The Football Thread - 17/18 Season

[Slimebeast]

RolStoppable said:

Slimebeast said:

You bring up a very interesting subject! Everytime somebody won, it's so interesting to see what will be "the talk" going into the next tournament.

I remember Greece had sort of a cocky aura around them (fans mostly) and even some level of expectations among some experts after they had won Euro 2004 when they were playing the pre-tournament Confederations Cup, being invited as Euro champions. But then they didn't even qualify for the World Cup itself. That kind of settled the matter.

If we consider the fact that all the big nations or quite equal in power, so in the sense that there are about 10 nations having a good chance at winning any World Cup, in that sense Portugal today strengthened its position to be one of the favorites.

But when we are talking about what you really mean, when two or three nations are being widely talked about as the favorites, like France and Brazil were mentioned before the World Cup 1998, like Germany and Brazil were mentioned before World Cup 2002, and like Spain was before 2010 and 2014, then no, Portugal won't be regarded as that strong favorites by anybody.

But I think there's a lot of psychology in this, so they certainly could have passed a number of nations in some minds, like Argentina who just lost, and Belgium who nearly made a fiasco, two teams that are a bit better on paper.

So let's see, possible favorites to win World Cup in Russia 2018:

Germany
Spain
France
Brazil

Portugal
Argentina
Belgium
Italy

Poland
Holland
England
Chile
Croatia

So yeah, with a little stretching I could see Portugal get into the top 5.

I could see the talk go like this: people will mention three or four equally strong favorite teams and Portugal thanks to winning Euro 2016 will be constantly be mentioned just after those as the "outsider" or "dark horse". That's the kind of respect they gained today.

After Greece won Euro 2004, nobody expected anything big from them for the next World Cup. Everyone knew they overachieved big time.

Germany wasn't a favorite for the World Cup in 2002. That was the most recent dark era of German football. At Euro 2000 they were sent home with one point in the group stage, for World Cup 2002 they had to go through the playoffs because they finished behind Turkey in the qualifying group. It was a miracle that they got to the final in 2002, but they had a lot of luck in every imaginable sense. IIRC their road to the final was Saudi Arabia, Ireland, Cameroon, Paraguay, USA and South Korea. Two years later at Euro 2004 Germany got eliminated in the group stage again.

As for Portugal, it's unlikely that anyone will consider them a favorite for the next World Cup. Their defense is already old (part of the team will have to be rebuilt out of necessity) and Ronaldo will be 33. The dark horse status is likely, but that isn't any different than in the last decade. Nothing will change. Portugal has reached at least the quarter finals in almost all of the tournaments of the last 16 years. It's not like this Euro title came completely out of nowhere.

That's why I wrote that there's a lot of psychology involved.

Nobody expected Greece to go far in World Cup 2006 had they qualified, but I remember the respect in how they were talked about by the experts on our TV. For a little while Greece was a respectable team after years of being laughing stock.

Oh, Germany had a dark time 2002? I didn't remember that, sorry. For which torunaments were they mentioned as favorites? 2006 obviously being hosts, but what else? Nearly every time they are among the favorites.

WC Italy 1990 I think Argentina, Germany and Italy were the favorites beforehand, and Brazil a little bit.

It's interesting what you say about Portugal and the generational shift. It certainly looks like they can soon be in trouble.

What I largely mean is, that if you watch the telly, and the commentators and experts, or it could be your IRL friends too, and they name their favorites they're hardly gonna list all the 10-11 teams that have a chance to win. But thanks to Portugal being champions they often will be expressly mentioned as the dark horse, no matter if the chance in reality is exactly the same as it has been in the last decade like you say.