I said their overall WC record is dismal. In the history of the competition, they've qualified 5 times (including the last 3), and have finished 3rd, 4th, 11th, 17th, 21st.........that is a DISMAL record in the history of the World Cup. There is no dressing this up, they are no where near a top 10 team, going on either trophies or consistent performance.
I know what you said. That's why I specified that my comments were about when they made it through qualification. In any case, we must have different definitions of the word dismal. They are still rated 18 in the World in absolute WC points earned. Doesn't make them great or even good. But not dismal either. Though, for United fan dismal might mean not winning at least one title per year.
Regardless, they are nowhere near Uruguay. I understand the difficulty in deciding how much weight should be given to trophies versus how much to give for consistency and other factors, but when you haven't won anything and are lower on the WC all-time table (in terms of W-D-L record), then it's a no brainer as to which nation ranks higher.
I agree. But remember, this all didn't come up trying to compare Portugal to Uruguay, but Portugal (and a few others) to Chile/Colombia/Ecuador/Paraguay. Just got off track a little. My bad. On a side note, the consistency argument, in my opinion, can play a role when deciding between Uruguay and Argentina. Uruguay has more (or equal) titles, but Argentina has been much more consistent.
Even when Portugal does make it to the WC, they are wildly inconsistent, prior to WC2010 their performances were the most bipolar in WC history for a nation: two semifinals appearances and two first-round disasters. WC10 was not much better with a muted round of 16 exit.
Sorry, I'm not interested in an online stalker. Find some friends around your own area, it's a LOT easier.
I was just trying to confirm a theory. The probability of it being correct just increased with your evasive answer.
Suuurree....everyone knows your kind. Personal questions...followed by more personal questions, in an effort to get specific details. Next thing you know, facebook friend requests, dodgy packages\letters at the door, etc. Seriously dude, I'm not interested. Probably best if you quit repying to me, you're beginning to creep me out a bit.
Paranoid much? Don't worry, I won't come by and try to steal your burnt breakfast sausages. Just wanted to see if you are actually from Manchester or from some other English town with its own local team that unfortunately does not win enough titles to satisfy certain types of fans.
These are the National Teams that traditionally define the FIFA World Cup: Germany has reached to semifinals 12 times Brazil 10 times Italy 8 Uruguay 5 (1930-1950-1954-1970-2010) France 5 Argentina 4 Holland 4 Sweden 4 Spain 2 England 2 Hungary 2 Poland 2 Austria 2 Czechoslovakia 2 Yugoslavia 2 Portugal 2 (1966-2006) Chile 1 USA 1 Croatia 1 Turkey 1 Belgium 1 Bulgaria 1 South Korea 1 ...
There are only 75 SF appearances, is someone missing? Soviet Union 1966 I guess. Anyway. So using this table and removing the three "big guns" from CONMEBOL and UEFA each (19 vs 25 SF appearances), we see that the rest of UEFA is slightly better than the rest of CONMEBOL. UEFA - 15 different teams with 29 SF appearances vs. CONMEBOL - 1 different team with 1 SF appearance Or to have percentages: UEFA (without Germany, Italy and France) had 171 teams starting, so 29/171= 16,95% of them reached the SF CONMEBOL (without Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay) had 29 teams starting, so 1/29= 0,034% of them reached the SF
Ah, I hate that you can't edit your posts here... all , are . of course. One should note that out of all starters (393) only 76 could possibly reach the semifinals. So only 19.34% of all teams could reach the SF. And without the 6 "big guns", only 10.63% of the rest of the teams have reached a SF. So the rest of UEFA did quite well, considering nearly 17% of them reached a SF.
These are the National Teams that traditionally define the FIFA World Cup: Germany has reached to semifinals 12 times Brazil 10 times Italy 8 Uruguay 5 (1930-1950-1954-1970-2010) France 5 Argentina 4 Holland 4 Sweden 4 Spain 2 England 2 Hungary 2 Poland 2 Austria 2 Czechoslovakia 2 Yugoslavia 2 Portugal 2 (1966-2006) Chile 1 USSR 1 USA 1 Croatia 1 Turkey 1 Belgium 1 Bulgaria 1 South Korea 1 ...
I have a question in reference to some of the posts above: What constitutes "reaching the semi final [stage]" of a world cup? - Is it making it to the final, and counting the semi final victory as "reaching the semi final"? - Or, is it making it to the semi final of a world cup, but no further?
All teams which have at least reached the semi-finals in a World Cup are counted. Some tournaments actually didn't have a semi-finals stage, in this case being among the top 4 was the same as having reached (at least) the semi-finals. E.g. in 1950 Uruguay, Brazil, Spain and Sweden are all considered to have reached the semi-finals, because they finished in the top 4 (second group stage).
[Are you only talking about the accomplishments, records, international tournament showing, etc., of any given nation's NT? Or are you including the historical strength of their domestic league, track record in producing great club sides, all-time great players and managers, etc.? ]
[Are you only talking about the accomplishments, records, international tournament showing, etc., of any given nation's NT? Or are you including the historical strength of their domestic league, track record in producing great club sides, all-time great players and managers, etc.? ]
He's Italian, believe me very minimal thought went into that. Basically he went by number of world cup trophies to number of final appearances. Trust me, an Intellectual North American Italian is as rare as a rational theist. For what it's worth, here is my list (because current team is more important then what happened 80 years ago) 1. Spain 2. Germany 3. Netherlands 4. Brazil (currently not amazing, but such a deep player pool) 5. Argentina(same as above) 6. Italy 7. Uruguay(Deserve a lot of respect considering the population) 8. England(disappointing almost all the time, however they have good talent and always make it) 9. Portugal 10. Chile