3 −1 3 Norway 2 1 0 1 2 3 −1 3 Slovenia When most of the groups look like this right here a bunch of sorry teams and maybe one good team well of course is easy. Germany going against Ireland, Faraoe Islands, Kazakhstan, Sweden, Austria... that's an easy qualifier for them. There's no way Germany doesnt qualify out of that group. []__[]
Maybe its easy for them because they are much better than Mexico? But look at it from the perspective of teams in Germany's group. Sweden (just as strong as Mexico & USA based on past WC results) have to fight for the remaining 0.4 spots in their group, while teams in Mexico's group are "fighting" for 2.5 remaining spots (assuming Mexico and Germany win their groups).
that's exactly my point im glad you got it... germany, italy, holland, france, spain, all have an easy road to the world cup as easy as the road mexico has... comebol is the hardest confederation to make the world cup []__[]
CONMEBOL is hard, but the top teams still qualify most of the time. Brasil always, Argentina just failed once. Compare this to France, Netherlands, Spain, Italy, and France, all of which have failed to qualify on several occasions. So maybe it's not that easy? I think the key is not to look at the top teams because they could qualify from everywhere. The difficulty really is shown in how hard it is for 2nd and 3rd tier teams to qualify. In regards to that, CONMEBOL is hard, then Europe, then Africa-CONCACAF-Asia.
The reason Germany is almost certain to qualify is because they are so good. In the case of Mexico, its because their region is so bad. So, yes, both should qualify easily but the underlying reasons are different.
reasons are the same they are two good teams that go against weak competition.. take germany out of their group and put mexico and the same results mexico qualifies... Uefa has 13 slots there are not 13 good teams in uefa.....heck you take the top ten teams from uefa and put in the ten teams from conmebol and the only team that doesnt qualify to the world cup is bolivia and who knows they even may surprise and make it []__[]
Yes. Even without Villa and Puyol they still won it. Even when Torres dont bang any goals in World cup they still won it. Its real definition of SOLID team. They dont rely on certain player brilliance.
Oh please, that's such a weak response. Yes, both are good but Germany are WAY better. They have gone further than Mexico in every world cup since 1950 (when they weren't allowed to take part due to WWII). Not even one time did Mexico match Germany's WC performance, much less go further. Do you not watch World Cups? Even Sweden (who are in Germany's group) consistently does as well or better than Mexico, so what makes you think Mexico would easily beat Sweden in qualifying?