Before I tell you who is Definitively stonger, let's read this sentence...because the Germans need guidance and badly. Look at the team jerseys in ANY football competition, next to the flag of the country and the emblem of the federation, there is a place where some teams post stars...the number of times the trophy has been lifted by them. This achievement is SO IMPORTANT that the designer from each country has savored it on the shirt itself. Not Euro, not any other tournament. I also dont see a lot of mathematical statistics on the shirts. So they don't matter...not that they don't, when you compare Germany and france yes, but Italy is always there...very consistant but at the end of the day ITALY is better. $ stars vs. Germany's 3...that right there is enough to win the argument. This 4 stars are spread out from the 30s to now...so Italy is consistant too. Not just Germany. But let's say one more world cup, may not prove anything...well it does, but let's just be nice and say it doesn't. The next thing is h2h vs italy. your h2h vs other countries don't matter because you are comparing Germany to Italy. I'm 38, and never during that time have I ever seen Germany win Italy. I mean come on guys, the last two times you were dismantled!! 1 goal differential I cant say much but in 82 and in 06, two goals is clrear that ITA is better...by two goals!!! Italy has almost always won..or tied. So more world cup wins and has always won or tied Germany....YOUR "more appearances" argument means NOTHING. LET ME TELL YOU WHY and I was surprised no other Italian touched on this...BRA won 94 and they had not won anything in almost 24 years. Nothing. 74 78 82 86 90 were Brazilfree (in gold count). Yet when they won that they were tetra champs...no one said "oh they are not consistant'...where were they the last 24 years?? did they??? Now I go one step further...the difference between Brazil and Italy, is the DIFFERENCE between Italy and Germany. So Germany NEEDS to win gold man. Would you ever have this CRAZY discussion with a Brazilian...that your semi appearance trumps their 5 stars?? u know what they would tell you to go do??? So if the stars is what makes Brazil #1, then the same courtesy has to be applied to #2, trophy countThen we can take you seriously. What makes Brazil #1, isnt that they have more appearances, is that they finish the tournament. Germany has a great record, believe me I am a positive person about Germany, but that type of statistic is only VALID when the trophy count is equal. One last thing, and this is not as objective as these other points---> IN THE 2002 world cup, when ITA and SPA were robbed, I looked to Germany. I'm an Italian fan and I do not like Brazil. That is a different discussion. I looked to Germany. When ITA played BRA in 94 we held them back 0-0 for 2 hours....they had to work hard..GERMANY handed the 2002 world cup to Brazil man. I was extremely dissapointed because I guess Italy has heroics and unpredictable magic moments would have converted that...Germany is VERY predictable and they don't have a flare. They looked like they didn't belong in that final....I made my point ITALY is better! Italy now is where Brazil was in the late 90's. ****.
Exactly and that is just one match. The only other favourable condition was that they did not draw against a strong nation in the quarter-final, but the other side is that Italy had one of the strongest groups of the tournament.
Pipiolo has a point. Chile's limitation, besides their p*** weak defence, was the fact that they had no key centre forwards besides Suazo (whose form was terrible). Paredes is 'B' level and, if I'm not mistaken, struggled with the flu. There was no Pinilla, no Mancilla and no one like the current Eduardo Vargas. Thus, the inefficiency in front of goal. Nevertheless, in my view, a Portugal-Chile encounter would have been tight. Portugal had a better defensive line, but Chile was considerably more dynamic. They (Chile) had the best forward press of any team in the world cup, and it is possible that this could have troubled Portugal. No one knows.
England. We've always been shockingly mediocre for a 'big' nation. Portugal come second, as they have only really had individuals like Eusabio and Ronaldo, and probably Holland in 3rd.
I have to agree with this. It's a laugh that they're even up here. I still hate them with a passion since they've never ever lost a match to hear them say it. Every match they've ever lost has been due to mitigating circumstances. But all that aside, the Italians are usually dark horses when they win, and they win alot.
Bullshit. England's inability to be successful in penalty shootouts is what seperates them from being one of the TOP teams.
yaaaaaaaaaaaaawwwwwwwwwwwwnnnnnnnnnn The French media have always been arrogant, the Spanish media are unbelievably arrogant now, the Italians have always been that way. The Germans and Dutch are no better. Every countries media overate their teams. The difference is that other countries media only goes as far as a fart outside of their country, whereas the English media travels around the world. Big difference.
They've only lost 3 penalty shootouts in the WC and in all 3 cases England would've been big underdogs to win their next match even if they had won them.
How would England have been underdogs in 1990 after drawing with the team that won the final? In 2006, Italy beat France on penalties, who beat Portugal by a penalty, who beat England by penalties.
uhh... beating a team on a penalty is different than beating them on a penalty shootout. In any event, that logic never works like that. Espanyol tied Barca so they should be able to beat the teams Barca beats and compete for La Liga and CL title, right? Well... no. In this case of both 1998 and 2006 England would've been without their best player for the remainder of the tournament too.
In the last 20 years Argentina has been by far the most overrated country. Historically though England has under performed at every major world event. Other over rated countries Mexico, Russia, Nigeria and Iran
That's not entirely true. I think every Italian will admit we sucked in 2010 and most will concede we didn't deserve to go through at the Euros against Spain in 2008.
How can Italy a country that has won 4 world cups be overrated? If they are highly rated it's because of their achievments. Only one country in the world has won more world cups. If anything they are underrated. When you consider those facts. Doesn't overrated mean a country that has won little or nothing but continues to be highly rated through the years? I don't understand. Maybe the topic starter or somebody else can enlighten me. Some of these topics come across as 'personal country dislikes' rather than serious.
I don't think it's that, or else Netherlands would be considered overrated, and you don't see many people (if any) consider they are. Despite only winning Euro 1988 for all the talent they've ever produced, they made lots of great runs throughout the World and Euro Cups since 1974, only failing to win the big tournaments more than once. I think that pretty much applies to England. So many people say that "England is overrated" when they forget that they're underrating her just by saying it repetitively AND ignoring the fact that they don't lose many matches and have almost always done at least the bare minimum to be considered a top nation, like winning the qualifying groups and getting to the knockout stages (the only recent exception being Euro 2008). They're not at the plateau of World football, but they're surely in the Top 10 due to the consistently good, but not great performances they've made in the qualifiers and final tournaments throughout the decades.
I think that all top African countries are overrated. We´ve been hearing for years and years, "soon an African country will win the WC" or "I predict an African country will reach the final this time", etc., yet all of them end up getting knocked out, sooner rather than later. Last WC was held in Africa and many people were saying at least one African country would reach the semi-final. We all know how that turned out. In fact I'm not sure if an African country has ever reached the semi-final of a WC.
I disagree. Gana, as well as Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Cameroon, Egpyt, etc., have all been overly hyped in the past because they managed to have one fairly decent performance, like a quarter final or something like that.
They've also lost PK shootouts in the Euros too...once in a semi-final to the eventual winners and once to a team that reached the final...had they won those they would have been favorites to win it all....
I agree...the Africans have done nothing of note.....hell the runaway leader of this poll as never even lost a single game to anyone from Africa....