it once every four years. What I've heard about more than anything
in anticipation for the start is how incredibly unfair the draws are
and based on the above handy chart this seems like a reasonable gripe.
Group H, for example, has four teams which could be beaten by my four
year old's town team and they don't even keep score. But Groups B, D
and G are just ridiculously stacked basically pinning Hogan vs Flair
vs Stone Cold vs Triple H. We all know that FIFA is completely
corrupt (see Qatar) so this is no surprise but for the premier event
for the sport, they could at least play a little lip service to
fairness, even if they very obviously have set it up for Brazil to win
this thing.
3 comments:
Group H is probably the weakest group or second weakest group, but your post is being dismissive without doing a close analysis. All 4 of those teams are better than Team USA (well, actually, only 3 are, as Team USA is better than Algeria). Belgium, with Eden Hazard of Chelsea, is especially loaded. The second qualifying spot for the playoff round from that group will come down to Russia and Korea. Korea has had more World Cup success than the USA, both historically and recently, and Russia is just better at soccer than the USA.
Your chart is flawed in that it just looks at FIFA rankings. The rankings are absolute bs. No way is Brazil only #11 in the world. Brazil smoked Spain in the Confederations Cup final last year, 3-0. Brazil is super loaded with talent, and even if the World Cup were played on a neutral site, Brazil would be favored to win, along with Germany and Spain.
And no way is USA on a par with Portugal, as the rankings incorrectly suggest. With or without Cristiano Ronaldo, Portugal is way better.
And Mexico and Cameroon are both good teams. Samuel Et'o is still one of the world's great strikers. I think Brazil's group is actually one of the tougher groups. Forget the rankings. Look at the players on the teams and how the teams fared in the qualifying rounds.
Group C, with Colombia, Japan, Greece, etc., is very weak. Probably the weakest group overall, even moreso than Group H. It is not "balanced." Whoever wrote up that chart must have been drunk. Colombia is a good team, but it is NOT the 4th best national team in the world. Colombia is probably the weakest of all the top seeded teams, unless you consider Switzerland to be the top seeded team in its group (but the best team in Switzerland's group is France).
Hey, Algeria is pretty damn good after all, especially their #10 and #11. Best Algerian team ever. Those 2 guys could start and do well in the English Premier League.
And team USA is better than Portugal. Klinsmann is a great manager.
Told ya that Belgium was good. Just look at that starting lineup and the club teams for which they play: Manchester City (Kompany), Chelsea (Hazard), Manchester United (Fellaini), Arsenal (Vermaelen), Bayern Munich (Van Buyten), Tottenham (Vertonghen), Napoli (Mertens), Everton (Lukaku), Atletico Madrid (Courtois), etc. Every club team was like Top 5 or Top 1 in the best leagues in the world: EPL, La Liga, Bundesliga, Serie A, French Ligue 1. Belgium is loaded.
Algeria is really good, too. Saw it in person against Korea and the great touch on the ball that Feghouli (#10 with the bandage on the head) has.
In retrospect, the weakest overall groups were those won by France and Argentina. The bottom 2 teams in each of those groups were poor, and the 2nd place teams in those groups (Switzerland and Nigeria) were not as impressive as the other teams that lost in the Round of 16.
Actually, maybe the Group of Death (Italy, England, Uruguay, Costa Rica) sucked. Costa Rica ran through that group, and the 2nd place team (Uruguay) looked lost in the Round of 16 without Suarez. Costa Rica -- though they were a man down -- got dominated by a normally ugly Greece team and were lucky to win on penalties. I know because this was one of the games I saw live.
So you never know.
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