I am also amazed at what a difference a coach can make. I mean I always knew the importance of a coach to a team, as a youth coach myself, but I never thought to this extent- it's like night and day.
When we talk about "others", with all due respect, it doesn't include outside South America and Europe. CONCACAF is so ridiculously easy that joining CONMEBOL should be imminent to bring balance to football. Why are you trying to put them as an argument? Do you normally use these comparisons? Beg your pardon, I gently ask for you to defend your point, why is CONMEBOL harder than UEFA? I've seen people mentioning Bolivia, do you share their absurd opinion or you just hang out together trying to persuade other people opinion by using "cornering" techniques in a discussion? I am new, do I deserve less respect for my opinion? Waiting. Or not.
Unfortunately it's tough to think about chemistry. Brazil vs Spain 2013 will echo chemistry for 50 years and it returned nothing. It became a "fast answer" for these chemistry perceptions, as 82 and 06. No return, just biased media selling too much attention and supporters feeling better. That's too little for our nation, too little. Why do we have positions being occupied by players that clearly aren't the best choice for that? Just so the Professor can tell everybody "Não foi falta de tentativa"? Good thing to avoid CBF and Globo pressure for a marketing squad but.. will he succeed?
I'm not a Brazillian, just a lurker who, being a fan of Germany, occasionally pops in here and gives my two cents, so if you want to ignore or discount me on account of that that's fine. But I absolutely believe COMNEBOL is harder than UEFA. In UEFA there are a lot more teams and more often than not quite a few of those teams are patently obvious bottom-feeders that aren't going anywhere. San Marino, Faroe Islands, Malta, Azerbaijan, etc. are all complete trash that often have very few professional players and have zero hope of ever really even coming close to qualifying or even being competitive. These are teams which SIGNIFICANTLY dilute the quality of the overall conference and make it a relatively much simpler and more predictable task to qualify from,given that in any given UEFA qualifying group there's a sizeable segment of teams that are worse than Bolivia, the worst team in COMNEBOL. By contrast in COMNEBOL if you look at any given team, they all have at least a baseline core of pretty talented players and if the big-name teams aren't on their game, these teams can beat the bigger teams. I understand that even Bolivia has a major advantage at home because of the altitude of the stadium. This makes for a balanced conference that can have some dramatic fluctuations based on form, and one only need look at Argentina, a team with a high level of quality, is struggling to keep their heads above water right now, to see an example of the balance and competitiveness of COMNEBOL. The top UEFA teams match up nicely against the top COMNEBOL teams IMO, but the lower degree to which COMNEBOL is watered down by thoroughly uncompetitive teams makes for a meaningfully higher overall level of competition.
Now more than ever I believe Jorginho was the mastermind behind Dunga's first era like some have suggested in the past. Dunga was sacked after 6 months at Inter and then went on to show complete ineptitude with the NT during the 2nd go around while Jorginho went on to have some decent spells especially at Vasco.
Mourinho just gave an interview the other day in which he stated that CONMEBOL qualifying was more difficult than UEFA.
Pundits and commentators have been saying that for years. UEFA don't have to deal with those away fixtures like Conmebol teams do. The Altitude of La Paz or Quito. The heat in barranquilla. Uruguay is a beast at home. We haven't lost a home World Cup qualifier ever and that tough for other teams.
Great. So you're mentioning it's harder overall. Nice. What about having a group with elite teams in UEFA? Bingo. You just lost your world cup place. In which situation can it be compared to CONMEBOL for BRAZIL for instance?
Actually those arguments are expected, I'm still struggling to understand the RISK Brazil face of being NOT qualified to world cup. Because, CONMEBOL is harder, RIGHT? The conversation started with the context of me saying that qualifying out of CONMEBOL is ridiculously easy UNLESS you are Paraguay. Brazil never ever lost respect in the qualifying and there are people who compare it AS IF it is a France + Spain + Italy group. And with the SAME ARGUMENT that you can find elsewhere. How is CONMEBOL harder for Brazil than UEFA for Germany?
It's quite simple. Facing Chile, Colombia, Argentina and Uruguay along with certain road games in the altitude like in Quito and La Paz is more difficult than Germany having to face the following group to qualify: It's not a France + Spain +Italy group, but there aren't any Spain + France + Italy groups. The only thing that makes UEFA qualifying difficult is if you get placed in a group with another strong team along with a darkhorse team. Since there are only 2 spots to qualify, with 1 of them being a playoff, that makes it difficult. However, there aren't many groups like that. Usually, you'll see one group like that every qualifying cycle. Spain and Italy are in the same group, but Israel, Albania, Lichtenstein, and Macedonia aren't going to make things interesting.
Good point. I appreciate the examples, thanks a lot. Do you agree Brazil can be considered the best team in the world based in current qualifying?
No. I don't think Germany has done anything to lose their spot as the #1 team in the world. I would probably even rank France ahead of us as well, because I believe they have a very strong team loaded with young talent in the pipeline. However, there are certain factors that the FIFA ranking formula won't account for, and it won't be reflected in the rankings. Brazil would be my #3 team at the moment.
Exactly. Most of the time the groups are easy. But once in a while you get 1 or 2 strong teams and an extra 1 dark horse. If you finish 2nd, you could end up facing a strong team in the play offs too. So that's the part that can be tougher than CONMEBOL. CONMEBOL has more leveled competition and the travel aspect is much tougher specially considering many players come from Europe ... and now China Africa, while the teams may not be great, it seems like many are on similar level. And only 1 out of a group of 5 (if I remember correctly) makes it with no playoffs. That's pretty tough.
I agree that the French must be observed. They've had the same manager since 2012 and they do have many young, talented players. With good management, they can easily build on this core for 2022 as well as the 2020 (and possibly 2024) European Championship. They lost "easily" to Germany in 2014, but something tells me they'll offer a much greater challenge to Germany if they meet again come 2018.
While many were optimistic after trashing Spain 3 x 0, that team was not playing like this one. We were still relying on long balls from defense. Now we are playing through the midfield which we haven't, consistently, for a long time.
They also beat Germany in the Euros in 2016. Granted, it was on home soil, but a win over Germany in an official competition is certainly worth its weight in gold. And Germany has no shame in losing either, which is why I think they are still the #1 nation in the world. Other teams have done much worse since 2014 than lose to France in an official competition in France.
We didn't even see Scolari's team play like that before or after that game. It was an one-off situation. We had nothing to lose and we were in front of our home crowd against what was considered the best side in the world at that time. And we certainly played that way -- a bunch of pressing, players amped up and showing raca, etc.
Germany I would agree is at #1. Defending champs, model of consistency and they still have talent. I don't know if I put France # 2 simply on talent alone. It will be interesting to see how they incorporate all that talent and gel as a team first. They are definitely a team to keep an eye on. I put on Spain at number 2 for now. They beat France recently and have a good pool of talent to choose from. These 8 games under Tite has put Brazil in the discussion and a team to watch out for. While we are flying under Tite, there is pause for concern because we seen this movie before. Dunga and Scolari had the team playing very well a year before the World Cup. Even though, Tite is a much better tactician and coach then both. Possible loss of form is a concern.
Spain's a good pick, but I have Italy even over them. Italy beat Spain in the Euros. The win vs France was good, but it was merely a friendly. France had a number of starters that didn't play that game.
I do not mean to be disrespectful, but San Marino, Azerbaijan, and Northern Ireland are not exactly fearsome opponents. And, I'm now reminded of a funny song the Northern Irish sing - "We're Not Brazil, "We're Northern Ireland." "Oh My Eyes Have Seen The Glory of España '82..."
Tite is the one manager who is most aware of this. He studied coaching and prepared for the job only for CBF to foolishly turn him down. If he met European managers and kept watching top-level games after leaving Corinthians, there's no way he didn't study/analyze what went wrong in 2010 and in 2014. He will continue to observe players and I trust he'll cut players whose form falls and replace them with players whose form is best right before the competition. In 2014, players (I admit I don't recall all) fell from their 2013 form, and Scolari made questionable choices - he left Miranda out. And he also ignored Roque Jr.'s warning to Scolari that a soft midfield meant suicide. Algeria and Team USA lost to Germany by low margins - had we beefed up the midfield, would we have suffered 7 goals? In 2010, I'd say it was a mix of bad timing and bad luck. Elano was injured before the quarterfinals; he'd been pivotal in that team's system, and with him healthy, who knows? Besides, Júlio César's frango in the first Dutch goal was totally uncharacteristic. With Elano in shape, Júlio César not missing that ball, and Kaká's curling shot late in the 1st half going in, would we still have lost to the Netherlands?