How many Belgians would make the Swiss squad? How many would likely start? Not a smart-ass question, I really don't know and would like the perspective of someone who knows the Swiss team better than I do.
Theorethically Switzerland would take the RB/LB positions with Verthonghen and Kompany in the middle, but its not like Switzerland have elite players at full back. The attacking players are 100% Belgium (including the bench). The debate would be in midfield: Inler, Xhaka, Behrami, Shaqiri or Fellaini, Witsel, Dembele, Hazard. Only Hazard looks like a no-brainer. The rest is debatable.
Well if you look at the last 10-15 times Mexico played Brazil, Mexico has won at least half the time. Granted almost all of those matches were played in the USA or Mexico.
mexicans are going to be stuck with ''mexico can beat any south american team, except argentina'' crap for a while..
Depends, based on zahzah's post, at least five Belgians (and very likely six, unless they somehow have a better goalkeeper than Courtois) would start for Switzerland, with the three midfield places being unclear.
I expect something from a brasserie with a cult following... Duvel is like the Budweiser of your nation...
Eh? Jupiler or Stella Artois would be like the Budweiser of our country. Moortgat is a relatively small brewery compared to InBev.
I would still take the teams with the most WC experience, Inler, Barnetta, Sanderos, Benaglio are all starting WC returners, 2 of them being their 3rd (likely final) WC and all getting into that ripe old age of 29. plus you have all of the other players which experienced the WC, even if from the bench, they experienced and now are 4 years older and better, like Shaqiri.
InBev and AmBev (their brazilian which claims are separate but they are one of the same) are the largest distributors of beer in the world, they own something ridiculous like 35% of the world's beer.
just so you guys have an idea of how big these people are, they pretty much buy the top brand of beers in each country instead of introducing their beers to the country. I remember when they were trying hard to get into the US with beer from Brazil and Europe, once they failed.. they simply bought budweiser and started to sell the beers they were trying to market into the US, only now the bottle reads Budweiser select this, and Budweiser select that. But in reality it's the same beer they were trying to bring in before but couldn't because americans drink Bud! Now.. they can sell whatever since they own the brand that sells. so.. Budweiser now is Stella and Jupiler. But it's also Quilmes, Diebels, Beck's Spaten, Bass, Whitbread, Fujian Sedrin, Labatt, Brahma, Skol, Boddingtons, Staropramen, Leffe, Hoegaarden, Antartica, Nacional Dominicana, Michelob and all of the pepsi products in Latin America are sold by them.
The best bet is Australia, after that probably Costa Rica, Iran, Ghana and USA simply because of relative strength combined with difficulty of schedule. I would add that I don't believe for a second that the least points and worst GD means worst team. Australia could easily have the worst point total and GD etc, but I seriously doubt they'll be the worst overall team. In '10 the worst side was North Korea, while France and Cameroon were almost equally awful, back in '06 Togo and Saudi Arabia were the worst playing sides having disastrously bad performances in terms of results and in quality of play. For me, the worst side isn't the team with the worst stats, it's the team that plays the most like total manure. In '10 North Korea was valiant to some degree against Brazil, then imploded against Portugal and was likely petrified about what waited back home for them during their final match day. But France and Cameroon were equally bad considering expectations and the relative quality of their group. North Korea was nowhere near a top 32 side in the world, and ended up in a group similar to group B this time around, 3 powerhouses and them. Getting 3 straight defeats AND getting rolled while losing them was a lock before a game was played. Cameroon and France got reasonable draws, and still played like utter garbage. France was schooled by a solid but not great Mexico, and beaten by the worst South African team to make a World Cup ever. Cowardice and manure caliber play meant France were the worst side of the cup for me, considering their talent, their draw, and their results. North Korea may have earned that position, but France were truly the worst. Cameroon just looked bad in '10, they had a monster seed, and they played them alright, but Japan and Denmark were beatable and they beat neither of them. For me the bottom three in 10 were France @ 32, North Korea at 31 and Cameroon at 30. In '02 if you want to go back that far, it's a bit easier, Saudi Arabia was the worst ranked, and earned it, being blasted apart in 3 straight and looking utterly out of their depth, Iran should have been there instead of those laughingstocks, but close behind them were a Slovenia side that had a locker room dust up issue similar to France's mental break down, and China, which looked nearly as bad as Saudi Arabia, and not surprisingly utterly out of their depth. How China and Saudi Arabia managed to get tickets in '02 considering that normal qualifiers Japan and S. Korea were co-hosts and had auto-slots is confounding, and tells you just how wretched the AFC was 12 years ago. Thank god they added Australia, and honestly, what the hell was wrong with Iran back then? With no S. Korea or Japan to qualify against there was zero excuse for failing to qualify for that cycle, and China and Saudi Arabia proved why by failing to qualify for any of the following three cups other than the Saudi's trip to, and quickly back home from Germany in '06. For me, the worst side will be the team that plays the worst, not necessarily the team that earns the least points and the worst GD. In '02 it was: 32. Saudi Arabia 31. China 30. Slovenia In '06 it was: 32. Saudi Arabia 31. Togo (pay dispute lead to implosion before tourney even started, nearly knocked France out in group play) 30. Costa Rica In '10 it was: 32. France 31. North Korea 30. Cameroon The stats that would determine the overall worst teams would say it was Saudi Arabia in '02, Serbia and Montenegro in '06 and North Korea in '20, but I'd disagree in two of three cases. In '06 Serbia and Montenegro landed the group of death, every team in that group would have qualified out of at least 3-4 other groups if they'd landed in there (think A, B, G, H and possibly D), instead after an outstanding qualification campaign they ended up drawing one of the best five or six squads out of Europe, one of the best 2 squads in Africa, and the group stage best performer of the entire world cup and snakebit loser to Germany in the QF's Argentina (if the goalie doesn't get injured by a Klose foul that wasn't called, Argentina defeats Germany in the quarters, instead they have to waste a sub on a goalie, and run out of legs in extra time), there's only a handful of sides in the entire world that could have been favored to beat any of those sides in group C, at that point in time in '06, so not surprisingly Serbia and Montenegro ended up worst among the four, despite playing quite well in 2 of 3 games (lost 1-0 to the Dutch in the opener, got destroyed by Argentina in match day 2, and then played Ivory Coast wire to wire in a thrilling 2-3 loss in the finale which would have been a draw if not for giving up a PK in the 86th minute). There's no way Serbia and Montenegro was the worst team in '06, no way in hell, but that butt kicking they took against Argentina, and that PK late against Ivory Coast labeled them as such. Go back, randomize that draw, and I'd rank Serbia and Montenegro somewhere between 10th and 18th among the teams playin in that tourney. Now Togo and Saudi Arabia in '06? They had no business being there, Saudi Arabia in particular. Togo had a decent team with a great forward, but they weren't a top 5 team in Africa, just a team that got lucky that CAF inexplicably piled in 3 of the best 6 or 7 teams in all of Africa into one qualifying group (Cameroon, Ivory Coast and Egypt in one freaking group? Are you serious?!?!?, meanwhile Togo's only competition in '06 is Senegal, and if not for Adebayor scoring 19 minutes from time to equalize in Senegal, would have gone home), while Saudi Arabia landed in a horrendously bad group, and still managed to look totally out of their depth (elite Spain, then the very worst of sides from CAF, and the Europe unseeded pot). They were clearly the worst in '06. In '10 I think it's clear, North Korea was the worst team there, but France clearly played the worst soccer. That's my way of reading it, who played the worst soccer in the tourney? I don't really care in terms of point total and GD, you'll know when you see it, and the three worst seemed pretty clear to me in 2002, 2006 and 2010.
Can't see Ghana or USA. I doubt anyone will finish with 0 points in the group. It might as well be Portugal last.
I doubt Ghana or USA will have a big negative goal difference, but lets face it: if that first game doesn't end in a draw, the loser is basically toast. Like Holland in Euro 2012.
Agreed. Didn't think of it that way. But also if Portugal lose to Germany (as expected) than Portugal will be fighting for survival. I expect them to at least draw one game against USA or Ghana.
When people actually take the game seriously, Iran doesn't do as well, that's what it says, imho. That '02 failure really, really, really sticks out, it's as bizarre as Mexico's finish this year, but even worse, because at least Mexico finished behind a good, and some top 35-50 in the world sides (Costa Rica and Honduras), and Panama has actually climbed from utter irrelevance throughout their entire history to a top 5 Concacaf side over the past decade. China and S. Arabia are and were horse bleep. How the heck Iran ever let that get to the playoff win or go home stage is beyond me. Oh, here, I see it: a tie against freaking Thailand. a tie at home against Bahrain, and a loss at Iraq. Blech. I'll grant Iran probably would have qualified if they'd been in the other qualification group, but come on, that Saudi Arabian team was ghastly, and the rest of the teams to qualify against wouldn't have made this hex in concacaf, or finish top 3 in a second stage CAF qualifying group. What bizarre results. The sense I'm getting is friendlies are being paid far far far far too much attention to by Persian soccer fans because, well, at the end of the day what else is there to point to. I will add this though, we have no way of knowing how Iran would look on the world stage in cross confederation games because they only appear to qualify for every other cup (lately) out of a fed with only only 3 quality teams to test themselves against (none of whom have ever really looked like top 10-15 sides for the most part though S. Korea and Japan have grown by leaps and bounds in the past decade), and don't really qualify for much in the way of serious tourney's, even at the junior levels. So who the heck knows, 3 games in 2006 and 3 games in 1998 are hardly reasonable sample size's to measure anything. It's just evidence is incredibly lacking. Most other quality sides, or even second or third tier sides in the world just have more tournaments to point to as samples. Other sides outside of the elite have: Concacaf: USA: World Cups 1990-Present, Confederations Cups in 1999, 2003, and 2009, Copa America's in 1993, and 1995 (the '07 was a B/C team), Olympics in 2000 and 2008, a gazillion Youth tourneys. Mexico has: Every World Cup, Confed Cups in 2005, and 2013, just about every Olympics, and youth tourneys and those Gold Cup titles. S. Korea and Japan have a minimum of 5 straight world cups, numerous Asian Cups, numerous Confed Cup, Olympic Tournament and Youth Tournaments. CAF Sides: It's a bit more spread out, but we do have the Nations Cup, and the world cups, other than '06 (where a giant pile of nonsense happened and let in 3 jokers among the 5 sides), youth tourney's and the Olympics. With Iran, we don't have much at all to point to, and as has been said (and seemingly ignored), friendlies don't mean expletive, good or bad. At the youth level, Iran hasn't done squat since the 70's with regards to their U-19 AFC tourneys (they've got that one quality performance in '00), their U-16's have a bit of a better track record, but we all know how many U-16's vanish/fail to pay off, and that can be seen in the failures of the U-19 squads. At the Asian Cup level it also looks fairly barren, after dominating in the 70's (which really seems to have been the high water mark of Persian soccer, back when S. Korea and Japan didn't really care that much/sucked) slipped a bit in the eighties, then completely collapsed (basically appeared to be a top 1-4 AFC side from '68-'88, then it was over in terms of any kind of consistent quality play, with only 2 quality runs in their next 6 tourney's and both a long time ago relatively speaking ('96 and '04). Looking at all of this we just don't have much evidence of anything cross-federation that actually is meaningful, and inside it's own fed, we have consistent decline in play beginning around 1990, and continuing all the way to the present with brief flips in play circa '96-'98, '04-'06, and if you take this current iteration seriously maybe '14? We just have no basis to expect anything from Iran in terms of results. They seem to have been a great side for Asia 40 years ago (but that's like Mexico 40 years ago, great side for Concacaf, crummy for the world), a good to very good side for Asia in the eighties, and a largely second tier side in Asia since 1990, and definitely nowhere near the level of Japan or S. Korea over the past decade, definitely a tier drop below. Japan/S. Korea have combined to make 5 straight World Cups, consistently qualify for the Olympics and nearly all youth tournaments. Iran hasn't done any of that. Additionally Japan and S. Korea have generated quality results, and had quality performances in three consecutive world cups, and in major senior and youth level tourney's going back at least a decade. Again, I see none of that, none to speak of from Iran. So why are we loading up page after page of arguments about the quality of Iran? Even if they are quality (which no one other than Persians appears to believe), there's no way to prove it with actual legit and reasonable evidence, and even a quality cup performance in Brazil thanks to a reasonable draw still would leave them plenty behind a Japan and S. Korean side that have Confed Cup, and Olympic achievements lately, and quality performances in 2 of their last 3 world cups (and the one exception to that, is actually Iran's high point). Can't we just finally end the Iran talk until they do something, anything? I promise I'll shut up about Costa Rica and Honduras, I swear!
That's one of the ways you can end up arguing yourself in circles, theoretically the US schedule was ideal, Ghana first (and Ghana will play every game, balls to the wall, so it would be just as difficult on any other match day), and Germany last help, Germany could have their 6, and rest players + card accumulation issues, it's hard to imagine Germany on match day 3 could be more difficult than matchday 1, or 2, unless Germany screws up in 1 or 2. But Portugal on matchday 2 is the worst possible time to play them, if they lose to Germany they have to win, if they beat Germany, they'll definitely have to win too. The time to play Portugal is matchday 1, because they can be sluggish early, or card accumulated on matchday 3, and considering how tough they can play, matchday 3 could help. But 2? 2 for sure they'll be 110%. So it's funny, Ghana first is ideal, Portugal 2nd is least ideal, Germany last is ideal. That's the one and only thing helping us at all. You can argue yourself into knots thinking about it, but the schedule is important, and it seems as if at least that worked for the US considering the awful draw. Taking history into account it's difficult to get a read, the US has played very similar cups in '90, '94, '98, '02, '06 and '10 in terms of combination of results. In '90 there was a terrific performance around Italy, sandwiched by a horror show stomping in game 1, and a basic defeat on matchday 3, in '94, the trend that's been true of 4 of the 5 most recent cups began: Strong performance in one game (matchday 1), great performance in one game (matchday 2), horrible performance in one game (match day 3). USA Great Performances: Matchday 2 '94 Matchday 1 '02 Matchday 2 '06 USA Good Performances: Matchday 1 '94 Matchday 2 '02 Matchday 2 '06 Matchday 2 '10 Matchday 3 '10 USA Crummy performances: Matchday 3 '94 Matchday 3 '02 Matchday 1 '06 For whatever reason, the US seems to put together a great performance, a horrible performance, and either a solid performance, or a good performance in every tourney. Heck, even in the '98 debacle, they had a horrible performance (Germany 0-2 loss), a solid performance (the unlucky '98 game against Iran, I know, I know, your interpretation may be different Persian fans), and a middling one (the goodbye, bags packed, ho hum 0-1 loss to Yugoslavia). So its interesting, this pattern has basically been in play in every single cycle, even going back to '90 (Great game versus Italy, horrible game against Czechoslovakia, solid in loss to Austria), a performance is seemingly always good to great, a performance is seemingly always horrible (1-5 to Czechoslovakia in '90, 1-3 to Romania in '94, 0-2 to Germany in '98, 1-3 to Poland in '02, 0-3 to Czech's in '06, and first half down 0-2 against Slovenia (then we scored 3 in the second half, one moronically waived off), and a performance is solid. Doesn't seem to be any clear pattern as to where the quality and horrible performances happen either. All in all, if the pattern holds again, it's interesting to wonder how it would play out, whom would we play great against, whom would we play horrible against, whom would we get the 1 point against (maybe), would 4 points be enough in G? Tough to figure, could come down to GD, considering the relatively even quality of the 3 teams in that group, and how they compare to one another in terms of match ups. Difficult to figure. Anyway scheduling is an interesting angle, I imagine most of us just look at our own schedules, and ignore everybody else's, but a lot of what ends up playing out, could turn on scheduling.
I think the point there is that Tunisia was just about he best draw possible for Cameroon, if they'd drawn anyone else they were probably screwed, and wouldn't be here (and I agree with that argument-I think they lose to Ivory Coast, Ghana, and Nigeria for sure, and I think Algeria probably would have beaten them too). As for Mexico, if Mexico is it's qualification self, they will finish last in the group for sure. It's just that those that are familiar with Mexico's track record, and history, believe that I the fed/coach can get things sorted out, an buy in from the players, Mexico will advance, and hell, Mexico's even played Brazil very, very tough in major tourney's repeatedly over the past decade (I believe Mexico has a winning record against Brazil over the past 10-12 years head to head). If Mexico gets right, and nobody who knows Mexico and their team, believes the Mexico of 2013, is the true talent/ability of the side, then they'll easily take runner up, and actually have a shot as group winner. I expect them to get right, and if they are right, they'll be a lock for the knockouts just as they have been in their previous 6 world cups (including he disastrous '02 hexagonal campaign, which lead to them actually taking their group over Italy and a better Croatia back then).
You could argue that the Swiss had a horrendously weak group AND they played very few friendlies (perhaps they knew the moronic system that FiFA would use for seeding and deliberately avoided the trap that England, and particularly Netherlands fell into), and so that undefeated streak isn't realy indicative of much. I think Belgium simply appear to have a team that is capable of slicing and dicing any defense in the world, and probably and rightly ranks in the top 5-10 in the world in terms of attack. Belgium has no pedigree because the last gasp of their quality sides was in '02, when they were screwed out of an opportunity of knocking out Brazil, but the lineup is pretty damn imposing, particularly in that midfield, and at forward, and looking at that, and their draw, they appear to be superior to anyone they're likely to face through their first 4 world cup games, after that, they're going to be running up against teams that are as good, or possibly better, then its how the ball bounces, and how they handle the pressure. The Swiss aren't anywhere near as good a this Belgium team based on the quality of the lineup, and the quality of competition they've beaten in serious competition of late. I don't think any bookmaker anywhere, would put Swiss up as favorites against Belgium on a neutral field and for good reason. The fact that the Swiss got a slightly better draw then Belgium, and both avoided groups of death, but all the betting sites in the world have Belgium at 14-1/16-1, while the bulk of the odds for he Swiss are 80-1/100-1 tells you all you need to know. Oddsmakers don't like to lose money to the public or the sharps, and there's unlikely to be much of a public element involved with betting on either side, so those odds are likely dictated by concerns with the sharps, and a desire to nail the right number. So what does 14-1 versus 100-1 tell you? It's pretty simple, every bookmaker everywhere basically views Belgium as a top 8 side in the world, and a worthy seed, while the Swiss are a moronic seed/fix, and are being lumped in with the US, Mexico, Ivory Coast, Russia and Ecuador, and that's with an absolutely cake, dream of a draw.