worst world cup ever?

[PlasticRoyale]

Would Champions League teams beat world cup teams?

[Row Z Royal]

Would Champions League teams beat world cup teams?

Some. Probably. But they train and play together for months at a time.

[Thaumagurist*]

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[rfcjoe]

Whats your view on Thierry Henry then, Spaccer

[Thaumagurist*]

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[Row Z Royal]

I've bla blah blah

You're only saying that cos you're bitter about IreLOLand not being at the world cup.

You'll have to try harder than that to show him the Eire of his ways.

[papereyes]

Off of F365 but something along the lines that I've been thinking about the slow start thing

Italy 90. Winners West Germany - They started with a 4-1 win over Yugoslavia (who made it to the quarters) and then thumped UAE 5-1. Not really a slow start that.

USA 94 - Winners Brazil - Opened with a 2-0 victory over Russia and then thrashed the at that time highly rated Cameroon 3-0.

France 98 - Winners France - Won all 3 of their group games with an aggregate score of 9-1. Alright South Afrcia and Saudi Arabia aren't the greatest of competition but Denmark were no mugs.

Japan/Korea 02 - Winners Brazil - Won all 3 group games with an aggregated score of 11-3. Very slow start that. Eventual golden boot winner Ronaldo had 4 by the end of the group stage.

Germany 06 - Winners Italy. Winning 2-0 over both Ghana and the Czech Republic doesn't seem like a slow start to me. Okay drawing 1-1 with USA wasn't great but that was one of those weird games where they had 2 men sent off.

That said - the other argument - that the team that flies fastest out of the traps doesn't tend to win isn't disproved by this.

BUT

2006 had Spain and Argentina racking up big wins but then 2002 saw Germany reach the final after an 8-0 start and Brazil racked up 4 without reply in the group stages. Portugal also won big, but went out at the hands of the States.

1998 saw France win big, twice, in their group stage. Equally, Spain won 6-1 in their last game and lost out to Bulgaria and Nigeria. Other big wins were Argentina battering Jamaica. Losing finalists Brazil won their first two quite comfortably and went through top of their group (was their game to Norway a dead one as far as they were concerned?).

So I'm honestly not sure that any pattern exists, really.

[Royal Rother]

It doesn't.

People expect / want the winners to be the strongest team right from Day 1 and it simply doesn't work like that.

[Para Handy]

In the 74 WC Finals Scotland didn't play Holland, so it couldn't have been that memorable !

I meant 1978. To be fair I was slightly hammered when I wrote that post.

[LoyalRoyalFan]

2006 was the best.

[paultheroyal]

People moaning but from 17 games we have had only 2 nil nils! I expect goals goals goals from here on in 

[BenReadingFC]

and now a 3 - nil.

[TFF]

The standard of football so far hasn't been great (save the German performance) as was amply illustrated this evening with commentators and pundits tossing off over the Forlan strike which, had it not clipped a defender, would have ballooned over the bar like the every other shot from distance this tournament.

Fingers crossed for the second week.

[Seal]

Much more entertaining second round of games so far.

Can I just highlight the absolute folly of criticising the quality of a World Cup during the first round of games? Always going to be tight and cagey, the tournament only really gets going when every game results in progress or immediate elimination.

[Thaumagurist*]

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