Yes, sir all of Portugal, France and Spain are better. In the last couple of days I analysed everything and I include now also the Netherlands. The list you cite here wasn't in a particular order. So, there is nothing to say really here.
I'm done watching the replays. Here now my personal grade list with scores Elite__________________100 1. Brazil 2. Portugal 3. Netherlands 4. France Extremely good________95 5. Spain Quite good_____________90 6. Argentina 7. England 8. Croatia 9. Denmark Good__________________85 10. Belgium 11. Germany Dangerous_____________80 12. Switzerland 13. Serbia 14. Japan 15. Senegal Solid___________________75 16. Morocco 17. Uruguay 18. Iran Half-decent_____________70 19. USA 20. Canada 21. Wales 22. Poland Bad_____________________65 23. Ecuador 24. Ghana 25. Tunisia 26. Saudi Arabia 27. Mexico Very bad________________60 28. South Korea 29. Costa Rica Awful___________________55 30. Qatar 31. Australia Utter garbage___________50 32. Cameroon
I like the titles for your categories (even if I might quibble with you on which teams should be placed in them) up to and including the "Solid" title. A better title for the rest would be "Decent" (70-75), "Subpar" (65-70), and "Poor" (60-65). Any team which has managed to qualify deserves at least a D- (60). And your selection for the teams in some of these lower categories is IMO questionable.
Let's break it down and see how our rankings differ: Big disagreements: (in bracket how I rated that team compared to you) - Uruguay (5 places worse) - Mexico (4 places worse) - Ghana (4 places better) - South Korea (4 places worse) - Argentina (3 places worse) - Ecuador (3 places better) - Germany (3 places worse) - England (4 places better) - USA (3 places better) Minor disagreements: - France (2 places worse) - Portugal (2 places better) - Netherlands (2 places better) - Switzerland (2 places better) - Japan (2 places better) - Poland (2 places worse) (Basically) in agreement: - Brazil (same rank) - Spain (1 place better) - Croatia (1 place worse) - Denmark (same rank) - Belgium ( same rank) - Serbia (same rank) - Senegal (same rank) - Morocco (1 place better) - Iran (same rank) - Canada (1 place worse) - Wales (same rank) - Tunisia (same rank) - Saudi Arabia (1 place better) - Costa Rica (same rank) - Australia (1 place worse) - Qatar (1 place better) - Cameroon (same rank)
In terms of where these teams should be placed, my strongest disagreement relates to South Korea, Ecuador and (maybe) Ghana. S. Korea have issues but they have strengths that can test even Brazil's defense, as they showed even in their 5:1 loss to Brazil. Ecuador are decent but not anything more or less. Ghana looked how they rank by Elo/Fifa in the first half against Brazil. I didn't watch the 2nd half, but I wouldn't read too much into it necessarily even if I did. Leading 3:0 at halftime, its natural for Brazil to have taken its foot off the pedal.
I agree. my wording on these categories is harsh. First I wanted to make it your way with letters but then I noticed I struggle with that method. Cameroon would have been a D+ for me. If I give them "utter trash-55" that is meant to be "D+". You didn't watch their loss to Uzbekistan in its entirety. It was a disgrace for a team that is a World Cup participant.
I don't appreciate teams that are very unbalanced. Looking at my placements you'll notice that teams who regularly concede goals or even many goals tend to be ranked not very high in my list. Lower than maybe expected. You can count to that Germany, Belgium and especially South Korea who conceed to every half-decent side they play. Same also with teams who struggle mightly to score but have good defense. Look, Ecuador in their 0-0 draw against Saudi Arabia were the better side. They only lacked finishing. And they played Japan (also 0-0 result) as equals and had chances to win that game as well. I personally don't even rate Ecuador highly in the context of Group A. I have them technically ahead of Qatar in my list but I'm predicting since a long time that they'll finish last in that group. My grade list shouldn't be interpretated as predictions. Predictions should be made based on every single match up. But my list definately shows a tendency where things might be headed. Regarding Ghana. They are wild card. I wasn't completely sure either how to rank them. They played with their new additions only against Brazil. Nicaragua we can discard as it's just a too weak of an opponent to draw any proper conclusions from. But just looking at the names I would say Ghana enters the World Cup with a stronger and more a balanced squad than South Korea. That's why I feel they should be ranked ahead of them. We will see whether that translates also to the performances on the pitch.
I was for long time very cautious on the Netherlands. The last international break convinced me. And that's why they've made now a big jump in my evaluation. I wanted to see whether they can beat Belgium again and I wanted to see finally two clean sheets. They fulfilled my expectations and beat Belgium without even having to play their best. And they did that without some key players like De Jong and Depay. If a team wins without having to play their best that is very often a good sign. We saw also the same with Brazil who beat all these sides in their friendlies without ever coming out of second gear.
So, here again my grade list this time I called some categories differently. Elite__________________100 1. Brazil 2. Portugal 3. Netherlands 4. France Extremely good________95 5. Spain Quite good_____________90 6. Argentina 7. England 8. Croatia 9. Denmark Good__________________85 10. Belgium 11. Germany Dangerous_____________80 12. Switzerland 13. Serbia 14. Japan 15. Senegal Solid___________________75 16. Morocco 17. Uruguay 18. Iran Half-decent_____________70 19. USA 20. Canada 21. Wales 22. Poland Subpar__________________65 23. Ecuador 24. Ghana 25. Tunisia 26. Saudi Arabia 27. Mexico Poor____________________60 28. South Korea 29. Costa Rica Awful___________________55 30. Qatar 31. Australia Crap____________________50 32. Cameroon
Not for me after they had two clean sheets in September and beat Belgium without De Jong and Depay and shut down Belgium's offense for the most part.
You an your Asian bias. So Brazil took their foot off the pedal against Ghana ? What did they do against the same Korea you are hyping ? A Korea who played AT HOME, with all their top players, while Ghana was literally experimenting. The same Ghana thrashed Qatar 5-1 with a weakened squad, yet somehow you've found a way to rate Qatar above Cameroon. A Cameroon who drew against Japan and also did much better when they played Brazil than Korea did.
It's becoming really hard to take you seriously any more. You are basing an entire assessment of a team on ONE FRIENDLY. Since one friendly is more important than anything else, what about basing them on these results. Japan 0 Cameroon 0 Brazil 1 Cameroon 0 Considering they tied Japan and got the same result as Japan against Brazil (without home advantage) Cameroon cannot be worse than Japan. At least I'm basing this on 2 friendlies and not 1.
Holland right now have the best defense in the world. Playing in a 5-3-2 our backline would look something like this Dumfries/deVrij/vDijk/deLigt/Malacia or Blind. Can you name any country who has a better defense, and if so list them
You can assume a bias on my part but the proof of the pudding will be in the pie. I have predicted S. Korea to get 2 points in draws against Uruguay and Ghana and for Ghana to finish with the one point from their match against the Koreans. As for your question: the halftime score between S. Korea and Brazil was 2:1, not 3:0 as was the case against Ghana, so Brazil had no reason to take their foot off the pedal.. But, more to the point, my evaluation of S. Korea even before that friendly (from before the WC draw) was that they a side that can get thrashed by certain teams. In fact, I will repost my analysis of the Asian teams as it hasn't changed much since I posted it in April. https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/afc-wcq-round-3-group-a.2116127/page-7 ... "Right now, each and every one of the top teams in the AFC, are at least on par with the 4th and 5th finishers in Conmebol, any of the teams in Concacaf and any of the teams that will represent CAF in Qatar other than Senegal. Senegal is the only side from the so-called lesser confederations represented in Qatar that is a cut above the rest. The rest are an amalgam of strengths and weaknesses whose import and significance will depend on who they face, the tactics chosen, defensive and goalkeeping errors, and similarly difficult to forecast issues. On the negative side of the ledger: except for Japan, Iran, and to some extent Australia, I have doubts about the ability of Qatar, S. Korea, and Saudi Arabia to withstand any form of sustained pressure. The distribution abilities of S.Korea's team and their class upfront might make some teams in Qatar 2022 reluctant to press them too high but that won't be the case for pot 1 teams. There are many pot 1 and a few pot 2 sides who are liable to run up the score on not just Saudi Arabia and Qatar, but S.Korea as well. I wouldn't be surprised (depending on the draw) if S.Korea earned 4 points in its group but its one loss was by a 3-4 goal margin. For various reasons, I see the draw decisive for all the AFC teams except Iran and Japan. Iran's chances of advancing from its group, in the best circumstances 50%, will largely depend on what is going on in Iran. Japan. on the other hand, are almost equally likely to win or lose or draw a pot 2 team as they are to do so against most of the pot 4 sides. More than match ups, Japan's fate against most of these pot 2 and pot 4 sides depends on not falling behind but instead taking the lead. One final comment: the top AFC teams I alluded to as enjoying at least parity against Ecuador and Peru includes Australia but not the UAE. If it is the UAE that end up facing Peru in the IC playoff, AFC's chances of having 6 teams in Qatar drops vrom 50/50 to no more than 40%."
So Korea did better in ONE HALF but not the entire match, so they were the better side. Yeah sure. Brazil isn't the type of team to "take their foot off the pedal" if you know anything about football. They once beat Ghana 8-2, and their recent 5-1 thrashings of both Korea and Tunisia prove that point. Also if you saw the way their coach was celebrating like he was coked up after each goal in those recent matches, you will know there is no "letting your foot off the pedal" but I know you have to trot out these lame excuses to make your Asian teams look better than they are. Bottom line Korea got hammered 5-1 AT HOME. While Ghana lost on neutral territory 3-0 while experimenting, and once they brought on 3 of their new recruits in the 2nd half they shut Brazil out. You can spin all you like but I will tell you that Ghana is a better team than Korea, and Qatar is undoubtedly the worst team in this cup.
The best attack Brazil could field IMO will be: Junior-----------------------Jesus--------------------------Antony ------------------------------Neymar---------------------------------- That should scare the hell out of most countries
Well, France (in theory) because their wing backs are better. Still, in practice that hasn't showed to be true recently.
Gabriel Jesus was not even called by Tite in the last window. I presume he will make the final squad but I very much doubt he will get to start. I also doubt Brazil will play with 4 forwards against challenging opposition.
@vancity eagle I think you take differing opinions about African teams too personally. Maybe Ghana's new recruits will make them better than what I have seen. In fact, that is why my initial comment to @Kamtedrejt about Ghana had a (maybe) in parenthesis. But for now, I know Ghana were hammered 4:1 by Japan recently and in the first half I watched against Brazil, they looked out of their league. Besides, based on their overall results, Ghana are the lowest ranked team in the competition, ranked 60th by FIFA and 73rd by Elo. (But the CAF team that I have nonetheless rated the weakest is Cameroon, not Ghana. I consider Cameroon a strong favorite to go pointless in Qatar). The good news for CAF is that Senegal start as favorites (behind Holland) to advance from their group. In fact, I admit Senegal's chances to advance from its group (55%) are better than Iran's (50%). The problem is that all the rest of the CAF teams face an uphill battle. Morocco (in my rating the next best CAF team) faces 3 good teams, two which are a cut above them (Belgium and Croatia) and one (Canada) that will be quite competitive against them. By way of comparison, despite having 2 powerhouses in its group, I actually fancy Japan's chances in its group more than Morocco's. Tunisia's chances objectively speaking can't be that high either and not much better than Australia's despite me picking them to advance because it would seem weird if no North African side advanced in a World Cup hosted by Qatar (and considering the curse of the defending World Cup champions along with France's poor UNL results and internal issues).
Confirmed friendlies of wc teams to be played in the November: Saudi Arabia vs Iceland (Nov 6th) Cameroon vs Jamaica (Nov 9th) Mexico vs Iraq (Nov 9th) Costa Rica vs Nigeria (Nov 10th) Saudi Arabia vs Panama (Nov 10th) Ecuador vs Iraq (Nov 12th) Belgium vs Iraq (Nov 15th) Germany vs Oman (Nov 16th) Argentina vs UAE (Nov 16th) Poland vs Chile (Nov 16th) Mexico vs Sweden (Nov 16th) Saudi Arabia vs Croatia (Nov 16th) Switzerland vs Ghana (Nov 17th) Japan vs Canada (Nov 17th) Costa Rica vs Iraq (Nov 17th) Portugal vs Nigeria (Nov 17th) Spain vs Jordan (Nov 17th) Cameroon vs Panama (Nov 18th) Belgium vs Egypt (Nov 18th) Random notes: Iraq is facing 4 world cup teams in November All member of group C have friendlies scheduled on Nov 16th (6 days before their first game) To add up to the previous point, it seems the only teams that have pre wc friendlies scheduled from the upper groups (A-D), aka the ones that play on the first days, are all the group C members and Ecuador. Given the short amount of time between the release of the players and the start of the WC, it may have been a blessing in disguise to end up in the last group.
Recent performances and results (June and September window) make up more than two third of my evaluation. That result against Brazil from 2018 is pretty much unrelevant now. 4 years is a long time in football. Cameroon don't deserve to be ranked anything better than I put them. Mastering only a single shot on target against South Korea isn't much of an improvement either compared to the Uzbekistan game. I watched only the highlights of that game though. If you consider also the fashion in which they won bronze at home at the last AFCON then there is barely any positives to say about Cameroon.
My Updated rankings after the last window (based on my ranking formula with their points at the side, not necessarily what I personally believe) World Soccer Rankings October 2022 World Cup teams bolded 1. Brazil - 84 2. Argentina – 78 3. Belgium – 72 4. France -70 5. England – 69 6. Italy – 69 7. Spain - 67 8. Denmark – 66 9. Portugal - 64 10. Holland - 64 11. Germany – 59 12. Uruguay - 57 13. Colombia – 55 14. Hungary - 54 15. Croatia – 53 16. Serbia – 53 17. Switzerland - 53 18. Ecuador - 52 19. Algeria – 51 20. Norway – 50 21. Peru – 50 22. Poland - 48 23. Morocco – 47 24. USA - 47 25. Sweden - 47 26. Senegal - 46 27. Paraguay - 46 28. Japan – 44 29. Wales - 44 30. Czech R - 44 31. Canada – 43 32. Ivory Coast - 43 33. Iran - 43 34. Cameroon – 43 35. Scotland - 43 36. Mexico – 42 37. Ukraine - 41 38. Russia - 41 39. Egypt – 40 40. Tunisia - 40 41. Austria – 40 42. Nigeria – 39 43. S. Korea - 39 44. Chile – 39 45. Ireland R - 39 46. Finland – 39 47. Turkey - 38 48. Mali - 37 49. Greece – 37 50. Venezuela - 36 51. Slovenia - 36 52. Australia – 35 53. Burkina Faso - 35 54. Bolivia – 34 55. Costa Rica – 33 56. Georgia – 33 57. Ghana – 32 58. Saudi Arabia - 32 59. Bosnia & H – 32 60. South Africa - 31 61. Macedonia – 31 62. Panama – 30 63. R. Congo - 30 64. Gabon – 30 65. Romania - 30 66. E. Guinea - 30 67. Benin – 30 68. Slovakia - 29 69. Cape Verde – 29 70. N. Ireland - 28 71. Bulgaria - 28 72. Albania – 28 73. Zambia - 27 74. Gambia – 27 75. Qatar - 26 76. Kosovo - 26 77. Bahrain - 26 78. Angola – 26 79. Iceland – 26 80. Israel – 26 81. Kenya - 26 82. Guinea – 25 83. Montenegro - 25 84. Comoros – 25 85. Sierra Leone - 25 86. Madagascar – 25 87. Uzbekistan - 24 88. Jamaica - 24 89. Iraq – 24 90. Mozambique – 24 91. Uganda - 24 92. Jordan - 23 93. Haiti – 23 94. Zimbabwe - 23 95. Togo - 23 96. Ethiopia – 23 97. Luxembourg – 23 98. Namibia - 23 99. Honduras – 22 100. New Zealand - 22 A few observations on my rankings in regards to the World Cup teams. 1. Ecuador is overrated by my rankings and will likely do much worse than my rankings suggest. 2. I believe Ghana will do much better than my rankings suggest. 3. Qatar is easily the worst side according to my rankings, and I agree, though because they are the home team they will also likely do better than my rankings suggest. Other than those observations everything else is no more than a minor quible.