Hi Filho,
So many points to respond to!! And I'm such a short poster as a rule! Therefore very briefly I'll just point out some of the flaws in your thinking!!
I wouldn't disagree with most of your thinking, however to call the World Cup a longer and physically more strenuous journey is false. How can it be more strenuous when the group games are relatively simple for most of the top seeded teams?? These are just warm up games for what follows in the knock out stages, you don't get that in the European Championship!! In Portugal 2004 we had in the first round France, Croatia and Switzerland to get past before any knock out stages. And the only difference in the length of the competition is one game!! Come on be realistic! Then to call the European competition easier to create a home atmosphere is false too. remember it works for both teams which it doesn't do in the WC!! Therefore this geographical argument is neutralised. In fact it's better for teams like us in the WC than it is in Europe!!
The argument you use for the cream rising to the top doesn't work either. This WC probably followed a bit of form but still didn't see the best teams reaching the final. No serious arguments about France or Italy but neither side has done very much in competition for some time. If you take the previous WC two very poor sides reached the Final, Brazil & Germany. In fact Germany getting that far was a real travesty when they failed to qualify for the WC automatically and had to play off against the Ukraine. Even teams like Korea managed far better performances than they realistically held hopes for. The WC generally throws up more wild-cards and lucky teams than the European ever does. Yes I will agree that Greece winning the last European was criminal but it generally doesn't work like that.
Finally, (this is a long post for me!!!) to count the number of World Cups won by various continents is again a false argument. Because of the time scales, every 4 years & on different Continents then some of the really old stuff can't count. In reality anything prior to 1966 is often considered to be irrelevant and for many reasons, i.e. the qualifying format, the size of the competition, the teams declining to enter etc. The South American sides won many of the earlier WC's when European teams didnt (wouldn't) enter. Just check the stats for recent WC's and see how many European teams get to the quarter final and semi final stage!! I would agree with Argentina and Brazil being classified as real WC contenders, but you tell me who else can rightly claim to be serious contenders from anywhere else but Europe!!
Finally, finally, just check out how many really good European teams do not get into the WC finals despite holding very high World rankings. Because of the qualifying format many good European sides are left by the wayside in order to give the WC a more balanced global look. Some countries qualify for the WC but would never get past the qualifying games for a European competition.
Sorry for the long post!!!
Nice post Ocky. I agree with some of your points but not all
1) Cool geographic advantage argument neutralized
2) I think in most cases of the modern WC, there may be 1 'easy' group team if any. 90 minutes against a mediocre team is still more strenuous than no game at all. And to add that weaker teams tend to be more physical, you do not have an easy game and that's 90 more minutes to potentially get injured, or suspended. The only teams that got absolutely spanked this WC were European.
3) When I say the cream rises to the top, I didn't mean that the most talented team always wins...how boring is that? I just meant it is more difficult for an upstart to win it because that extra game reduces the probability of a fluke or the effect of temporary form...ever so slightly. You cannot imagine Greece or Denmark realistically winning the WC...(By the way...that is by no means a good thing..the more surprises the better) Calling Germany and Brazil poor in WC 2002 is ridiculous...they were good, just noone expected them to be after their poor qualifying campaigns...C'mon Brazil absolutely toyed with England, even with 10 men on their way to a deserved win and Germany played like.....well...Germany. France won in 1998 and Italy won in 1982, played in the semis in 1990 and final in 1994. Between them They've won 3 of the last 7 world cups and at least one appeared in 4 of the last 7 finals...you are tough.
4) Funny you should choose 1966 to start when the WC became relevant. When did England win again?
Just kidding Poor choice anyway. Since a South American actually won on European soil in 1958...it actually should count given your argument..It must have been an extraordinary achievement as most of the sides had to be European and travel must have been a beeyatch for those Brazilians. And there probably wasn't a samba drum or bare ass to be seen for miles. So in that case..European teams are even further behind their Latin counterparts...unless you want to say that winning the Copa America is harder than winning the European Cup? didn't think so.
5) FIFA rankings are crap..did you see the US rankings before the WC? Weren't the Czech Republic ranked 2 in the world...where was Ghana ranked? This really isn't a question of who has the most stacked federation. This is only relevant for the group stage argument which we've covered already.
6) Your point about how many European teams make it to the quarters and semis. well..it doesn't matter if 15 of the last 16 teams are European.In fact you're actually arguing that the WC final stages are harder than the Euro final stages, since your basically playing against the best teams in Europe who are either the best in the world, or not quite as good as one of the two best teams in South America. I think it's fair to say if you threw Argentina and Brazil into the European Championships it would be more difficult for a European team to win all the time. We may not agree about the group stages, but I can't see how you can't agree that the knockout pahse of the WC is likely to be a little more difficult than that of the Euro
Sorry for the long response as well. We could go on and on because it really is a matter of opinion and I like the points you amke. The problem is that no points in htis kind of argument are really free form counterpoint (I was just feeling generous about the whole home advantage thing to show I'm a good sport
)
Good luck in Euro2008. C'mon everybody..let's all do the Crouchy