FIFA World Cup

[Kid Icarus]

6 minutes ago, ponsaelius said:

2014 wasn't as good as 2018 or this one imo. Group stages were great and the background was glorious technicolour but the knockouts were generally a big disappointment.

2014 is my favourite World Cup tbh, I thought it was fantastic throughout. Loved it. Whatever any other matches might have lacked was made up in that 7-1 as well 

[Vinny Green Balls]

1 hour ago, Kid Icarus said:

2014 is my favourite World Cup tbh, I thought it was fantastic throughout. Loved it. Whatever any other matches might have lacked was made up in that 7-1 as well 

and that van Persie header to put the sword in Spain and became a meme.

[Vinny Green Balls]

My favorite World Cup is probably 1994 for the reason that we went to a bunch of games. The Brazil U.S. game in the round of 16 was a hell of an experience. We were right in front of a samba line.

 

Also, seeing that fucking special Romania team play with Hagi working his magic. That loss to Sweden in the QF was heartbreaking.

[Deuce]

2 hours ago, Mike said:

Been an absolutely class tournament, tbf.

Next one is gonna be insane.

[cubaricho]

12 minutes ago, Tomato Deuce said:

Next one is gonna be insane.

It’s coming home baby. 

[Vinny Green Balls]

16 minutes ago, cubaricho said:

It’s coming home baby. 

and right before the fascist takeover

[cubaricho]

1 hour ago, Vinny Green Balls said:

and right before the fascist takeover

DeSantis being the president will sting a bit yeah.  

[Yorkie]

One for the Daft Questions thread but why is the population of a country stacked against the success of its national team? I don't really see how it has any relevance. Croatia is a developed country where football is massively popular and is also surrounded by countries where it's massively popular there too. How is it astonishing that out of a pool of 4 million they've found 11 who are really good?

[tgarve]

4 minutes ago, Yorkie said:

One for the Daft Questions thread but why is the population of a country stacked against the success of its national team? I don't really see how it has any relevance. Croatia is a developed country where football is massively popular and is also surrounded by countries where it's massively popular there too. How is it astonishing that out of a pool of 4 million they've found 11 who are really good?

Because it’s all relative , with a pool of 40 million you would expect to find 110 rather than 11 players ? 

[Yorkie]

I'm arguing that it isn't all relative though; I think it's a really simplistic way of looking at it and has little to no relevance. China and India are the most populous nations on the planet but their national football teams are nowhere to be seen. Obviously if it's a really tiny nation, then sure. Like it's no great surprise that Liechstenstein don't have a brilliant team; but once you're into the several millions surely it's no longer about population?

[triggs]

Obviously a big football mad country has more chance of being good than a small football mad country

[Yorkie]

Oh, that's that solved, then!

[Marko NUFC]

52 minutes ago, Yorkie said:

One for the Daft Questions thread but why is the population of a country stacked against the success of its national team? I don't really see how it has any relevance. Croatia is a developed country where football is massively popular and is also surrounded by countries where it's massively popular there too. How is it astonishing that out of a pool of 4 million they've found 11 who are really good?

Because in my opinion it does show what resources the country has to produce 11+ elite footballers. 

 

To give you an example Croatia has 125.000 registrated football players (amateur and pro) while England 1.400.000 which is more than 10x more players you have than us.

 

Now if we take into consideration facilities where we cannot match you and also investments that England puts into football which we can only dream of, we can count ourselves extremely lucky to find 11 elite players that can beat your 11 elite of the elite players. Its not easy to find from our "pool" world class players in comparison to England or other bigger countries.

 

 

Edited December 11, 2022 by Marko NUFC

[number37]

17 minutes ago, Yorkie said:

I'm arguing that it isn't all relative though; I think it's a really simplistic way of looking at it and has little to no relevance. China and India are the most populous nations on the planet but their national football teams are nowhere to be seen. Obviously if it's a really tiny nation, then sure. Like it's no great surprise that Liechstenstein don't have a brilliant team; but once you're into the several millions surely it's no longer about population?

I totally agree with you, it's one of my many pet peeves, not quite xG or some other made-up irrelevant stat levels of hate but it's close because it's just such a pointless thing to mention - pretty much for the reasons you say. 

 

It's perfectly normal for countries to specialise in a sport that goes against their population count. New Zealand are historically the greatest side in rugby and Hungary having water polo are admittedly the only two examples that come to mind right now but as you say, why haven't China, India or even America cleaned up at Every World Cup? Surely a billion people are automatically better than a few million in a single sport? That's how it works, right? Unless they're all managed by Gareth Southgate and every defeat is because they've bottled it. 

 

The Olympics is different, a multi sport event where it makes sense that a larger population will certainly have an advantage as you have more people to enter more sports and be successful, it's no coincidence that the countries who top the medal table tend to be larger and richer. 

[Marko NUFC]

4 minutes ago, number37 said:

I totally agree with you, it's one of my many pet peeves, not quite xG or some other made-up irrelevant stat levels of hate but it's close because it's just such a pointless thing to mention - pretty much for the reasons you say. 

 

It's perfectly normal for countries to specialise in a sport that goes against their population count. New Zealand are historically the greatest side in rugby and Hungary having water polo are admittedly the only two examples that come to mind right now but as you say, why haven't China, India or even America cleaned up at Every World Cup? Surely a billion people are automatically better than a few million in a single sport? That's how it works, right? Unless they're all managed by Gareth Southgate and every defeat is because they've bottled it. 

 

The Olympics is different, a multi sport event where it makes sense that a larger population will certainly have an advantage as you have more people to enter more sports and be successful, it's no coincidence that the countries who top the medal table tend to be larger and richer. 

I disagree. Some countries might be specialised for some sport due to their connection with the sport (more likely Mediterranean countries would be good at waterpolo) but also because that particular sport is not popular in bigger countries. 

 

Best example is futsal. It's the closest thing to football and while England is a powerhouse in football you don't even know what's futsal because it's not popular - it would be interesting to see how many registered players are there in futsal. 

 

Since football is more global sport it's easier to compare it to sizes of countries or better number of registered players. 

[gbandit]

Whatever my feeling is about finding Croatia quite a boring side to watch, their performance in major tournaments is remarkable. They produce really good footballers but they also seem to be incredibly United and play to their limit every game, especially against difficult opposition. Mentally they’re incredibly strong 

[The Prophet]

11 minutes ago, number37 said:

I totally agree with you, it's one of my many pet peeves, not quite xG or some other made-up irrelevant stat levels of hate but it's close because it's just such a pointless thing to mention - pretty much for the reasons you say. 

 

It's perfectly normal for countries to specialise in a sport that goes against their population count. New Zealand are historically the greatest side in rugby and Hungary having water polo are admittedly the only two examples that come to mind right now but as you say, why haven't China, India or even America cleaned up at Every World Cup? Surely a billion people are automatically better than a few million in a single sport? That's how it works, right? Unless they're all managed by Gareth Southgate and every defeat is because they've bottled it. 

 

The Olympics is different, a multi sport event where it makes sense that a larger population will certainly have an advantage as you have more people to enter more sports and be successful, it's no coincidence that the countries who top the medal table tend to be larger and richer. 

 

xG is a useful stat. It is over relied on and should be considered in the context of other factors, but it certainly isn't irrelevant.

[Skeletor]

My favourite was 94 as well. Partly because that was the first one I ever watched. So many stars on display Baggio, Romario, Bebeto, Hagi, Stoichkov, 100 year old Roger Milla etc... The smaller nations generally got quite far too and there were some crazy games in the early stages.

[The Prophet]

1 hour ago, Yorkie said:

One for the Daft Questions thread but why is the population of a country stacked against the success of its national team? I don't really see how it has any relevance. Croatia is a developed country where football is massively popular and is also surrounded by countries where it's massively popular there too. How is it astonishing that out of a pool of 4 million they've found 11 who are really good?

 

Surely stuff like population size, national interest in the sport, resource available (financial or otherwise), etc all factor in, but aren't determinative.

[toon25]

1 hour ago, Yorkie said:

I'm arguing that it isn't all relative though; I think it's a really simplistic way of looking at it and has little to no relevance. China and India are the most populous nations on the planet but their national football teams are nowhere to be seen. Obviously if it's a really tiny nation, then sure. Like it's no great surprise that Liechstenstein don't have a brilliant team; but once you're into the several millions surely it's no longer about population?

I've always thought it would be interesting to measure: success of national teams v. size of population, estimated number of players playing (appreciate this is hard to gauge), and amount of money invested in football infrastructure - esp at grass roots.

[Yorkie]

53 minutes ago, Marko NUFC said:

Because in my opinion it does show what resources the country has to produce 11+ elite footballers. 

 

To give you an example Croatia has 125.000 registrated football players (amateur and pro) while England 1.400.000 which is more than 10x more players you have than us.

 

Now if we take into consideration facilities where we cannot match you and also investments that England puts into football which we can only dream of, we can count ourselves extremely lucky to find 11 elite players that can beat your 11 elite of the elite players. Its not easy to find from our "pool" world class players in comparison to England or other bigger countries.

 

Interesting stats.  So a higher population means a greater number of registered footballers to mould into World Cup finalists; a pretty obvious point I suppose.  I'd still argue that 125k is a canny-sized pool to carve a brilliant team out of. If the resources are paltry in comparison to other nations, then their success is remarkable for that reason, not the fact it 'only' has 4 million people. Unless a country's population directly correlates with its standard of facilities etc. 

 

32 minutes ago, The Prophet said:

 

Surely stuff like population size, national interest in the sport, resource available (financial or otherwise), etc all factor in, but aren't determinative.

 

Think that's probably fair.  It (population) is not a total irrelevance then, but I just think it's a bit of a lazy assessment/cliche whenever it's held to as a reason to be amazed by a team's success. 

[ponsaelius]

Population is obviously important to some degree. The troughs in generations of players are more noticeable in the likes of Netherlands, Belgium etc than they are in France, Germany because despite very similar footballing cultures and facilities they are about a quarter of the size.

[ponsaelius]

Croatia probably has about the same number of people in its diaspora as it does within the bounds of the state itself. Which must be given some weight if you are giving them credit for players like Rakitic, Kovacic, Kovac, Simunic, Petric, Klasnic etc who were the product of other countries' footballing systems.

 

Luka Sucic will probably be the next big star to lead the team after this tournament - and he is another who has been born and developed abroad.

 

 

Edited December 11, 2022 by ponsaelius

[Marko NUFC]

4 hours ago, ponsaelius said:

Croatia probably has about the same number of people in its diaspora as it does within the bounds of the state itself. Which must be given some weight if you are giving them credit for players like Rakitic, Kovacic, Kovac, Simunic, Petric, Klasnic etc who were the product of other countries' footballing systems.

 

Luka Sucic will probably be the next big star to lead the team after this tournament - and he is another who has been born and developed abroad.

 

 

 

You are actually very correct. We got a lot of talent from diaspora especially Germany with all these players coming through their youth club systems.

 

Even recently our left right back, Borna Sosa, had an option to choose to play for Germany or Croatia but luckily chose the former.

[Ketsbaia]

I'm the opposite to most with this tournament - was really looking forward to it but was quickly bored by it. Didn't even bother watching England last night.