I wasn't blaming the UEFA Nations League for anything. I simply said it hasn't made the UEFA teams better than usual, as some people had hypothesized.
The last part I can agree with you, never believed that somehow UEFA teams would play better because of it, it was useful for some nations, England and Germany just used it for warmup, France more or less, Spain, Netherlands and Portugal take it more seriously I guess. There's one point about what you said regarding the overall quality in Europe where I might agree with you. Historically Eastern European Football was much better than it is today, some might not like it but the truth is the fall of the Soviet Union has some relation with the fall of quality regarding the quality of players produced, clubs, etc. This days on the former Yugoslavia the only 2 countries who still produce quality is Serbia and Croatia, you look at the old Czechoslovakia or former USSR, even countries like Romania or Bulgaria and the overall quality is lower, even Poland I have my reservations if in the future they will improve or not. Western Europe and even Scandinavia they are ok to compete with the rest of the World.
Romania sometimes they qualify to UEFA under 21's Euros, but it's evident the decline of quality clubs they had like Steaua, Rapid, Dinamo influenced that. Bulgaria is so dramatic that I suspect this days Luxembourg and Qatar are better than them, I am not joking. Even from the former USSR Russia never was that great, Ukraine was improving on the recent years winning a under 20 WC in 2019 but with this shit of the war basically this will send them 10 years behind. If we look with more detail to things, countries like Austria in the late 70´s beginning of the 80's had strong NT's with players like Prohaska, Krankl, Koncilia, etc. So overall, the sample size of quality in Europe has been reduced to Western Europe, sometimes some Scandinavian countries, UK, Croatia, Serbia and maybe Poland, can't see in the future Central and Eastern Europe catching up with the rest.
All good. I give lots of credit to the coaching staff, the whole squad and everyone involved. They've performed way above expectations, first by getting past UAE and Peru in the playoffs, and then by beating Tunisia and Denmark and making the knockout rounds. Most knowledgeable pundits had this team in the bottom 4 of teams participating and to be honest I couldn't raise an argument to say otherwise. Maybe I can now.
I think the opposite! WCs outside Europe have always been more difficult for UEFA teams, we have 90+ years of history to prove it. Also the presence of Italy and Portugal in the UEFA playoffs does not support that argument.
BTW This World Cup will result in massive points pickup within World Cup cycle for CAF, so they will be much higher in rankings for the next four years.
Croatia Serbia and Bosnia will all play the next Nations League League A with 4-5 million people countries and économies way weaker than western and northern european countries. What more should they do? Croatia won 2 medals in 5 World cups played. Split is the city with most olympic medals per capita in the world. We have sports in our dna. Croatia and Serbia will always produce quality players...Bosnia and Hercegovina being divided by Serbs Croats and Bosniaks is in a more complicated situation as thé best Serbs and Croats don't play for them. Slovenia is a 2 million people country. And still they also have several athletes at the highest level.
FUN FACT (just found out): With three games to be played in the group phase this is already Africa's best group phase in history with 18 pts (previous record were 15 pts in 1998 and 2002). Of course hard to compare with 1994 and earlier era. Arguably 1982 was as good with 2 wins, 1 loss and 3 draws, so 9 out of 18 points in 2022 rules (as compared to 2022 with 18 out of 36).
Yes and looks like we will have 2 CAF teams making the knockout stages for the first time. Unless Morocco somehow really blow it. Could be 3 with Ghana as well...
Not the first time. 2014 Nigeria and Algeria. 3 from 5 will be first time if Ghana Can keep Uruguay behind them. Morocco will qualify.
Our quality is not lower...that is putting it middy. We regressed immensely For our national team and clubs we were worst case scenario at least equal to the Nordic countries for example. Teams that we used to utter destroy we are happy when we beat them 1-0 Our past teams would have reached the world cup in AFC and CONCACAF easily now nah Anyways unless something shocking happens UEFA will have: Netherlands, England, Poland, France, Spain, Croatia*, Switzerland/Serbia and Portugal + plus Germany *if it not Croatia then Belgium I expected 10 teams before all of this with Belgium and Denmark advancing and Poland getting 3rd You need to understand some people here have different set of rules for UEFA. And the measure of success always changes For example with 9/13 UEFA teams in the R16 is a good number. In 2006 UEFA had 10 teams in R16. And all UEFA games sometimes do more harm than good overall While Denmark was wank this WC the fact that France gave their best vs them while rested players vs Tunisia has a direct impact. But apparently CAF with 2/5 is a good result showing a upwards trajectory. Also Argentina and Brazil holding the banner for CONMEBOL great result also for the confederation
the 3 Ecuador games were #1, #2, and #3 in least total ball progression among all games so far. Seriously struggle heavy. Poland have been absolutely awful, dominated everywhere around the pitch (almost 2.5 times the progression against than for, same for shots and danger zone touches) by all 3 teams they played really. Can't wait til they get a 0-0 win on pens vs France. https://saturdays.substack.com/p/round-3-part-1-data-recap statty look at the World Cup, been doing a lot of it.
Yeah when it comes to UEFA or anything in life that people really want to believe, we have a uncanny way as humans to twist things until in fits our narrative. Poland and Wales were always the worst from UEFA, so really only Denmark imploded and that could be down to reason's we just don't know, or many of us, myself included, overrated them. Even the Netherlands have basically just continued the style of play that has generally worked for them for sometime now.
Are we sure about that? In both the 2010 and 2014 World Cup, 7 UEFA teams crashed out in the group stage (more than half). Only 4 in the last WC (UEFA-hosted). This year, at least 4 will crash out plus whatever happens in the Spain/Germany group. Its still early, but seems like we are heading towards one of the best UEFA world cups ever that wasn't hosted by a UEFA nation.
Against whom? All the other federations were finishing up their qualifiers during the March window, and UEFA had 12 teams in the playoffs.
Yes, because of the pandemic. Ordinarily, UEFA teams would play a couple of friendlies in March of even years and before the competition, which was not possible this time because of the tight schedule.
Net ELO rating points after the CAN-MOR and CRO-BEL matches: CAF +286 CONCACAF +1 CONMEBOL -36 AFC -83 UEFA -168 FIFA nets points changes should be similar: Africa teams are ranked slightly better pre-tournament, so won't get quite the pickup; but, still substantial. Other than the African teams over-performing according to ELO, I think these results indicate things have mostly gone (in total) about as expected. Take Qatar's poor results out, and AFC performed about as expected. UEFA is slightly worse; but, that was probably to be expected based on past results of World Cups outside of Europe (and it could be argued they've done better than other similar tournaments).
This matters massively in between the cycle, as federations mostly play between each other. This means that within the next four years CAF teams will be higher ranked.
Elo rankings matter for nothing, which is good because they are horrible. FIFA rankings aren't great either. Morocco and Senegal will be ranked well. Ghana unfortunately are so low in the rankings and FIFA rankings are so slow to react, that Ghana will still be quite low even with a successful world cup (getting to at least the 2md round)