EN World World Cup blog

[johnsemlak]

I don't know why everyone thinks Brazil is the perfect team or never loses.

And you were telling me about team's accomplishment's that one cannot ignore . Brazil had appeared in 3 straight WC final matches, winning two of them. Talk about consistancy.

So, in short, they almost never lose. It's close to never losing, but not quite.

 

[johnsemlak]

Reaction to France-Brazil match

Oh La La!




That about sums it up. I've posted many times I didn't think France had chances this year with their age and the poor performances in the group stage, not to mention in previous competitions. But wow, Les Bleus managed to raise their game to the level of competition, and their star players played fantastically.

WOWOWOWOW.

Very entertaining match, probably made more so by the French crowed I was watching the match with.

I do agree with Klaus that the Brazilian manager was outcoached--oh do they wish they had Scolori back. The subs came way late to have a meaningful impact. EDIT--and what was with taking Kaka off with over 10 min to go?

Can France win twice more and repeat their '98? Dunno.

I'd say any team can come away with it now. I know they're not fancied by a lot of people, but I'm going to go with Italy now.

 

[Jdvn1]

No not bad, but they had a few lackluster draws to unimpressive opponents, such as Isreal.

I'd just like to mention that Brazil has drawn against Bolivia and Japan in the past year. Not exactly stellar teams, to say the least.

Frances's complete lack of performance in 2002--no wins or goals-- has posted above.

... And I'd like to mention that Czech Republic (ranked 2 in the world, I'm sure you remember) suffered embarrassing loses, not making it to the second round (though, the US team this year might be a better comparison).

My point is that good teams don't always play well. They just have a tendency to play well. Which brings us to Spain

All that plus their form displayed in the group stage let me to conclude Spain was strong favorite in that match.

Which is a very good point, I'd like to say. In my opinion, the most relevant point. Spain was a very good team, that was also playing very well. "In form" as some soccer people say, and it's certainly true. Basketball fans (and in other sports) might call this a "streak." A streak is typically when you win a number of games in a row and is characterized by very good or better-than-average play.

And, Spain was certainly playing very well. I, personally, put less stock in this than most. Maybe I should pay attention to it more, but I'm not a big fan of streaks. You never know when they're going to start and you never know when they're going to end. "Easy come, easy go." After all, if "being in form" was so easy to attain and hold on to, why wouldn't all the best teams always be in form? There's a definite randomness to it, and I never rely on it.

So, while I agree Spain was playing very well, and had they kept it up (and France had continued playing at the level they were), Spain could have easily won the game.

But, I think France's "average quality" is better than Spain's "average quality" and if soccer pundits don't agree with me, well FIFA rankings usually do. There are a lot of weird soccer pundits that say a lot of weird things for weird reasons anyway. Maybe it's because all the ones in the US suck, but you have to take what they say with many grains of salt.

Sorry for the rant, I just think that's where we differ the most in opinion so I figured I'd put my piece out there and let it go... because, well, it's kind of a moot point now.

 

[Jdvn1]

And you were telling me about team's accomplishment's that one cannot ignore . Brazil had appeared in 3 straight WC final matches, winning two of them. Talk about consistancy.

So, in short, they almost never lose. It's close to never losing, but not quite.

Okay, that's a good point. But, I think Brazil has been on the decline since their previous title. There are definite chinks in the armor, and France was the first really good team they faced. Everyone knew it'd be a good game, and if you want to talk about never losing, France has fewer loses in the past two years than Brazil does.

 

[Jdvn1]

Brazil has an excellent publicity department.

Well, having some of the highest paid players in the world doesn't hurt either.

 

[johnsemlak]

Going back to ENG-POR, I thought it was an incredibly negative football match with Portugal's constant antics and diving, and then Rooney's red card on the other side. Portugal played incredibly lame after Rooney went off--they were tentative and when their shots came they seemed to be weak.

Portugal aren't going to be given much chance to advance further after that performance, but with Deco back they should be more imaginative, and you've got to give any team coached by Scolari a chance.

 

[Jdvn1]

Going back to ENG-POR, I thought it was an incredibly negative football match with Portugal's constant antics and diving, and then Rooney's red card on the other side. Portugal played incredibly lame after Rooney went off--they were tentative and when their shots came they seemed to be weak.

I was kind of surprised, myself, that England had twice the number of penalties Portugal did.

 

[johnsemlak]

Time to start talking serious about who's going to win it. Only four teams left (duh!)

I've checked several bookies and they all favor Germany. Most have France as a tight second choice but one had Italy in that position. All have Portugal as a 6/1 or 7/1 outsider.

I would say the competion is extremely open amongst the four remaining teams and its really hard to choose a clear favorite. Any team can win it IMO without it being a huge shock. I don't gamble (other than office pools) but figuratively my money is on Italy. Hard to explain why. However, it's hard to argue that with Germany being the host and playing extremely well that they're the bookies' favorite.

However, I'd say the best value pick by far is Portugal, where you can get 7/1 odds. They might not be the favorite but I woudn't say them winning would be a shock of any kind.

My picks right now--possibly to be revised:

Italy over Germany
France over Portugal
Italy over France

 

[drothgery]

And, Spain was certainly playing very well. I, personally, put less stock in this than most. Maybe I should pay attention to it more, but I'm not a big fan of streaks. You never know when they're going to start and you never know when they're going to end. "Easy come, easy go." After all, if "being in form" was so easy to attain and hold on to, why wouldn't all the best teams always be in form? There's a definite randomness to it, and I never rely on it.

Neither am I, but there aren't really enough games played in the Cup to get a solid handle on any team's "average".

I think the problem is that soccer is sufficiently random that unless there's a huge gap in talent levels or extremely lopsided officiating, the better team wins a game less than half the time (it's probably about 45% best team wins, 25% draw, 30% worse team wins). So a single-elimination tournament is a terrible format to try and figure out the best national team in the world.

Baseball, at least at the major league level, has much the same problem (except there are no draws, so the better team wins a little more than half the time); they get around it by playing a 162 game regular season and having best of seven playoffs. But you can't do that in soccer, because best of seven playoff series are only practical if you can play at least every other day.

 

[Klaus]

Okay, that's a good point. But, I think Brazil has been on the decline since their previous title. There are definite chinks in the armor, and France was the first really good team they faced. Everyone knew it'd be a good game, and if you want to talk about never losing, France has fewer loses in the past two years than Brazil does.

The chinks in Brazil's armor were its unwillingness to retire older players. Brazil has the fastest new player turnout in the world (due to the fact that it's a continental-sized country with football as its only major sport), and for some eldritch reason there were players who were in the 1994 (!!!!) team. After the team played so much better against Japan, the coach should have bit the bullet and tried that team again against Ghana, to see if it was a fluke or if the younger players were actually better than the old timers.

Zidane played like a maestro, and the Brazilian coach, aware that he was going to face Zidane, took no precautions to cancel him out. France, otoh, knew Brazil had to sideline plays and crowded the midfield, cancelling the static Brazilian players.

A lesson to be learn: big-name stars do not a team make.