Hi all, I had just remembered this fun thread we used to have, and I was wondering why no posted there anymore. I checked and found that it's apparently now closed for some reason, so I decided to start a new one. (Old thread if you just want to read it for fun) https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/random-world-cup-facts.212289/ (first page) https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/random-world-cup-facts.212289/page-98 (last page) I'll go ahead and start this thread off with a few that I just thought of. On occasions on which Wales has qualified for the World Cup, Italy has not made it. Granted, that's only twice (1958 and 2022), but it's still odd that it's happened twice considering that Italy has qualified for all but four World Cups (declining to participate in 1930, and failing to qualify in 1958, 2018, and 2022). The last European defending champion to reach the WC semifinals was West Germany, all the way back in 1958! We'll see if France can change that this year.
Unless the US go on a run and face Ecuador or Argentina in the knockout rounds, they will have gone 28 years without facing a South American opponent in the WC finals, the only Concacaf side with this "distinction".
The 1930 World Cup was actually called Football World Championship. That's why Spanish-speaking fans say "el Mundial".
About the 1930 final: "The teams failed to agree on who should provide the match ball, forcing FIFA to intervene and decree that the Argentine team would provide the ball for the first half and the Uruguayans would provide their own for the second."
The 1950 final match wasn't actually a final match. Instead, the four group winners advanced to a final four round robin. The two matches on each day stared at the same time.
Some of those early World Cups had quite strange formats. The 1954 format was probably the worst by far. From 1958 onwards FIFA adopted fairly sensible formats for the most part (1982 was somewhat odd tbf) until this latest crackpot idea with the expansion of 16 groups of 3. I wasn't aware about the simultaneous kickoffs for the 1950 final round.
Iran and Tunisia both qualified to their first ever World Cup in 1978. Both will be participating in their 6th World Cup, with 5 prior appearances. Neither have ever advanced from their group. Neither have ever gone pointless in their group either. Tunisia's best results were in its maiden World Cup in 1978, when it barely missed advancing with a 1-1-1 record. Iran's best results were in the 2018 World Cup with a 1-1-1 record. Both teams have only 2 World Cup wins. Tunisia's overall WC record, in fact, is 15GP: 2-4-9. Iran's overall WC record is the same: 15GP: 2-4-9! I thought these similarities between Tunisia and Iran were noteworthy. Even uncanny.
To some extent, but I don't want to take the similarity too far either: While Tunisia's overall WC record is identical to Iran's, focusing on post WC-98 expansion, Iran has done slightly better: 12GP: 2-3-7 for Iran v 12GP: 1-3-8 for Tunisia. I don't believe Tunisia has produced players quite at the level of the likes of Ali Daei, Ali Karimi, Mehdi Mahdavikia, Mehdi Taremi, or Vahid Hashemian, Sardar Azmoun, Khodadad Azizi, or Javad Nekounam etc.
Since 1994 World Cup, only two countries have reached the knockout stages in every edition. Name them.
I'm guessing one has won 2 cups, finished second once, made the semi finals once and never lost in the round of 16 in that time and the other hasn't progressed passed the round of 16.
Perhaps with the expansion, we will see a few new records/milestones broken over the next few tournaments: Perhaps we might, given the right circumstances, have on our hands the first all-African or all-Asian World Cup knockout match. Perhaps we get a goals per game average higher than anything we've seen since the 50s or 60s. Individual goalscoring records are likely to be broken more regularly (looking for example at someone like Mbappe who could easily play until 2034 at his current trajectory), even without the successful adoption of a biennial format. And so many more.
And none of their victories have been against European or South American teams. In fact, 3 of their combined 4 wins have been against CONCACAF...
Peru has not qualified this time (so we will not anoint the future winner), but Wales have a similar trend: of the 3 times they have qualified to a major tournament (1WC, 2 Euros), they have played (and lost) to the eventual winner in all of them...
Statistically correct. In substance, misleading as it relates to Iran. Iran's best games at the World Cup have actually been against European and South American powerhouses, even though many of these games ended with in narrow losses for Iran. For instance, in WC18, Iran's best game was against Spain (lost narrowly 1:0), then against Portugal (1;1), not in the match it won against Morocco. In WC14, similarly, Iran's best game by far was against Argentina (lost 1:0 in stoppage time). Even in WC98, Iran's best game was against Yugoslavia (which it lost), not the US (which Iran defeated).
Last time wales qualified the population of Qatar was the same as the capacity of the stadium where wales will play their group games
Completely forgot that Wales is a member of that group of countries that has never been eliminated in the WC group stage (Republic of Ireland there as well).
Interesting contrast to Scotland, who historically qualified much more frequently for major tournaments than Wales and ROI but always somehow found a way to get eliminated in the group stage. I guess Wales mostly does their bottling in the qualifiers, so when they do qualify they do well.
Tbf I meant their overall tournament record, including the Euros too. Increasing the sample size to a thorough 3.
I wouldn't say it's completely subjective since there are also stats to look at for every match but it's still pretty hilarious how the guy keeps boasting all the time about losses