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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jdvn1" data-source="post: 2921842" data-attributes="member: 26424">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.... 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 SpainWhich 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.</blockquote>

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