I doubt any more neutrals would attend Pachuca v Gremio if it was held in Europe, Africa or Oceania. So most places would have the same problem, imo. No wonder the proposals on expanding this tournament have 50% of the teams being from UEFA.
It would have been great to see it hosted by the US in, let's say, Texas. This is gross. BTW, interesting, here in Balkans national/public broadcasters show the tournament - so far it was only on private stations. Is this tournament part of WC TV-package?
And we head into extra time on a chilly night in Al Ain (for UAE standards anyway). Just about every game has been a tight affair at this CWC.
This tournament is just the final stage after all the Continental Champions Leagues are done. So, it should be like most Continental Champions Leagues are decided: home-and-away, no "host" spot, draw to see the order. Say, first the CAF vs. C-CAF champs on one side, OFC vs. AFC the other. Winners go against UEFA & C-BOL.
Looks like the final will feature a UEFA team versus a CONMEBOL team for the 10th time in 13 years. Still no Mexican CONCACAF team has ever reached a final!
It's easy for us in the US to be homers, but what soccer tournament or competition ever put on here wasn't well-attended? I have no doubt that if this game was played in, say, Miami or LA, it would have much better attendance than what we saw today. It's much easier for supporters from all over to access those kinds of cities, as opposed to the Middle East. Imagine Real Madrid playing in an actual competitive game in Chicago or LA, they could fill the Bears stadium like they did for friendlies.
Fun game, Pachuca played well, Conejo is about 40 yet he played a solid game. Luan, Everton, looked good. Marqunhos not so much. The best players IMO the Gremio central backs, Kannemann & Geromel. Defending was the strong point with this Gremio in the Libertadores too, conceding only three goals after the group phase. Pachuca, somewhat depleted after the summer transfers (sending Chucky to Europe was the big one), were not afraid to play as equals and even controlled possession in the 90'. Honda was never a guy to cover much ground, but now he plays like Riquelme did in his last years: barely moving. Manny Garcia had a good game but he was taken out before he'd get the second yellow. While Real should have no trouble to win tomorrow, I expect Gremio to present a bit of a problem at first, with their solid defending. In the end, though, once the seal is broken, and in spite of all the individual technique of the attackers, they just don't have the power required in attack and I don't see them coming back once they're down.
I said the same thing in the previous page, but I think they should also merge OFC + AFC and CONCACAF + CONMEBOL. Since Australia joined AFC I don't see why the other OFC teams don't do the same, and by doing that UEFA and CAF will still contain more FA so it would be fair.
Well, I have no clue how Gremio was hyped anyways. They have some journey men in the team but Luan and Arthur in the midfield are good propects. Maybe just because they are from Brazil ? We all know most Brazilian top talent is playing abroad.
The other teams are also missing players due to injuries, Wydad missed the key winger Ounajem who contributed to almost all their goals in the African Champions League, Al Jazira was missing Rashidov and I don't know about Auckland's squad but I wouldn't be surprised if they had some forfait as well. But enough excuses, on the paper the Brazilian league is expected to be stronger than the Mexican one. The graphic I posted also show that the market value of Gremio is twice bigger than Pachuca's one. Also Pachuca just played extra times in their Saturday game.
Market value is less significant in SA compared to Europe. Or else Brazilian teams would be winning Libertadores every year. Like I said, we lose a lot of talent to the foreign market. Not only top talent.
top Argentinian clubs like River Plate have a market value close to Gremio's also Brazil has won half of last decade's libertadores
Speaking of which, a lot of attention was paid to the top Egyptian clubs, to the duel between Mazembe and Vita for RDC supremacy, and to the up-and-coming South African clubs like Mamelody Sundowns. But few people write about the Moroccan league. It's a shame, but from what I've seen, they're producing some interesting talent. El Karti and El Hajhouj are both only 23.
Gremio are a big team, but their market value are less than half compared to Flamengo and Corinthians. And also trail Palmeiras and Sao Paulo. By market value they are in 5th. But I don't know what your point is. I said that market value is not that determinant here. Flamengo got knocked out in the group phase by teams not named River Plate or Boca. Palmeiras lost to Barcelona of Ecuador. Are you trying to boast about the Mexican league or something ?
The problems with your argument are: 1) This is a one game, if this was a series of games. I would expect Gremio to come on top more times but in one game everything can happen. 2) Market value is meaningful if the market isn't efficient. I do not think there is total mobility between Brazilian and Mexican leagues, thus small arbitrage can remain.
The parity in South America blows my mind. 11 different champs in past 11 years. No other confederation has that, and I doubt any confederation has had 11 in 11 at any point in their history. Plus I heard it's been 20 different finalists in 10 years. Another feat no other confed can match.
Those aren't arguments, I'm not trying to convince or support any thesis, I just tried to answer the question "where does the hype come from ?". I'm not concerned by the hype and you can see that I expected a tight game. The market value was just an easy attempt to explain the hype. The market is also influenced by the brand power and the Brazilian brand is still powerful although Brazil isn't producing as many talents as it used to. We can also compare the budget of the clubs which also shows their ability to attract quality players and the ranking shouldn't be much different from the graphic I posted.
11 different champions of the Libertadores indeed but 21 different teams in the final (Boca played it twice). Still impressive though. Asia had 9 different champions in the past 11 years and 17 different finalists. Africa had 8 different champions in the past 11 years and 14 different finalists. Europe had 7 different champions in the past 11 years and 10 different finalists. north America had 5 different champions in the past 11 years and 13 different finalists Oceania had 3 different champions in the past 11 years and 7 different finalists
as I said I only tried to answer the question "where does the hype come from". I'm not trying to boast about the Mexican league, I'm completely neutral between Brazil and Mexico. I'm an outsider who have the same sympathy for both countries and I hope I'll have the chance to visit both.
1 - Hype is generated by people, not data like market value. I haven't heard people saying Gremio were an amazing team. There isn't even a conversation internationally rating Gremio. The last Brazilian team to get some attention was Santos because of Neymar. 2 - NT brand power has nothing to do with domestic league club market value. That is driven, with the exception of the top European leagues (mainly EPL and La Liga), by domestic football related market economy. Almost nobody cares about Brazilian league outside of Brazil other than the odd fan.
No body cares and that's why the hype wasn't about Gremio as a team, for people outside of Brazil it was "Brazilian team X vs Mexican team Y". No one was saying Gremio is an amazing team but people were expecting the Brazilian team to be much stronger than the Mexican team. And after the first game of Pachuca who struggled against a limited Wydad down to 10 men and played extra time while Gremio was only training people were surprised to see the game be decided on extra time as well. NT brand power has an influence on how people see a league, it doesn't mean it's right but a hype isn't necessarily right either. I'm sure people in Japan who aren't up to date with the recent UEFA CL results. will think the Dutch Eredivisie is still better than the Turkish Super Lig because Netherlands is seen as a better country of football than Turkey so Ajax should be better than Besiktas which is not true.