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World Cup 2014


andyswann2007

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Yes. New Zealand were unbeaten at the last World Cup, they aren't here. Would also love to see teams like Panama ( who just missed out ) and more African teams like Egypt etc.

Blatter's spoken before about reducing European contingent, let's hope this World Cup makes him do it.

Lex, Scotland were unbeaten in a few world cups, proves fcuk all really.

It's a unending debate but, on the whole, the current set up seems to be working reasonably well.

There could always be an argument to include other teams but that could result in, as it has in the past, seriously diddy teams qualifying.

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Beat me to it.

I was going to look into this but didn't have time.

To say England are no hopers, when this is the fist time in a million years they haven't got out of the group stages, is ludicrous.

4 years ago England were lucky to draw with USA and Algeria. They only got through because they beat another European no hoper - Slovenia.

They then got a predictable pasting in the next phase from an elite team.

They are no hopers.

Edited by TopCat
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Lex, Scotland were unbeaten in a few world cups, proves fcuk all really.

It's a unending debate but, on the whole, the current set up seems to be working reasonably well.

There could always be an argument to include other teams but that could result in, as it has in the past, seriously diddy teams qualifying.

Serious diddy teams like Bosnia and Greece?

It's time FIFA opened up the World Cup to the world. It's ridiculously difficult to qualify from Africa and Asia and it shouldn't be.

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There's 6 South American teams at the World Cup. 4 of them have already qualified for the last 16, and the other 2 may join them in the next week.

I'm not saying there's not elite level European teams, there is. Because we have nations like Spain and Germany etc, does that mean it should be easier for our continents no hopers like Bosnias and England to qualify than it is for exciting developing nations like Burkina Faso and Jamaica? They couldn't do any worse, could they? And they'd add some diversity to the tournament.

Why this disparity? Why this accident of geography? It you're lucky enough to be close to a lot of elite teams you should get more qualifying spots?

It's the World Cup, it should be for the World. It's not the European Championships plus invited guests.

So why not just award 6 places to each federation and make the hosts qualify? That'd be the fairest way - it's the World Cup, it should be for the world.

Or maybe it's a competition and should feature the best teams. The current amount of spots awarded to each confederation usually mean the best teams qualify (Burkina Faso & Jamaica are dross & would bring nothing to the World Cup other than 3 easy wins for everyone else). There are some poor teams from every confederation, but the Europeans usually do best out of them all.

As bad as Bosnia & England (you're clearly trolling with your comment insinuating England are on the same level or worse than Burkina Faso or Jamaica - this is the first group stage they've not qualified from in ages) are, Cameroon, Honduras & Australia are just as bad (actually worse IMO).

Oh and Brazil didn't qualify for this world cup - CONMEBOL had 4 qualifiers and 1 from a play off.

Edited by JM1
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Serious diddy teams like Bosnia and Greece?

It's time FIFA opened up the World Cup to the world. It's ridiculously difficult to qualify from Africa and Asia and it shouldn't be.

I can play this game...................

Cameroon, Australia & Honduras, all heading home with South Korea probably joining them.

Really, you must do better.

See Post above for a balanced view.

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So why not just award 6 places to each federation and make the hosts qualify? That'd be the fairest way - it's the World Cup, it should be for the world.

Or maybe it's a competition and should feature the best teams. The current amount of spots awarded to each confederation usually mean the best teams qualify (Burkina Faso & Jamaica are dross & would bring nothing to the World Cup other than 3 easy wins for everyone else). There are some poor teams from every confederation, but the Europeans usually do best out of them all.

As bad as Bosnia & England (you're clearly trolling with your comment insinuating England are on the same level or worse than Burkina Faso or Jamaica - this is the first group stage they've not qualified from in ages) are, Cameroon, Honduras & Australia are just as bad (actually worse IMO).

Oh and Brazil didn't qualify for this world cup - they had 4 qualifiers and 1 from a play off.

Your first point isn't a bad idea, though the hosts have to qualify. You could perhaps reduce the host continents spot by 1.

Your point about Burkina Faso is extremely ignorant and disrespectful. They reached the final of the African Cup of Nations in 2013 and beat Ghana in the semi final.

Did Germany - an elite European team - have an easy win against Ghana last week?

Panama would have been in the playoff against New Zealand instead of Mexico had it not been been for a last minute goal. Did Croatia have an easy win against Mexico last night? No, they got a pasting.

I can tell you don't watch much non European football. Thankfully, FIFA do, and there's an appetite among these nations too open up the World Cup to other nations.

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I can play this game...................

Cameroon, Australia & Honduras, all heading home with South Korea probably joining them.

Really, you must do better.

See Post above for a balanced view.

Cameroon are an outlier. They had internal issues and underperformed, kind of like France last time.

Australia have been brilliant for the tournament. Despite getting a very difficult group they were very competitive in their opening 2 games. They've probably scored the goal of the tournament and beaten finalists Holland had to come from behind to narrowly beat them.

Honduras had 10 men against France, and then lost to a South American team.

South Korea drew with Russia and then lost to an African team... Yet more case for less Europeans!

You're not doing a great job of defending UEFA here!

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Your first point isn't a bad idea, though the hosts have to qualify. You could perhaps reduce the host continents spot by 1.

Your point about Burkina Faso is extremely ignorant and disrespectful. They reached the final of the African Cup of Nations in 2013 and beat Ghana in the semi final.

Did Germany - an elite European team - have an easy win against Ghana last week?

Panama would have been in the playoff against New Zealand instead of Mexico had it not been been for a last minute goal. Did Croatia have an easy win against Mexico last night? No, they got a pasting.

I can tell you don't watch much non European football. Thankfully, FIFA do, and there's an appetite among these nations too open up the World Cup to other nations.

Need to be nations with money then

That's all fitba has came down to

Europe is where the money is apart from the Yanks of course

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Your first point isn't a bad idea, though the hosts have to qualify. You could perhaps reduce the host continents spot by 1.

Your point about Burkina Faso is extremely ignorant and disrespectful. They reached the final of the African Cup of Nations in 2013 and beat Ghana in the semi final.

Did Germany - an elite European team - have an easy win against Ghana last week?

Panama would have been in the playoff against New Zealand instead of Mexico had it not been been for a last minute goal. Did Croatia have an easy win against Mexico last night? No, they got a pasting.

I can tell you don't watch much non European football. Thankfully, FIFA do, and there's an appetite among these nations too open up the World Cup to other nations.

You couldn't actually be any more wrong about watching non-European football. I'm actually going to Morocco in January for the African Nations & have been to quite a few games outside of Europe. I know that sounds wanky & a bit Stuart Dickson-y, but it's a fact.

St. Mirren beat Celtic 4-0 a few seasons ago, does that mean they were better than Celtic that season?

I've already stated European teams often fail to do as well in South America, but they're quite clearly the strongest Confederation.

The 5 African qualifiers lost a total of 5 games out of 50 when qualifying for the tournament. There's not a lot of strength in that confederation.

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Your first point isn't a bad idea, though the hosts have to qualify. You could perhaps reduce the host continents spot by 1.

Your point about Burkina Faso is extremely ignorant and disrespectful. They reached the final of the African Cup of Nations in 2013 and beat Ghana in the semi final.

Did Germany - an elite European team - have an easy win against Ghana last week?

Panama would have been in the playoff against New Zealand instead of Mexico had it not been been for a last minute goal. Did Croatia have an easy win against Mexico last night? No, they got a pasting.

I can tell you don't watch much non European football. Thankfully, FIFA do, and there's an appetite among these nations too open up the World Cup to other nations.

You continually mention lucky or unlucky goals to suit your view.

That's a good idea, forget the goals, just let someone decide who the better team was, sorted.

You also come up with reasons to justify poor performances by teams from other federations.

Maybe you should try for a "best excuses" team to win the world cup? lol.gif

As I mentioned, there have been plenty of teams from other federations who were simply poor/rotten/shite.

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Cameroon are an outlier. They had internal issues and underperformed, kind of like France last time.

Australia have been brilliant for the tournament. Despite getting a very difficult group they were very competitive in their opening 2 games. They've probably scored the goal of the tournament and beaten finalists Holland had to come from behind to narrowly beat them.

Honduras had 10 men against France, and then lost to a South American team.

South Korea drew with Russia and then lost to an African team... Yet more case for less Europeans!

You're not doing a great job of defending UEFA here!

Irony? All of the above are OUT or as good as! lol.gif

Longer and longer list of excuses.

Results, that's what win world cups.

PS Don't FIFA run the world cup? whistling.gif

Edited by faraway saint
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You couldn't actually be any more wrong about watching non-European football. I'm actually going to Morocco in January for the African Nations & have been to quite a few games outside of Europe. I know that sounds wanky & a bit Stuart Dickson-y, but it's a fact.

St. Mirren beat Celtic 4-0 a few seasons ago, does that mean they were better than Celtic that season?

I've already stated European teams often fail to do as well in South America, but they're quite clearly the strongest Confederation.

The 5 African qualifiers lost a total of 5 games out of 50 when qualifying for the tournament. There's not a lot of strength in that confederation.

Well how can you say that the runners up in the African Nations Championship would be 3 easy games then? Surely you can see what an ignorant comment that is?

3 of the 5 African teams (Algeria, Nigeria and Cote D'Ivoire) look set to qualify, Ghana could sneak in. That's a far higher percentage making it through than the European teams will have.

The African qualification is ludicrously difficult. 10 group winners play off in 5 two legged sudden death playoffs for 5 spots.

Meanwhile a no hoper like England only has to finish top of a group containing such heavyweights as Montengro, Poland, San Marino, Moldova and Ukraine to go straight in.

This clear disparity isn't good for the tournament and it isn't good for the development of world football.

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Irony? All of the above are OUT or as good as! lol.gif

Longer and longer list of excuses.

Results, that's what win world cups.

PS Don't FIFA run the world cup? whistling.gif

Well the teams you list as going out aren't going out due to strong European teams ... Duh.

Yes FIFA run the World Cup, UEFA is one of the continental associations that send teams to it, like CONCACAF and CONMEBOL. It's the UEFA teams that are getting a showing up.

Edited by TopCat
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You continually mention lucky or unlucky goals to suit your view.

That's a good idea, forget the goals, just let someone decide who the better team was, sorted.

You also come up with reasons to justify poor performances by teams from other federations.

Maybe you should try for a "best excuses" team to win the world cup? lol.gif

As I mentioned, there have been plenty of teams from other federations who were simply poor/rotten/shite.

Point is that if CONCACAF had an extra slot Panama could be here instead of someone like Bosnia or England. Would they have done any worse?

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The African qualification is ludicrously difficult. 10 group winners play off in 5 two legged sudden death playoffs for 5 spots.

CAF decide the qualification format though - they could change it & make it a knockout tournament if they wanted (although as I've said, the teams who qualified won 90% of their games in doing so).

The strength of the confederation is my problem. From the African nations I've watched over the years, the quality once you get away from the main traditional African teams isn't great. The AFC is even worse - Japan, South Korea & Australia (good decision from them to move from Oceania to Asia - guaranteed World Cup qualification for the next few World Cups) will easily qualify for the next few tournaments due to the massive gulf in quality. All of them are struggling to qualify for the last 16 and I'd say this is likely due to a poor quality confederation (& shite management by Zaccheroni against 10 man Greece).

Finally, you earlier said 6 qualifiers for each confederations would be a good idea - Denmark, Sweden, Poland, Czech Republic & Serbia are stronger nations than anything Oceania can or will ever produce.

The 2018 World Cup will see the non-elite European teams do well. I've no doubt about that.

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Cote D'Ivoire

Can anyone explain why Ivory Coast are the only team at the world cup to be referred to in their native language? Seen Cote D'Ivoire used a number of times on graphics etc but all other teams are named In English. Is there a reason for this oddity?

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You couldn't actually be any more wrong about watching non-European football. I'm actually going to Morocco in January for the African Nations & have been to quite a few games outside of Europe. I know that sounds wanky & a bit Stuart Dickson-y, but it's a fact.

St. Mirren beat Celtic 4-0 a few seasons ago, does that mean they were better than Celtic that season?

I've already stated European teams often fail to do as well in South America, but they're quite clearly the strongest Confederation.

The 5 African qualifiers lost a total of 5 games out of 50 when qualifying for the tournament. There's not a lot of strength in that confederation.

Post of the week laugh.pnglaugh.pnglaugh.png

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How's that £1000 you put on Holland getting on? whistling.gif

£1300 on sunday july 13 when holland beat brazil or germany in the final, that'll do me bye1.gif

I don't bother with these ten bob each ways on fùck knows who to beat couldnie care less

Edited by murray street
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