The reign of Spain simply could not be maintained!
World Cup 2014
Ahnehnois
First Post
I don't know why people are acting like it's such a surprise. They never had any defense; it was always clear that if their opponents ever got the ball across the halfway line they could score easily. And their best players are all aging and don't have the athleticism to compete, especially not in tropical conditions. You could see this coming a mile away.
They looked very bad. At the team AND individual level.
Australia, at least, played some decent ball against the Dutch today. And I liked what South Korea showed last night.
Australia, at least, played some decent ball against the Dutch today. And I liked what South Korea showed last night.
Last edited:
Because usually reigning champions are not knocked out in the "group stage" of the competition.
Ahnehnois
First Post
That might be the reason, but it really doesn't hold.
The same thing happened in recent world cups with France and Italy. It's a wide open tournament whose results fluctuate quite a bit. And with four years between tournaments, that's a lot of time for fortunes to change and players to age (which is clearly a factor in this case). History shows it's far more likely for defending champions to get knocked out in the group stage than to win it twice in a row.
The strange thing is, Spain was still ranked #1, simply because there are so few meaningful international competitions they really hadn't played enough games to get knocked out of their ranking. Clearly, they are nowhere close to being the #1 team in the world. To be fair, their ostensible successors (Brazil) don't look that great either.
***
As a US fan, I'm forced to admit that they played a pretty poor game and were fortunate to win it, and they may well advance but they're nowhere near the top echelon.
Are you saying that reigning Spain will be mainly on the plane?
...and that the pain in Spain is mainly from their shame.
Yes, Italy and France also failed to defend their titles, but as the first WC winners to lose their first 2 matches in the ensuing WC, Spain went out like CHUMPS.
yes, Spain did look like chumps.
Hopefully, Portugal will follow their example and lose to the US on Sunday.
Jan van Leyden
Adventurer
Well, it's the fifth time, actually: 1950 (Italy; though there was a 12 year gap), 1966 (Brasil), 2002 (France), 2010 (Italy), and now 2014 (Spain)
5 times...out of 19 World Cups. Not exactly commonplace, not as rare as hen's teeth.
