Football Thread 21/22

[HomokHarcos]

Ka-pi96 said:

HomokHarcos said:

I probably put too much weight in what Stefan Szymanski says (heck that's where my prediction about the World Cup becoming less relevant also came from), but he predicts in the future that Brazil (and the other South Americans) will stall behind the top teams of Western Europe. I think it's already happened, loot at Brazil's results against Western European teams at World Cups since 2006.
0-1 vs. France
0-0 vs. Portugal
1-2 vs. the Netherlands
1-7 vs. Germanu
0-3 vs. the Netherlands
1-1 vs. Switzerland
1-2 vs. Belgium

That makes 0 wins, 2 draws and 5 losses.

Before 2010 the only time two consecutive World Cups were won by a European team was 1934 and 1938. 2018 will mark the fourth consecutive time a European team wins the World Cup.

Who?

Anyway, I think you're being far too pessimistic. Brazil haven't had the best results against western European teams recently, but it's only a matter of time before they start winning again. Or hey maybe they'll come up against Andorra or something and then they'll surely win Look at the players Brazil have available to them still and the potential future players they have. Nearly every top European club has a a Brazilian player, there's still a huge amount of talent from Brazil for pretty much ever position. And in the future you've got players like Vinícius Júnior coming along too, I know nothing about the lad but if Real Madrid were willing to pay €45 million for a 17 year old there must be something special about him.

Besides, what about Argentina? They haven't really got as good a squad as Brazil and didn't in 2014 either yet they knockout out 3 of those western European teams you listed (Switzerland, Belgium and the Netherlands). If they can do that then Brazil are certainly capable of it too, and possibly Argentina again as well.

Then what about China too? They're pretty crappy now, and probably will be for awhile yet. But they're aiming to be the #1 team in the world by 2050. I very much doubt they'll actually manage that. But them becoming one of the world's stronger teams eventually seems almost inevitable to me.

He's a sports economist.

I'm hoping Brazil can rebound. They certainly haven't had the squad like the Ronaldo era yet again. Really they send players all over the world, so they should always be a contender.

He explained China too with something he calls the middle performance trap. If you know what the middle income trap is, it's when a poor increases it's standard of living quickly to become much middle income, but then gets stuck and can't reach high standards of living. He thinks the same thing happens with marginal footballing countries. Look at the USA and Japan. In the 1990s after the founding of the J. League and MLS, both went from not even qualifying for a World Cup to regularly making the Round of 16, but then they both get stuck there and stagnate. A similar thing will probably happen for China. He predicted that I felt a new contender emerges it will be what he called the core: Western Europe (and that already happened with Belgium).

I'm probably way too invested in this.

Last edited by HomokHarcos - on 07 July 2018