No outstanding teams in this World Cup

J

jonny_greenings_sock

Well-known member
Not sure this is one of those years like Spain 2010 or France 1998 where we’ll remember the names of every player from the winning team.

It’s been a great tournament with loads of fun games, but I don’t think there’s a classic best team who are on their way to win it.

France have the most talented players and best balance by a stretch. They did coming into it but I thought off-field drama and the curse of retaining the trophy might derail them. The only time they’ve really been stretched was against us, and they’ve been in second gear a lot of the time. I still don’t think this Argentina team is very good - they seem to be getting by on fumes, a favourable draw, very occasional moments of Messi tribute magic and lots of penalties, plus the emergence of Alvarez who looks a player. It feels the whole team want to win it for Messi, which is nice.

Think the abiding memory of this WC will be my pre-tournament picks Morocco, they’re probably the only team who will live in the memory and really excelled. Holland and Japan also did well and Luka Modric for me is player of the tournament, just superb. The stats don’t show it, but to the eye he was sensational.
 
I agree. I think a lot of sides are quite weak (on paper at least) compared to some of their previous squads they've fielded in the competition.

France and England head and shoulders above anything else in my opinion. France's experience (particularly of winning stuff) the main difference between them.

The other top sides have a few star players, but glaring gaps in some positions. Not many superstar strikers.

In France 98 for example (one of my favourite world cups) you had Suker, Batistuta, Vieri, Ronaldo, Bergkamp, Bebeto, Klinsmann, Bierhoff, Shearer, Owen, Kluivert, Mijatovic......

And that's before you get onto the attacking midfielders on display like Zidane, Rivaldo, Figo etc.

There's no comparison.
 
Both finalists have had favourable draws if you're going down that route.

France have played Australia, Denmark, Tunisia, Poland, England and Morocco.

There's only England in there who you'd have as a difficult opponent on paper.

They lost to Tunisia, and were thankful for the opposition having rank bad finishing in every knockout match.
 
I agree that it seems weaker. France have the strongest squad and it would have been even stronger had they not had injuries. They are missing Benzema, Kante, Pogba, Nkunku, Hernandez & Kimpembe.

A lot of the "big" players at this world cup are getting on a bit now. Messi, Ronaldo, Modric, Lewandowski, Giroud, Suarez, Cavani, Thiago Silva, Dani Alves, Pepe etc. They shouldn't be the stars of their teams anymore but many of them still are.

I do wonder if we have just had our perceptions of excellence changed by Messi & Ronaldo. They have really raised the bar on what we expect from the best players. They have taken 2 of the top 3 in the Ballon d'Or shortlists for so long we're not looking at as many other players as being as good as previous generations when in reality they probably are.

There are obviously some of the top players in World football that aren't there this year because their countries didn't qualify (Haaland, Salah, Luis Diaz, all Italians) and then the injured (the French ones mentioned, Mane, Dybala just fit enough for a cameo in the Semi Final so far etc).

There are some very promising young players who are still living in the shadows at club level of some of the aforementioned players. Teams like England, Spain and Brazil have a lot of very good young players but they haven't got far enough to shine. Their time will come.
 
There's a strong argument for England being the best side at the competition. Took contentious (incorrect) decisions and a whole slice of french luck to beat us. Argentina have largely been good, Brazil have shown flashes. Other than that much of a muchness.
 
Nano said:
I agree that it seems weaker. France have the strongest squad and it would have been even stronger had they not had injuries. They are missing Benzema, Kante, Pogba, Nkunku, Hernandez & Kimpembe.
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I think that it was a happy accident that Pogba and Benzema were injured as Giroud and Tchouameni have been very good for them.
 
I think club football has changed our perspective on what a great team looks like.

20-30 years ago, a club side could not hope to have the same quality in depth as a strong international side. However, the finances of modern football have meant that top clubs can now buy, pay and field 2 top quality sides if they want to. Mere nations are stuck with whoever their country happens to produce.

For my money, it's made for a more interesting tournament. If there's an outstanding team, you pretty much know who's going to win. However, France have show vulnerability in semi- and quater-finals, lost a dead rubber to Tunisia, and already conceded twice as many goals as Spain did in 2010. For the first time in a few tournaments, I'm not confident in calling the final.

Meanwhile, having watched the semis, would it be fair to argue England as the 3rd best team in the tournament? There's always an element of luck of the draw in these things, but I think we'd have beaten either of the losing semifinalists.
 
It's no secret that the best team doesn't always win the tournament.

Neither France and Argentina have looked brilliant and they have both been on the right side of luck this tournament.

I do think the standard overall has been poor.

I know I am biased as an England supporter, but I genuinely do think we were the best team in it. We were stitched up against France with the officiating, however we still had that second penalty which gave us a huge chance to take the game into ET/penalties, so we can't really have too many complaints.
 
Frozen Horse said:
I think club football has changed our perspective on what a great team looks like.

20-30 years ago, a club side could not hope to have the same quality in depth as a strong international side. However, the finances of modern football have meant that top clubs can now buy, pay and field 2 top quality sides if they want to. Mere nations are stuck with whoever their country happens to produce.

For my money, it's made for a more interesting tournament. If there's an outstanding team, you pretty much know who's going to win. However, France have show vulnerability in semi- and quater-finals, lost a dead rubber to Tunisia, and already conceded twice as many goals as Spain did in 2010. For the first time in a few tournaments, I'm not confident in calling the final.

Meanwhile, having watched the semis, would it be fair to argue England as the 3rd best team in the tournament? There's always an element of luck of the draw in these things, but I think we'd have beaten either of the losing semifinalists.
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I had a look last night on Betfair and they had Argentina and France both at 2.92 and the draw at 3.1. You don't see many matches that close to call.
 
TeaCider said:
Both finalists have had favourable draws if you're going down that route.

France have played Australia, Denmark, Tunisia, Poland, England and Morocco.

There's only England in there who you'd have as a difficult opponent on paper.

They lost to Tunisia, and were thankful for the opposition having rank bad finishing in every knockout match.
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Denmark are proven, strong performers. As for Argentina, to come back from a first match defeat to get to the final shows incredible resilience and nerve.
 
fmttmadmin said:
Denmark are proven, strong performers. As for Argentina, to come back from a first match defeat to get to the final shows incredible resilience and nerve.
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Denmark rode a wave of emotion to a semi-final last year after losing their first 2 matches.

Barring that, which I don't think you can detach from the Eriksen situation, they've done very little in the last 20 years.

They finished bottom of their group this year, managing a draw against Tunisia.

They're not a particularly good team.
 
Nano said:
I had a look last night on Betfair and they had Argentina and France both at 2.92 and the draw at 3.1. You don't see many matches that close to call.
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Was that after the match?

I think France's poor performance against Morocco has probably shifted the odds a fair bit.

Whilst Argentina took apart Croatia without ever really looking threatened.

Neither team has been consistently great through the tournament, it's hard to call.
 
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TeaCider said:
Was that after the match?

I think France's poor performance against Morocco has probably shifted the odds a fair bit.

Whilst Argentina took apart Croatia without every really looking threatened.

Neither team has been consistently great through the tournament, it's hard to call.
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Not do sure France performance was what I would class as poor. You do Morocco a bit of a disservice. I thought they were excellent and proved it was no fluke them eliminating both Spain and Portugal.

France got the early goal and sat back inviting Morocco on. It was Morocco who had to take the initiative.

I cant call the final. I have no doubts though that they are the best two sides in the tournament.
 
Cardiffdaffs said:
Not do sure France performance was what I would class as poor. You do Morocco a bit of a disservice. I thought they were excellent and proved it was no fluke them eliminating both Spain and Portugal.

France got the early goal and sat back inviting Morocco on. It was Morocco who had to take the initiative.

I cant call the final. I have no doubts though that they are the best two sides in the tournament.
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That wasn't a criticism of Morocco, they were the better team last night and let down by poor finishing.

But them playing well doesn't contradict France playing poorly.
 
agree, the overall standard of football has been poor, with a few good performances & no one team being too far above the rest: maybe a good thing.

Morocco have been good to see, in a Greece 2004 way.. though far better football..
 
I don't think it will go down as a great world cup, but I've very much enjoyed it.

It's been the championship of world cups: lower on quality, but more competitive and unpredictable than the PL.

Ideally you want quality, competitiveness and unpredictability, but that's a hard blend to achieve.
 
TeaCider said:
Denmark rode a wave of emotion to a semi-final last year after losing their first 2 matches.

Barring that, which I don't think you can detach from the Eriksen situation, they've done very little in the last 20 years.

They finished bottom of their group this year, managing a draw against Tunisia.

They're not a particularly good team.
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They definitely underperformed for me (albeit overperformed at the Euros). They're currently ranked 10th in the world so quarters shouldn't have been beyond them.

There is some real quality in their squad but I think they lost the swashbuckling style from the Euros and reverted to being quite a solid, defensive side which ultimately cost them. They do lack depth up top too, although Olsen is definitely one for the future.
 
It's been a weird world cup for me. You're normally waiting for the group stages to finish so it can get exciting, but this time it was the other way round.
I reckon there's a definite lack of top teams, you always used to have several really good ones, your Holland's, your Germany's, your Brazil's etc but it's not like that now. Have also got sick of the commentators wetting themselves over the largely well past their best big name players like Messi and the never as good as hyped like Neymar.
Argentina v France as a final is like a Man U v Chelsea cup final, I don't want either team to win 🙍
 
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