How many World Cup groups have had three or four teams that reached the Round of 16 of the previous World Cup since the World Cup expanded to 32 teams? Is the 2014 group with USA, Germany, Ghana, and Portugal the first group to have four teams that reached the Round of 16 of the previous World Cup?
2014 - Group B: 3 teams (Spain, Chile, Holland) 2010 - Group D: 3 teams (Germany, Ghana, Australia) 2006 - Group B: 3 teams (England, Paraguay, Sweden) 2002 - Group F: 3 teams (England, Nigeria, Argentina) 2002 - Group G: 3 teams (Mexico, Italy, Croatia) 1998 - Group D: 3 teams (Nigeria, Spain, Paraguay) 1998 - Group E: 3 teams (Holland, Mexico, Belgium)
1990 Group E (Spain, Belgium, Uruguay) Note all 3 made it thru to round of 16 in that competition too. Although not the round of 16 but the 2nd round 1982 Group 1 (Italy, Poland, Peru) 1986 Group D (Brazil, Spain, Northern Ireland). And if Germany and Austria had not conspired with each other, all four would have made it with Algeria. 1958 Group 4 (Brazil, England, Austria)
Why not, WC groups that have both previous WC finalists in the same group : only Group B 2014 (Spain-Netherlands), First time ever.
I remember reading when the draw was made that the Germany-Ghana-Portugal-US group was the first time this had ever happened. If you judge this group by the WEAKEST team in it, it's possibly the toughest group I've even seen. (If you judge by the average, IMO, it drops down the list a bit.) If you go to the subforum's main page, there's a button that says "post new thread." You can click on that to, well, post a new thread.
No, this one is perfectly fine, considering that besides of having both finalists from the last tournament, it also has a 3rd team among those who ended at the second round or round of 16, of the previous tournament (the title of this thread considers 3 or 4 teams from the round of 16 of the previous tournament in a same group). It almost could have been 4 teams, if Ghana wouldn't have advanced over GD in regards to Australia. But they did.