Do you think Greece played the best football at Euro 2004? Yes they were the most effective, but the best they were not. Any pub team can park 11 men in front of the goal and hope for the best against quality opposition.
Well ... of course they did. They won the tournament. That's the best football there is. You're doing that Dutch thing of confusing "pretty" with "good".
But surely the "best" team does not always win? Unless you consider the result alone as the determinant of which team is better.
The whole concept of "better" is silly in this context. Either the result is the most meaningful thing in reality, in which case whoever won is better, or who is "better" on paper is the most meaningful thing in reality, in which case whoever is better should also be the winner. As that is not the case (the "better" team does not always win) then I posit that the whole debate is meaningless. It doesn't matter who was better - what matters is who won. Over a league season, the best team will win. Over a single game, whoever was better in that game will win. End of story.
This seems to be an exercise in logic, but putting to one side the reasoning of whether the "better" team always wins there a clearly two meanings here. "Good" football is commonly used to mean an attractive passing game. So one can say for instance that WBA play "good" football, but Stoke are a "better" team. Very few things that are discussed on these boards actually matter, but they matter to some people. Let's start a debate about that.
Like I said to Johan, confusing "pretty" with "good" is silly. One is an aesthetic, subjective value. The other, in the 'points win prizes' world of football, is empirical and objective.[/QUOTE] WBA don't play good football. They play pretty football. Soon, of course, they'll have to start playing good football if they want to stay in the Premier League.
It is a very subjective definition. Different styles appeal to different people. Thus to a person, like myself, who dislikes "attractive passing game" (whatever that means), this does not appear to be a "good football". I do agree with Matt's definition that being "better" is synonymous with winning
England won again, this should score us some good ranking points because Germany are second, or at least third, I don't know what its like for just friendlies though so it might not be many points.