The European teams (Countries and Clubs) have dominated the last 6 years in CWC and the World Cup, and though I agree with you that the other continents have improved, and that Europe as a whole isn't 'much better'.....they are still better, as proved by results.
The bolded part: I completely agree, I see many here rate the Netherlands of the 70s above the respective teams that beat them: Germany and Argentina. Same with Brazil over Italy for WC82, I find it absurd to see the losing team be placed higher than the WC winner, makes it seem like the tournament itself does not matter.
You got Super Clubs in Europe, made up with players from South America and Africa and the best local players (because of labor laws they have to be in there). That explains your CWC.. money explains these results. Then you got the first time since Brazil defended a WC that UEFA was able to defend it's WC title. in a tournament where it takes 8 years for it to be defended, I don't think it's a good indicative of dominance. 8 years ago S. American teams won CWC back to back. Lots of things change quickly.
As europe continues to crash economically, you'll see less and less players leaving S.America to go into Europe. They are either staying home or taking their football to Asia. People in Europe get confused thinking their football traditions actually matter on the heads of S.American players. I would say 90% S.American players would trade a champion's league for a Libertadores win. Here is what your tradition means to S.Americans.. Playing in La Bombonera or El Monumental, means more to 90% of the Argentinean players than playing in Wembley or Camp Nou. Playing in Palmeiras x Corinthians, Fla x Flu or Fla x Vasco, means more to brazilian players than Man U x Man City, AC Milan x Inter Milan, Real x Barca. And between getting 3 million euros a year in europe or 5 million euros a year in saudi arabia or China, they'll take the saudis or Chinese over Europe. The only league that could take over as top league in the world is the MLS if they went the same route as the MLB or NHL. But because the MLS is a league made for profit they protect the league, by not letting a team be so much better than another, which would create disparity between teams and cause Super teams to make money while bad teams lose money to try and keep up.
Let's chat again in 20 years and see if any of that panned out. What's that joke, Brasil is the country of the future and always will be? Not trying to diss you here, but the future is very hard to predict even if the present indicates good trends. I do expect more players to go to the Middle East and Asia. But in order for a league to be strong, you can't just have good imports. It has to be coupled with a solid base of local players. I don't see that in China or the Middle East, at least not in the near future.
It doesn't seem like much, but it's still significantly higher than the grand total of zero Latin American clubs that matter to European fans and players.
I don't think I argued any different. So here ^ you are saying that European clubs are better because they have more money and better players. Yet I responded to you saying this: "Again, this is becoming a revolving topic on most forums, how european leagues and players are so much better than all others, yet you can see team from all over the world being as competitive as the European nations" So what is it? Are the European teams better because of money....or are teams from across the globe as competitive? If you are talking specifically about national teams then you a) should make that clearer in your posts, and b) explain why only 1 team not from Europe has got to a semi in the last 2 World Cups. ..and just to stress the point made in my previous post, I don't believe Europe as a continent to be much better than all others, it is getting closer, but as it stands they are better.
Europe has more teams participating, hence more chances of being in the semis. 2002 Korea - Germany - Brazil - Turkey 2006 France - Germany - Italy - Portugal 2010 Uruguay - Germany - Spain - Netherlands As you can see, only 1 team has been able to reach the semi's 3 times in a row (have not won a WC since 1990) a lot of the teams that made it into the semi's didn't even make it into the quarterfinals the following cup. That's just a plain numbers advantage. And I'm just saying the lead Europe has now was due to the economical advantage they had over the other countries, but that has been diminishing and the gap between leagues is closing again. It's always up and down.
Read Soccernomics, the future is not at all hard to predict, most NT follow trends that it's very well explained on the book. There is only 1 exception Brazil. Plus the solid base of local players in Japan has grown since the 1990s to the point that they are no longer a push over. I'm could guess that if China keeps it's economy strong, and keeps the influx of players coming in, they will not be a push over in about 20 years of less. The US, also pushovers that grew into not being pushover anymore. Also, if you have an influx of 50% of your players from outside, it increases their quality to match the incoming players. Since you'll raise the competitive balance of your local league, and you'll expose young talent to a more competitive field. If they can make it, they deserve to be there, instead of having push over teams all the time.
Olympics was the only international tournament before 1930. So it was like the World Cup until that point. After that professional players were not allowed in any Olympic sport until 1984 and even then FIFA had to compromise with IOC to still use amateur players because they feared that the Olympics might upstage World Cup. The U-23 rule was started in 1992.
But Europeans are very self centered, they have always been that way, and they have always had a hard time dealing with losses to teams outside of Europe. That's why they have always downplayed any competition that includes teams from outside Europe and over play competitions that are played inside Europe. Look, if you want to downplay the Intercontinental Cup or CWC that's fine, but right now Europe is 1 up on S.America, only 1! that's after winning them all since 2007. And ask the players in the field if they were not trying hard during those games... see if they agree with the downplay.
If you think about it the Confed Cup is hard to win because the only way to enter it is to be WC winner, Confed champion or the host. A team like England, Russia, or Portugal would find it hard to win because they would have to win Euro or WC to enter it. At least Russia will enter it in 2017.
They do matter to the European clubs that go trolling for talent to SA sides, particularly from Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay. In fact, River Plate, Boca Juniors, Sao Paolo, Flamengo, Penarol have all great following in the Latin Euro countries.
i don't get this. when south americans try to diss on the quality of European leagues, they point out the fact that the best teams are almost always driven by non-European players. how is that being self-centered? Spaniards treat Messi and CRonaldo like gods, and let's not even begin to count the number of non-Europeans in other leagues. That's self-centered for you? methinks that's double talk, labeling it as "self-centered" only when convenient.
I don't have an issue with the big Super Teams, they deserve the credit they get. But anything past 2 maybe 3 teams out of each league is crap. Tell me Barca and Real are great teams I would have to agree. Tell me that all the other teams on the Champions League are on the same lvl as those 2 it's laughable. That's when the self centered comes in. Europe has 2 super teams, but the other top teams in Europe are comparable to the top teams in S.America. And anything mid table in Europe = anything mid table in S.America. You guys can't seem to differentiate Barcelona from Arsenal, Inter Milan, AC Milan, Bayer Munich, Apoel, Porto, Man U etc etc etc.
The fact that there have been many different semi finalists from Europe shows strength in depth. Not just relying on 1 team {cough}Brazil{cough} to make your continent have a respectable showing every 4 years.
This is false, as having many more participants will always favor Europe. If one team fails, there is another that can take its place - some of the brackets are usually composed of three or four European sides. Next WC, the number of entries between the two confeds will be the closest since 1930, we will see what happens though I am positive the results won't be the same for the Europeans.
That doesn't excuse the fact that with the exception of Brazil, the South Americans have done poorly in the last 5 world cups. They are sending supposedly their best 5 teams every WC. I think if Europe sent only their best teams (5 from Germany, Italy, Netherlands, France, Spain, Portugal etc) you wouldn't find that only the same team was able to make a run to the latter stages in 20 years worth of world cups. That's why Europe has more depth, and deserving of the extra places.
The only thing is that if you look at the records of European teams against non-European teams in the knock out stages, the European teams tend to win. Since 1998 (expansion to 32 teams), There have been 29 matches between European and non-European teams. Europe has won 19 of them and of the 10 defeats, 6 came at the hands of Brazil (the others were Argentina, South Korea x2 and Senegal). At the last 2 tournaments, no non-European team has knocked out a European team after the group stages.
A side like Bayern deservedly beat Madrid last year. I agree though that there is a gulf between the great teams and good teams. However, where your argument gets very slippery is when you go on to say that non-great European teams are comparable to South American teams. What facts is that based on? None. And I am not even questioning that claim since it cannot be verified due to the fact that these teams do not face each other. The point is that you are acting just as "self-centric" as the European supposedly do because you make a bunch of claims that are not backed by fact but rather by your personal biases. I also do not understand why this alleged lack of appreciation from Europeans bothers you so much. You have your leagues, you enjoy them, you find the level to be good. So why go around the threads and keep pleading for people to respect you?
And to add to the above, the last time a European team lost a knock-out match to a non-European team other than Brazil in 90 minutes (ie without extra time or penalties) was the 1986 final.
There are a lot of countries that are no pushovers that do not have strong leagues. Sweden, Norway, Croatia, etc. are at least as good as the US. And our discussion isn't really about going from pushover to decent. The discussion about where the BEST teams are going to be. And while some Middle Eastern and Asian countries have better and better leagues, I don't see them joining the best category. There might be some super teams and super stars, but as a league with depths I don't see them competing with Europe and South America.
My original statement explained this sir =) The more teams you have from that Pot (euro) the more chances to reach the WC finals and semis.
Just looked at the numbers Since 1982 Europe has had 113 entered in World Cup competition South America has had 31 entries See where that large number can create more semifinals of European teams? if South America sent 1 semi-finalist per competition, it's a better ratio than Europe sending 3 per competition.