I often feel like Argentina and Brazil are overrated before every World Cup nowadays, sorry to my fellow south american friends My opinion is that Argentina and Brazil, despite you guys saying Conmebol is a very difficult confederation to play in, nearly always win their matches against their SA counterparts, those 2 nations are not challenged much until they dive deep into a World Cup. On the other hand, Uefa is a very strong confederation overall. Yes it has some of the weakest teams in the world (Hello San Marino!), but nobody can argue the fact that the immense majority of international football powerhouses are european. This works in our favour, because before every World Cup, many (if not all) european nations get underrated overall, simply because we lose more matches, due to the huge level of our confederation. When actually these losses don’t mean we are less strong than Argentina or Brazil, they actually help us question ourselves more and work even harder to keep up with one another. The only highly competitive matches Brazil and Argentina get are against each other in the Copa, or against top european nations every 4 years at the World Cup. European nations play that kind of match all the time. This is why I kept thinking for months that Argentina and Brazil would probably (I don’t say they won’t, both are still in the race right now xD) not win this time either, because in order to win, the other SA nations need to get stronger, or one of those 2 needs to have a huge exceptional generation, which they don’t have at the moment if you ask me. Maybe it is some european bias, but I’m going with it I definitely believe the champions will be europeans again this year, bring it on guys, battle is just beginning!!!
UEFA was and still is the one and only gold standard of international footbal. Brazil and Argentina are always strong enough to reach the quarters by their sheer talent despite being in a confederation that is currently trending downwards. However the lack of very competitive matches will come back to bite both the deeper they get into the tournament. I think Argentina are nowhere close to the level to beat a top UEFA side. Brazil might be able to win maybe one match against an UEFA powerhouse but I very much doubt they could beat two on a bounce. It takes serious changes in the landscape of international football before we can see a non European winner again. Up until further notice UEFA is expected to take it home again.
Are you already making excuses in case of a Brazil victory? Cuz there's a chance Brazil might face only one UEFA powerhouse in the final, if Argentina beat the Netherlands.
The media does overhype but ... we had good enough teams to win 2 of those WCs. - 2006 we were great on paper but not on the field. We had won 2005 Confed Cup in style (bt with a couple of different pieces). If anybody did pay attention to the team near the WC, yes we shouldn't have been favorites. But there also weren't many teams that looked like big favorites. France were struggling and Italy was a bit under the radar. - 2010 we a good enough team and could have won. We were favorites for a good reason. But Spain was a bigger favorite pre tournament...we were 2nd in the list. - 2014 we shouldn't have been favorites ... again we won 2013 Confed Cup in style so that made people believe we were better than we were. Keep in mind in 2014 Germany hadn't impressed either. They barely got passed Algeria and that's why they weren't huge favorites. - 2018 we were again good enough to win the tournament. Some injuries screwed us up though.
I'm sure Argentina won't do you the favour of faceing only one UEFA powerhouse in order to win the World Cup. Brazil will have to beat the Netherlands and one of France/England/Portugal in order to lift the trophy. Bookmark it. You guys got already lucky enough by having a cakewalk path to the semis. Starting the semi-finals we will find out Brazil's true worth.
Just as an illustration!! From the small spot of territory of the Netherlands and Belgium we have 1 last 8 team and one that we might call the BeNeLux team, as Morocco has 8!!! players reared and developed in Belgium and the Netherlands. If Belgium didnot choke it would have been a tremendous illustration of what in this part of the world is being achieved on football matters. Nowhere the harvest is that impressive.
Mmmm, thanks for the trust, but I take it step by step. We still arenot optimal in executing the 5-3-2/3-5-2 system. LvG on purpose did use the Qatar and the USA match to play players not essential to beat them, but essential for the ko matches against the powerhouses, to get them gel together in the system for the real challenges ahead. So it's going to be interesting to see how far they've come in that respect tomorrow and if it's enough to push out of the way Argentina. If we manage that, the task for Brasil becomes more difficult as this Orange Squad is very hard to beat as it is, but with every match in increasing difficulty the execution of it becomes better.
I disagree. The only time European teams play other strong European, before the Nations League, was once every 4 years during the Euros. Because the qualifying groups for Euros and WC are mostly composed of minnow teams who don't prepare you for the WC other than the odd group with 2 strong teams. Playing the Hungary's and Bulgaria's of Europe isn't that much of a preparation to play big teams. Plus, in the Nations League, it's even arguable right now that teams give much of a damn until the SF and Final. Europe right now just has more quality teams than SA. Brazil and Argentina are typically strong teams in WC (although not every). Europe at any time has 6-7 countries who at any time can have 3-4 strong ones into a WC. So odds are with them with winning a WC. I'd also say that the 2010 and 2014 WCs were won by Spain and Germany being made up from a strong club base of players (Barca and Bayern). And yet, Spain still scraped by games in 2010 and Germany was close to losing to Argentina in 2014 in the final. Another thing to add is that most if not all Brazilian and Argentinean players play in European leagues against the same players they face in the WC. They are used to playing against those type of players and whatever tactics.
Mmm, no. We played big teams in qualifications for Euro and WC's. We shared groups with Germany/Belgium/France/Italy and managed to stumble out of qualifications against minnows, like van Gaal against Ireland in 2002, Blind in 2016/2018. The number of strong nations in the UEFA is bigger than the number of groups, so you're bound to have a few facing each other in the qualies every cycle. That probably ends if the Euro expansion takes place though.
UEFA has rejected expansion of the EURO. Meanwhile next month UEFA is expected to announce a new NT competition format with teams grouped in tiers so there are significantly fewer matches between teams of considerably different strength, for example between England and San Marino. There should be a direct link between NL and qualifying competitions and it is expected to look something like the new UEFA women's NT competition format announced last month. https://www.uefa.com/insideuefa/new...the-new-uefa-women-s-national-team-competiti/
Please show me where the bit teams are in these groups. Netherlands group had Turkey, Norway, Montenegro, Latvia, Gibraltar. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_FIFA_World_Cup_qualification_(UEFA)#Group_A For Euro 2020 you had Germany in your qualifying group. But that's the odd group with 2 strong teams. That's not the norm. And you're telling me 2 games against Germany is giving European teams preparation ? The Euro's is the only competition that you have many big teams facing each other.
This whole thing about Brazil not being able to compete with the top UEFA team du jour is a bit of nonsense IMO. In the cases of 2010 and 2018 the games were even and things just didn't go our way. 1st half in 2010 we completely dominated and came close to scoring a couple of more goals and putting the game to rest. 1st Dutch goal came out of a Felipe Melo / Julio Cesar fuk up and the 2nd was off a corner. It didn't come about Dutch superiority. As for 2018 again Belgium's 1st goal came off an own goal from a corner. We started the game off good and hit the post ourselves off a corner. Belgiums 2nd goal was a nice counter. So credit there. Then we dominated 2nd half and created quite a few chances almost scoring the tying goal on 3 occasions. Granted Belgium were worried about holding the 2 x 0 lead, but we still created chances. On those 2 occasions we were as good as the top European teams. We just weren't head and shoulder's above them to guarantee a win.
We shall see … I was being purposely dramatic suggesting 5:0 … but I see a comfortable win for Argentina Depay has no heart and the refs aren’t giving players any protection so after few subtle kicks from Romero , Otemendi and United’s hatchet-man Martinez and we won’t see a peep out of him .,
I think the firepower available to France is superior to that of Argentina, even with these two you mention in the contest. But that's not denigrading Argentina, it's simply what the rest of the world has to deal with.
I mean, even though many of these matches were even, last time Brazil beat a European powerhouse in a World Cup was like, 2002’s final? Which was a not common tourmament where they beat Germany who were out in group stage of both Euro 2000 and 2004 if my memories don’t betray me xD So that Germany was arguably not a strong one at all. Argentina beat England in 1998 (pens though), so yeah, it’s been a while now that small details always are on Europe’s side, this cannot be a fluke anymore, SA nations have been missing something. In my opinion that’s preparation as I said. Nation’s League is still new so I won’t blame you for not counting it, yet in UEFA Euro itself, if you go far enough you have to face multiple powerhouses, so that’s still more preparation compared to Brazil and Argentina. This would make no sense at all, but I believe Brazilians and Argentines would have won more modern WCs if they were playing UEFA competitions. Also to answer an argument I’ve seen above, yes nowadays everyone play in European clubs, Champion’s League and all, but the national teams as a whole don’t, players just play there individually, alongside top players from other nations that are obviously easier to play with. I’m one of those who don’t think club football impacts international football that much, unless nations use a big bulk of players from the same club of course, which once more gives an advantage to European nations for obvious reasons.
But hey, no one can see in the future xD I just wanna watch awesome matches and whoever wins, European, South American or African will deserve it anyway
It started with the birth of the Champions League, which generated that much money, that other continents were put on a disadvantage falling behind.
Exactly. If Brazil and Argentina were consistently overmatched in the games they lose to European teams then yeah, we could talk about a difference in footballing quality. But that's just not the case. Brazil in 2010 and 2018 are great examples. Superior team, dominate play, but just can't put the ball in. Argentina in the 2014 final was noticeably superior to Germany but still lost. Same in 2006- superior, playing better, but Germany get a goal late and win on pens. Maybe South American teams can be accused of lacking mental fortitude, or the even temper needed to win big games, but footballing wise, it's pretty clear that they're at least on par with Europeans.
I'm not sure how you reach that conclusion: Shots: Germany 10 Argentina 10 Shots on Target: Germany 5 Argentina 0 Possession: Germany 64% Argentina 36% Corners: Germany 5 Argentina 3 Passes: Germany 759 Argentina 435
Got 0 shots on goal because Higuaín, Messi and Palacio mentally collapsed in front of Neuer. Nevertheless, it was a completely even game in my view. Germany also had roughly 3 big chances (Schurrle shot, Howedes header, Gotze goal).