I wonder what people think has been the strongest GOD in WC history. First off I want to say that what I think adds to the GOD scenario is the fact that only 2 of 4 teams advance. It isn't much of a GOD if 3 teams can advance, so I would like this discussion to be based only from 1998 onwards. By GOD I also do not mean 4 very equal teams similar to this years Colombia, Poland, Senegal, Japan I mean 4 top teams all in one group, where basically any of these teams would likely be strong contenders to qualify from almost any other group. What are people's opinions on this ? What was the ultimate GOD ? This current WC is also valid in this discussion.
To me standouts are 2002 Denmark, Uruguay, Senegal, France Sweden, Argentina, England, Nigeria 2006 Argentina, Holland, CIV, Serbia 2014 Spain, Holland, Chile, Australia England, Italy, Uruguay, Costa Rica Germany, Ghana, USA, Portugal 2018 Argentina, Nigeria, Croatia, Iceland
This one doesn't fit the criteria you set out as we were pretty poor at the time, although with a better 4th team it would as the other 3 teams were all rated a chance of doing something special. If you were going to throw one of our groups in then our 2010 group would be up there. The only group to supply 2 quarter finalists and also the only group where every team won a game.
A big factor that hasn't been addressed here is: are we judging the GoD based on how it looked ahead of the tournament or how it turned out? 'cause if it's the former, it's really hard to look at BOTH FINALISTS of the previous WC ending up in the same group, with strong South American opposition to boot (WC14 Group B). And @almango I think you're being harsh on your own side - Australia gave Chile and the Netherlands all kinds of fits, and only crapped out against Spain b/c it didn't matter anymore and Cahill was suspended. Let me put it this way, put Australia in Colombia's or Belgium's group from that same tournament and I'd have given them a puncher's chance of advancing.
World cup 1990 group E Spain Belgium Uruguay South korea And group F England Netherland Republic of Ireland Egypt
No group ever, beats the final group of the 1950 WC, where all teams in it where the teams that won their respectful first stage groups of that WC : Uruguay Brazil Sweden Spain
1962 Group C Brazil Mexico Czechoslovakia Spain 1966 Group C Brazil Bulgaria Hungary Portugal 1974 Group D Italy Haiti Argentina Poland
Big names now, but back at the time (1974), the only team of that group which had lots of historic achievements behind them was Italy. All 3 of the other teams, didn't even make it to the previous WC.
Nice thread. WCs prior to '98 probably had 2/3 or more groups of deaths per cup... @Rickdog, I agree that can't be considered a group of death, but it was different not classifying back then than it is now...
There were many Groups of Death during the 1978 FIFA World Cup. First Round Group 1 Argentina Hungary France Italy Group 3 Brazil Spain Sweden Austria Second Round Group A W Germany Austria Netherlands Italy
This one immediately popped in my mind when I first saw this thread. But I debated myself about it because both France and Hungary hadn't qualified for the previous two World Cups ('70 and '74) nor had either threatened in the Euros. France was considered a dark horse of sorts in '78. Hungary? meh. So in the end I didn't really consider this to be a GoD. Same with this group. Spain hadn't qualified for a World Cup since '66, Austria since '58 (?). And neither impressed in the Euros of '72 or '76. But the Austrians turned out to be a nice surprise in Argentina. A strong group, indeed. But personally, when I think of GoD I only consider the initial group stage where the luck of the draw comes into play. In the second round group stages used in '74 to '82... when the first round field is sliced in half for the second round (16 to 8 in '74-'78; 24 to 12 in '82) you would expect to see a group or two featuring strong teams.
Not sure if the strongest, but the toughest group of death has to be WC94 Group E, where all teams (Italy, Mexico, Ireland and Norway) finished equal in points and goal difference. Only time it's ever happened. The group was also made of strong sides, as Italy reached the final losing only by penalties, while Mexico went out in the round of 16 also after penalties. Ireland however were soundly beaten by the Netherlands.
What about 1974 Group 3 [first stage group] - Netherlands, Sweden, Bulgaria, Uruguay. Uruguay - who finished last in the group - were actually the seeded team! Sweden were from the "rest of the World" pot of Australia, Haiti, Zaire (and Sweden) and had eliminated Austria and Hungary in qualifying. The Dutch might have been okay too! J
To tackle this objectively, I did a little analysis. I measured a team's strength by its Elo rating at the start of the tournament (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Football_Elo_Ratings). I have issues with their calculation methodology but they are better than FIFA ratings because they go back through all the World Cups. A group's strength is the average rating of the teams in the group. The group with the highest rating in any year is that year's "Group of Death". To compare across World Cups, I ranked the Groups of Death by how much tougher they were than the average group in their year. I looked at all World Cups since 1954 when the tournament first moved to at least four groups of four teams. The most difficult group in World Cup history, by far, is 1970's Group 3, featuring England, Brazil, Czechoslovakia, and Romania. It featured the top team from each of the four pots in the draw and was thus the toughest group possible that year. Of the 16 teams, they ranked 1, 2, 6, and 10. This is the only group in World Cup history to feature the top two teams in the world. Their average Elo rating was 161 points higher than the average of the other three groups. Second comes 1962's Group 3 (Brazil, Czechoslovakia, Spain, and Mexico). They ranked 1, 4, 6, and 12 of the 16 teams and were 113 points stronger than the average of the other groups. Third was 2014's Group B (Spain, Netherlands, Chile, Australia) with a rating 101 points higher than the average of the other groups. They ranked 2, 5, 9, and 28 of the 32 teams. Here's the rest of the top 10 using the same methodology. 4. 1958 Group 4 (+86) England, Brazil, Austria, Soviet Union 5. 2010 Group H (+83) Spain, Chile, Switzerland, Honduras 5= 1994 Group E (+83) Italy, Ireland, Mexico, Norway 7. 2002 Group F (+81) Argentina, England, Sweden, Nigeria 8. 2006 Group C (+74) Netherlands, Argentina, Serbia, Ivory Coast 9. 1986 Group E (+68) West Germany, Denmark, Scotland, Uruguay 10. 1998 Group A (+64) Brazil, Norway, Scotland, Morocco The weakest groups up to now have been: 1. 1970 Group 1 (-117) Soviet Union, Belgium, Mexico, El Salvador 2. 2014 Group H (-107) Belgium, Russia, South Korea, Algeria But that record will soon be held by: 2018's Group A (-147) Uruguay, Russia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia A few comments on other people's suggestions 1. The Dutch group in 1974 was actually the weakest of the four groups. Uruguay was seeded because it was a former winner, not because of its strength, and the Dutch themselves hadn't qualified for the 1972 Euros and were lucky to qualify for the World Cup. 2. The groups in 1978 were pretty even so by definition, none was really a Group of Death. However, Group 1 (Italy, Argentina, Hungary, France) holds the distinction of being the most competitive group in World Cup history i.e. the group with the smallest difference between the highest and lowest rated teams. Of the 16 teams, they were ranked 6, 8, 9, and 10.
At the time being, the FIFA council decided to have all 4 of the semifinalists of the previous WC (1970) to have them separate in diferent groups, in which case they all also happened to be, former WC champions. In fact for the 1974 draw, there weren't seeded teams at all, as the teams for each pot were decided using their geographic location, instead. There were 1 western european based pot (W.Germany, Italy, Scotland and Netherlands); 1 eastern european based pot (E.Germany, Yugoslavia, Poland and Bulgaria); 1 south american based pot (Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina and Chile); and 1 pot for teams from the rest of the world (Mexico, Zaire and, Haiti), which would include the last european team (Sweden), as Europe had 8,5 spots for that WC (not counting, W. Germany whom qualified as hosts, and Brazil whom qualified by being the former WC champion).
Huh, interesting that you like that part. That is probably my only critique of the Elo ratings tbh, that they include a lot of games that very no relevance to the current strength of a national squad. Of course historical strength isn't a bad predictor of future strength in football so it doesn't completely screw the system but still.