Then they reached the ko stage 7/16 times, worst than 3/6 and Japan start to approach world football in the 90s while Mexico was just 2 times WC host and have decades of professional football experience more than Japan. Oh, and it seems Croatia too reached the ko stage less than Mexico, joining their first WC the same year of Japan in France98. Anyway, I agree that Mexico is a better and an example of team for Japan, but imo JNT did pretty good in reaching 3/6 times the Final16 in a WC especially cuz 2 times they were in a death group with stronger and more experienced opponents.
That's exactly what I was saying. Japanese professional football was born in the same years (90s) Croatia was born as a nation and as an independent football NT. Saying that Mexico has more appearances than Japan in WC ko stage as the proof of their superiority is totally silly since Japan had less chances and has even a better ratio exactly as Croatia.
It's more like 9/16 actually.. so their ratio is better. And well, since the birth of Japan as a footballing nation, Mexico is 7/7... If we take out 94 because it's too close to the birth it's 6/6. So no, the point that Mexico is further along and has been in the knock-out stages more often is not really silly. The rebuttal though is, both mathematically and logically.
Since the World Cup expanded to 32 teams in 1998, only 19 teams have advanced from the group stages 3 times or more. Almost all of them are countries with long football traditions. The only exceptions are Japan and United States. Europe England (5) Germany (5) France (4) Netherlands (4) Spain (4) Belgium (3) Denmark (3) Italy (3) Portugal (3) Sweden (3) Switzerland (3) South America Brazil (6) Argentina (5) Chile (3) Paraguay (3) Uruguay (3) Rest of the world Mexico (6) Japan (3) United States (3)