So far it doesn't seem to be as great as some people assume it to be. Hopefully, the early trend will continue in our matches with the Czechs and Italians. Interestingly, the results from the past two world cups seem to indicate some (modest) advantage for European teams when playing in Europe. Here's the record of European teams against non-European teams in the first round of the last two World Cups. 2002: 12 wins, 7 losses, 8 ties 1998: 11 wins, 4 losses, 11 ties Note that these results exclude matches involving the actual home countries (France in 1998, Japan and Korea in 2002) since I was interested in home continent as opposed to home country effects.
Re: Ye Old Home Continent Advantage For comparability, we shouldn't count Germany's results in this WC.
Re: Ye Old Home Continent Advantage So, it's 1-1-1 in that case. Considering tickets are allocated around the world and some Germans may not support France, The Netherlands, etc., it's not entirely clear there's always a huge advantage for Euro teams. Additionally, the undergo factor comes into play. By the end of the T&T-Sweden game, many fans were rooting for the Soca Warriors as much as neutral March Madness fans root for a Richmond upset of Syracuse, Bucknell defeating KU, or anyone beating the Dukies overly pampered, sometimes justifiably McD Allmerican relationship types.
Thanks for pointing that out. I included the results from Japan/Korea so we would have a comparator for the results from France 1998.
France 1998 is not France 2006. France performance are much worse.I don´t think they are big favorite in this cup. However watching game England-Paraguay, England also did not play so good as many of us expected. So anything is possible.
I was impressed by Trinidad. I never watched them to play life. But how they played against Sweden, big favorite. I started to root for Trinidad after this game. Wow, they played so great and they were so nice. I would be not surprised if England and Trinidad will advance in the group. I wish it would happen. Trinidad would deserve it. I can not wait for game England-Trinidad. I ´m a bit disappointed from England. They are suppposed big favorite for the world cup titel, however they did not show any strengths in the game against Paparuay. Holland scored only 1 goals today against Serbien. It was also not the best game. The best game was for me Germany-Costa Rica with 6 goals, 4 from our German team. Excellent goals. And next best game was Sweden-Trinidad. I actually don´t like games with 0:0, but this one with Trinidad was so interesting and exciting. Trinidad great team. For group USA I´m expecting also big surprises. We should not underestimate Ghana. I think USA will advance and one of the big favorite Italy or Czechs will go home - one of them. After game Italy and Czech we will know more who of these teams play better. But I think USA will advance the group. Germany - not big favorite, but 4 goals!. I think we can win the world cup despite our not perfect defence. If we get some goals, we will make twice so much with our good forward. Miroslav Klose and Lukas Podolski will make it. I think Klose can be the best striker of the cup. P.S TOR, TOR.......Aus, Aus...Das Spiel ist aus....DEUTSCHLAND IST WELTMEISTER!!! bltleo Wir sind Weltmeister
Re: Ye Old Home Continent Advantage I've got European teams with 44 points from 26 matches playing in Europe and 44 points in 27 matches playing in Asia. And winning percentages of .635 in France and .593 in Japan/Korea. Hard to see much difference.