Of course. There have been 9 formats used so far in WC history, but in none of them Switzerland has played more than 4 matches,
I still don't get the relevance you seem to assign to a "5th match". In 1950, Uruguay made the final four by playing one match. It doesn't change the fact they were in the final four, and the ultimate World Cup champion that year. Moreover, in 1938 Switzerland did the world a favor by defeating heavily-favored Nazi Germany, which had absorbed a very strong Austrian team as a result of the Anschluss. That is one of the great stories of a team reaching the quarter-finals, regardless of the number of matches they played in that World Cup.
Being a final 8 team seems more impressive when the final 8 are the top 25% of a tournament. If there are, by way of example, only 8 teams in a tournament, finishing 8th might not give that team much to cheer. Let me put it another way: the most painful football statistic for me is the fact that Iran has never advanced from the group stage to the R16. The fact that we finished 14th in the standings in WC78 and among the "final 16" (in a 16 team World Cup) is no real consolation.
So should we think less of every pre-1982 team whose World Cup journey ended at the quarter-final level? Moreover, the 1978 Iran analogy seems apples to oranges to me. Iran finished 3rd to last in 1978. How is that comparable to a quarter-final squad, one that finished at least 2nd in it's group, and in arguably more competitive groups stocked with higher-ranked teams (for that time) than we have in the 32 team era?
My point was placement is relative to the number of teams competing. Finishing 14th in a 16-team tournament is poor, while 14th in the current 32 team format would be fine (upper 50th percentile). Finishing last 8 can be a top 25% run; a top 50% run, or some other depending on how many teams are competing. Even when a competition is legitimately more exclusive, finishing top 16 (e.g. 14th) is not something to cheer in a 16-team tournament, the same way finishing top 8 might be a more notable achievement in a 32 team field than a much smaller one.
The best performance put together by all AFC sides beside the host. Combined 7 victories. Now the world will take us more seriously than ever. Meanwhile we also saw our limitation. Our lack of depth didn't allow us to get past 1st round of the Knockout phase.
Here's the thing, runs by non UEFA/COMMEBOL teams are very rare and generally have a bit of luck involved with the draw. Costa Rica beat a Greece team on penalties, Ghana beat the USA, Senegal beat Turkey, South Korea's run we all know about but was done as host. Cameroon beat Colombia way back in 90. This is the first time since that South Korea run that an outsider actually beat a top tier team to get to the Quarters.
Actually, got past a top team, they did not beat Spain. Still full credit to Morocco, they are getting it done. Also, Senegal lost to Turkey in the QF after defeating Sweden in R16. I would say that Costa Rica earned playing Greece by winning their group over Italy, England, and Uruguay. Certainly, no luck for them in the group stage.
true but group stage upsets happen all the time for one reason or another. knock out upsets are incredibly rare. A traditional power (team that's won the World Cup), has lost to an outside confederation team only once. Italy to host South Korea in a game that had issues itself. The others were shootout losses.
To say Canada was woeful is a disservice to the teams in their group. Not to mention they should have beaten Belgium if not for woeful finishing and 2 clear penalties not called. I dont see any Asian or other concacaf sides comming out of that group. (Maybe Japan or USA but probably not) Keep in mind Canada just beat Japan in a friendly with both teams missing key players. I do agree concacaf is the weakest though because they have about 3 tier 2 teams (USA, Mexico, Canada) to Asia's 5 to CAFs 8 or 9.
Concacaf generally has 3 tier 2 teams.... the 3rd just rotates. It is usually Costa Rica but may be Canada for a bit. Costa Rica will be back. Concacaf could get a lot better if Jamaica or Haiti could just get it together as a federation. There just has to be enough dual nationals in France to make Haiti viable in Concacaf. I am not saying qualify but they should be a regular hex/ocho team.
I was actually hoping Jamaica could qualify this year, but I think if they continue to pick up duals and have a stable federation they could become a decent team. There really is no excuse for them to not qualify for 2026.
They were also missing Johnston and their best midfielder Eustaquio didn't play either. I love when insider's post on these forums though, not often do we get the privilege to speak to someone that has first hand knowledge about what was discussed before the match and what the instructions were. Not sure how you found out Canada was taking it serious and Japan was not, but I doubt you would just be speaking out of your ass, would you?
He did start, my mistake. Not sure why that all the sudden means Canada was putting max effort and Japan was treating it like a day at the beach. Is it your opinion that because Canada used a team closer to the starting 11 that automatically means they wanted the win more and take the risk of injuries over a team in which many players would have been fighting for a spot on the team. I think starting a closer to regular lineup is a big reason Canada won, but that's very different than caring vs not caring.
Canada was not woeful, they definitely had a tough group, but that also doesn't change the fact that Canada were poorly coached and not a result oriented team. Don't forget Saudi played beautiful football against Russia in 2018 but lost 5-0, extremely better than they did in their 2-1 win against Argentina. Possession and play doesn't mean anything if you can't score and if you give up too many goals, and this inexperienced poorly coached Canadian side was not a result oriented team. Mexico is at an all time low, and rest of Concacaf is weak, even at times Costa Rica and even Panama and T & T are decent but this cycle they were poor, USA was the only decent Concacaf team that Canada outplayed, but even that was just 2 games, small sample size to conclude much. Overall Canada impressed in the qualifiers but WC is a different beast and Canada got exposed. Canada would have been unlikely to have gotten out of any group this world cup.
I disagree. They would very likely have advanced in Argentinas group and Frances group, as bottom seeds. Would likely have advanced from England's group of they replaced the US.
USA had to hold on for their lives against Iran to qualify, Canada was weaker than USA, how would they have done that? Also, Canada may have very well lost against this poor Wales even if they outplayed Wales. So on what basis are you saying this? Random assumptions?
Man, CRC 2014 can't get any respect: top of group D, where ENG and ITA were eliminated. Reminds of how CRO 2022 was disrespected all this time.
What disrespect? they played out of their minds and won group games against stud teams. But that happens every world cup other than 2006. We have had not 4 straight cups with big teams getting upset quite regularly. The difference is before Morocco this year, none of them were able to repeat that against a team that has a world cup win in the knock out stages.
My thoughts on the performance of AFC Teams, ranking them in order of overall performance (all in MHO of course) 1. Japan. The best performed team from the region. Drawn in a very difficult group with two highly fancied European teams and beat both of them and won the group. The only slip up they had was against Costa Rica. Lost on penalties to Croatia. Qualified for the r16 in consecutive cups for the first time. 2. Australia. Got hammered in the first game against a red hot France but showed good spirit to come back and defeat Tunisia and Denmark to grab second spot. A Messi led Argentina proved too good for them in the R16 but they fought hard to the end. This is the AFC team that exceeded everyone's expectations (even mine) but their own. 3. South Korea. They got 3rd for making the round of 16.Started with a fairly boring draw with Uruguay, lost a more entertaining game to Ghana and defeated an already qualified Portugal with a late goal to give them a chance of qualifying. Got outclassed by an on form Brazil in the knockouts. Probably the most gripping part of their campaign was the 8 minute wait after the Portugal game to see if Uruguay could get another goal. 4. Saudi Arabia. The victory over Argentina gives them 4th spot narrowly. A great start to the tournament but they didn't reach those heights again in their next two matches. 5. Iran. I thought they would do better but suffered a heavy defeat to an England side that took just about all their decent chances. Came back form that and played well against Wales ending up deserved winners in that game. Put up a decent fight against the USA but ultimately came up just short. 6, Qatar. Not sure where the 2019 Qatar team went but this side showed nowhere near the ability that the 2019 Asian Cup winning side showed.
Iran had a very uncharacteristic World Cup with a very characteristic ending. This was also the first World Cup ever that saw Iran, despite picking up 3 points, finish bottom of the pack among the 5 AFC teams that qualified to the tournament. In fact, World Cup 2006 was previously the only World Cup in which Iran participated where any Asian team (S. Korea) had earned more points than Iran. Even in WC18 where Japan advanced, it did so with the same number of points (4) and GD (0) as Iran. Overall, though, despite the 6:2 thrashing in the opener, I don't think Iran had a terribly bad tournament, especially under the (politicized) circumstances faced by Iran. It just so happens that the other AFC teams (not counting Qatar) did better and took out higher profile scalps than Iran beating Wales. But I should also mention this as well: Iran's win over Wales in a match where it had twice the SOG (6-3) and more than twice the attempts (21 shots for Iran compared to 10 for Wales) was in context different than some of the upset results against top tier teams by the AFC in this tournament. It was basically a clear confirmation that all things being equal in terms of motivation to win, a top tier AFC side can not just defeat but even outplay a lower 2nd tier UEFA side.
Qatar are a mystery to me. In 2019 they were easily the best side at the Asian Cup, and they won the cup by directly beating most of Asia's top teams so at that moment in time they were undisputedly Asia's top team. Their performance at the Copa America I will say was a mixed bag, though still much better than what was to later come. Then they just got horrible. Now teams go through spells, loss of form etc. But I don't think I've seen such a dip in form before. It wasn't just that they were losing, but always losing by wide margins. Their form seemed to slightly improve before the World cup, and they didn't get necessarily thrashed by any of their WC opponents. I certainly could have imagined worse scorelines, especially against the Dutch. Truth is despite their disappointment they did have a relatively tough draw, getting pretty much the at least the top 3 teams in each pot. It will be interesting to see how they rebound in the upcoming Asian Cup which they host. I suspect they will do pretty well, though probably not win.