Except Barca/Spain retain possession in dangerous areas for the most part. Being one good pass away from a scoring chance is a dangerous area. The second Barca goal in 2011 CL final is a perfect illustration. The build-up was essentially a bunch of sideways passes, yet the final sideways pass from Iniesta enabled Messi to score without doing anything special (didn't beat any defender and wasn't a great shot either). That tells you that they were in a dangerous area the whole time. Provide an example or I'll assume you're talking out of your arse. Thanks in advance.
Hater talk right here. Italy vs. Germany semi final game was the best of that world cup and will be talked about for years. Find me 1 exciting game from spain in 2010. If you do, you can call the hater hotline. The # is 1-800-1 nothing-1 nothing- 1 nothing. Unless of course patty-cake football is your thing. [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEMraNN7FwQ&feature=related"]Alex Del Piero fa goal alla Germania!‏ - YouTube[/ame] Del Piero strike right in the arse
Italy won the world cup in 2006 by defeating only quality team in Germany, although the 2010 germany was a stronger squad.
Doesn't mean it was any more of a difficult game. You're negating the home factor which was immense for Germany.
2003 UEFA Champions League Final Juventus Milan 0 0 It can't be denied that italy play defensive football. An italian team at their best, almost an impossibly difficult team to score on, and tactically admirable.
That was a memorable match alright but I just don't think Italy '06 is considered as a really strong WC champion. Spain OTOH has already equaled France's 1998 & 2000 double and unless they go into total decline starting immediately, they will surpass them soon and entering really good company.
What will be the most memorable from that World Cup will be this: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVL14JT7j9Y"]Zidane Head Butt - FIFA 2006 Final - YouTube[/ame]
HAHAHA! I laugh at this! You have Brazil holding 5 of the 10 top 10 spots and on top of it all you have the 82 team as #1 and the 82 Italy team that beat them as #9..... where's the logic in that?? You shoul have just put Brazil in all the spots 1-10! HAHAA!
France wasn't a quality side?? Plus Germany was playing at home, Italy beat them in Dortmund where they had never lost, EVER! Spain has had a great run, no doubt about it but remember they barely beat a declining Italy team in the Euro 2008 on PKs, a team without Pirlo and Casillas had to make a miracle save on Camoranesi in the 2nd half to keep the score tied at 0-0 to go to PKs.... Great Spain yes but lets not hate on the 06 Italy team, the road Italy took to the WC in 06 is arguably tougher than Spain or at worst on par.
---Best National Teams (Since 1950's)--- Since I believe that the best team didn't always win the WC or EC. Therefore, I divided them into two tables (Winners and Not Winners) I placed importance on the following factors: -Number of years on the top (or near the top) -Number of great players -Teams that played open attacking football very slightly favored, since I believe it takes more quality to do that. Table 1 (Winners WC or EC) 1. Brazil 70 2. Spain 08-??? 3. Germany 72-76 4. Brazil 58 5. France 98-00 6. Holland 88 7. England 66 8. Argentina 86 9. Brazil 02 10.Italy 68-70/ USSR 60-66 / France 82-86 Table 2 (NOT Winners WC or EC) 1. Hungary 54 2. Holland 74 3. Brazil 82 4. Poland 74 5. Czechoslovakia 62 6. Croatia 98 7. Holland 98 8. Germany 06-08 9. Yugoslavia 68 10.England 96/ Italy 90/ Czech Rep 04
The Germany 2010 teams was significantly better than Germany 2006. If anything, the weakness with Germany 2010 is that they were still too young/lacked experience. So what does that say about the '06 team? Well, in some cases even younger (Lahm, Schweinsteiger, Podolski) and in others not even on the team yet (Muller, Ozil, Khedira, Neuer). That's 7 quality players that were either new or improved for the 2010 team. The only quality player they lost was Ballack. No comparison.
You are right. I was thinking about including it and maybe I should have. Maybe I am a little biased, but I consider the EC to be much higher quality than the CA (with all respect to this fantastic competition). I am working on a more in-depth ranking.
I agree with you 100%, the Euro 08 was the best competition i've seen so far. I was just wondering. If you think you may have missed a team than add it. If not, then it might not be necessary.
Actually one of the big stories during WC 2010 was about how the officials were getting absolutely everything correct. For Tesos to point out that the refereeing was particularly poor tells you that he lives in his own little world (and that world automatically sucks when Barca or Spain win a tournament).
Didn't the refs screw up bad in several games. Such as an unjustly disallowed goal for the USA. One painfully obvious offside of Argentina vs Mexico. The not-goal that was of England vs Germany. And the not sending off of the holland player who kick slammed a spanish player.
Once again your argument is overly simplistic. You can't define the 2008-2010 Spain team by 1 match. For the same reason you can't define the Italy 2006 team by one game. Otherwise I would pick...hmm... USA v Italy. As the thread title implies ("Spain 2008-?"), what makes this Spanish team a notch above most WC winners is that their WC win was a culmination of 3 years of sheer dominance. None of the recent WC winners can say the same thing.
True. Brazil 70 was also considered great because they didn't lose (or was it that they won) in all of their WCQ games. iirc