It's not less impressive. The knockout stages are a whole seperate thing. Mexico does struggle in the round of 16 that's no secret but getting out of the group, 6 straight times is extremely hard. So much so that only Brazil and Germany can say the same
Mexico's group was exactly what a balanced World Cup group should look like -- probably what all of the groups should look like.
94 group was super easy...3 teams could get out I don't feel like any of those groups were "super" groups but 2010 should have been the hardest
I thought 02 was really hard. We had 2 really good European countries and a solid South American country.
I wonder if it's more a result of overestimating the Croatians than underestimating the Mexicans. Croatia is still remembered as the surprise semifinalist of 1998. The reputation tends to stick for a while even after all the players involved have retired.
It wasn't an abberation, the only squads that did well were a handful of the traditional powers and a surprise team: Excellent: Germany Netherlands Spain Solid: Slovakia Sub-Par: England-beat noone that mattered Slovenia-beat Algeria, lead US 2-0 at halftime on matchday 2, then imploded. Portugal-beat nobody, relied on Brazil not giving a ---- and GD thanks to North Korea to advance. Then got skunked. Horrible: France-imploded Greece-sucked Serbia-weren't bad, but self-destructed Denmark---- the bed with everything in their hands to advance. Italy-maybe worst performance in my lifetime. Switzerland-Started tourney by beating Spain, ended it by tying weakest side in the entire tournament. Europe was horrible in South Africa, but the fact that the Netherlands and Spain had very good tournaments, and Germany was good camouflaged it. The fact that 7 of 13 crashed out in group play, and 2 teams that advanced, and then got beat, beat noone who mattered indicted their fed when it came to everything below the cream. This time through it looks like 7-8 will make it to the knockouts, and part of the reason would be that the Swiss were gifted a seed and the weakest group, and Russia landed in the other group of life (although I still think my pick, Algeria, knocks them out). Croatia, Spain, Greece, England, possibly Italy, Bosnia, Portugal, and possibly Russia will all crash out in the group stage, and as everyone knows, if the Swiss had been switched out with any other European team out of the unseeded Euro pot other than France, they would be going home too.
And that's why the World Cup > The Olympic Games. About the same number of people may watch both, but the degree of passion in the former is 100 times that of the latter.
I reserve the right to be wrong, but this looks to me like another in a long line of terrible knockout round match ups for Mexico. Cup after Cup they make it out, but Cup after Cup they never get lucky like say, France, or Costa Rica, or Ivory Coast are getting this time around, and land a team in the knockouts who ended up there via an upset (last cup those sides were Japan, South Korea, Chile, Paraguay, Slovakia and England all represented sides Mexico would have beaten, instead they landed their arch nemesis, Argentina, that had knocked them out of the Confed Cup '05 in extra time, and the WC in '06 in extra time, and Copa America in '07 in recent years), instead they've gotten semi-finalist Bulgaria in '94 (lost on PKs), tall as hell Germany in '98 (and nearly beat them), USA in '02, and of course Argentina in the knockouts of four major tournaments between 2005 and 2010. I just think the Dutch will beat them. They've got the technical skills just like Mexico, well, except for that hack Lens, maybe he's been better before, but he's looked awful in this cup, and they have the size that can cause Mexico problems. I think the Dutch win it, 2-1, or 3-1 or 3-2. Should have some goals as the Dutch defense isn't great and relies on fouls too often.
I think Croatia's current crop of star players is a better explanation. Modric, Mandzukic, Rakitic, these are some of the top players in Europe. It's easy to say a team with those players will advance over a Mexican team with few recognizable stars in Europe.
Where are they showing that one? I still have only seen the one where they turn the TV over to charts!
Okay, who else can point to having Mexico in their bracket . I thought that GD issue against Cameroon could definitely end up screwing them though, especially after Croatia played so well against Brazil.
you landed the worst team out of the CAF/Conmebol pot, and one of the worst teams out of the unseeded Euro pot (only Greece was worse for sure, possibly Bosnia and Russia). Not the group of life, that belongs to Honduras, but your group was the next worst after theirs, F, or H Group Difficulty: 1. G 2. B 3. D 4. C 5, 6, 7: A, H, and F in no particular order 8. E
I support them because their in our fed, and I teach a great many first generation mexican-americans, and I want them to have a wonderful experience watching the world cup. I just wish more of their adult fans were likable . I'll add I feel this is clearly the best Mexican World Cup performance I've ever seen, I was too young to appreciate what was happening in 1986, and in 2002, it was a bit short circuited by their self-destructive round of 16 loss after getting out of what was thought to be the second tier group of death that cycle. They beat Cameroon 3-0, they played Brazil even up, and they should have beaten Croatia 4-1 today. That's an outstanding group phase. It's just too bad they never seem to get a break with their knockout round pairing, maybe that's karma though, for getting three straight great draws, while we've had horrific draws in three of our past 4 world cups.
Gotta disagree with the order here. I think H and F are very clearly weaker than A. I also think there's an argument for C being weaker than A. Cameroon blows, no doubt, but A is a "middle of the road" group down to the simple fact that they don't have any AFC teams.
I can almost guarantee that the reason Chicharito wanted to point out how CONCACAF teams are doing is because, playing at Man Utd, he has to put up with a lot of dumb jokes from his team-mates about how easy it is to qualify from this region. And I'm sure he gets tired of it. I hear that kind of thing frequently in Italy from people who don't know anything about the region or what WC qualification is like in it.
I will never un I will never understand the need to strike out at great Accomplishments with snide statements like this. Mexico's 6peat is amazing and takes nothing away from whatever nation you cheer for.
And as I said earlier, they were cheated out of R16 with Chile, who is a better match-up for sheer lack of height.