2014 FIFA World Cup Finals Discussion

Every summer Man United are linking to almost every German international player, I wouldn't get your hopes up yet

Tough start for Liverpool though with Southampton (H), Man City (A) and Spurs (A). Only a related note Cardiff got a really tough start down in the Championship with Blackburn, Huddersfield, Wigan, Wolves and Fulham

What's everyones prediction for tonight's games? I think we'll see wins for Holland, Spain and Croatia. In the Spain game my heart says Chile but the more I think about it the more I think people are writing off Spain too quickly. For the majority of the first half they were dominating the game against Holland, and had they had gone 2-0 up through David Silva they would have likely killed the game off and won comfortably, then Casillas capitulated in the second half which made the result look at lot worse. If they finish second in their group, I think they face Brazil who I honestly think they could beat, I still think that overall they probably have a better chance in the competition than Holland.

The way they are playing I guess Brazil might repeat the results of 2006 and 2010 of being able to qualify for the quarter finals and getting kicked out of the world cup. Playing at home would be extremely embarrassing but that's the way it appears to be going...

In football there is always a lot of uncertainty, even a significantly weaker team can win against a stronger one. However I would bet on Brazil if they faced Spain. Their team this year is not as strong as in 2010.

Chile is also a strong team so I wouldn't be so sure that Spain beats it.

Oh, I know. However, at least there seems to be some truth in Khedira leaving Real, so he's got to go somewhere. There's also a story about Hummels 'deciding' to stay at Dortmond. Which is great, as he's been leaving every summer for the past three years.

With VG at the club, I expect the Dutch more than the Germans to come over, but I'm not expecting any big names this summer.

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I think both teams are similar in that their teams haven't changed much and they've struggled to integrate newer players into the team, and their weakest position is upfront (Diego Costa is great, but not fully fit). Fred is utterly useless, and the over reliance on Neymar is ridiculous. I think yesterday Scolari was happy to play for the draw, with his team selection (Ramires at RM and Oscar deeper on the left). We still haven't see the best from, same with Spain who I think people might be writing off to quickly. I think it would be a very interesting game so early on with both having to up their game probably from the group stages.

Anyway, what a f*cking hit Tim Cahill!

Any chance this RVP can show up at Old Trafford this year? He likes the manager, so maybe he'll decide to show up.

Wonderful goal by Cahill. There's still a chance the Aussies can nick a draw out of this.

Here we go. I still don't see why Spain can't win the tournament, but if they lose here it's all over. This was always going to be a good game, but it's important now, too. I hope it's not a stinker. If Chile score first, things could get really, really interesting.

annnnnnd they are out.I'm really happy,why?Because people are talking about Spain like they talked about Brazil before world cup started...

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“By definition, you have to live until you die. Better to make that life as complete and enjoyable an experience as possible, in case death is shite, which I suspect it will be.”

What, as one of the best teams in the world? That's because they are. Like Brazil, they've been poor at this world cup, but I think that has as much to do with confidence as it does anything else. Though, in Spain's case, Chile worked fantastically hard all evening but, once again, had Spain taken a couple of gilt edged chances, things might've been different.

I said to my physio last week that Spain might simply surrcomb due to having played non-stop for the last 6 years. But I didn't for a second think it'd be in the group stages. Semi's or final, sure, but not at the start.

BTW, did anyone else declare Spain out of the tournament the moment Busquets missed that sitter.

Who'd have thought it. Spain out before England. I'd have taken that before the start of the World Cup. Now, it doesn't sound as good.

*edit* First Chile goal now the best goal of the tournament?

*Edit* Seeing as no one else is here, who'd have thought that Spain would be out after two games, having conceded seven goals, only scoring one (and that a penalty) and Casillas making three or four mistakes resulting in goals. Do you think Del Bosque is questioning himself and his selection? Or just thinking "what if...?"

Also, this is the second World Cup in a row that England have been in the tournament longer than the previous Champions.

CHA-CHING

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Too weird to live, and too rare to die.

Always loved Cahill - Skilful and hard as nails. Always thought he left top flight football a couple of years too early.

A mate of mine did some charity work with him and apparently he's a lovely bloke too - He flew into darkest Tyrone for a little kid's birthday party (who he was helping raise money for) unannounced hours after he'd been playing for Everton and stayed all evening. No press, just a big lump of cash and signed gear.

RIP Spain? When the spine of a great side begin to age is when a manager really earns his corn. Whoever Del Bosque's replacement is (can't see him staying, or even wanting to) might have a few retirements to ease the swing of his axe but all things come to an end.

Pity it was with such a whimper though.

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"Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how the Tatty 100 is done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves." - Brendan Behan

That is my point,people just ignore long season they had,as you said they played for 6 years.They can be best team in the world,with best players etc but they are out.Same happened when I said that Brazil wont have good world cup,everyone attacked me but I was correct.People just ignore friendly games,they ignore long seasons etc they just see first eleven and they think that is it(not saying you do that.)

I understand where you're coming from, but Brazil are still in the competition and will, almost certainly, go through. Obviously anything less than a win in their home country will been seen as a disappointment.

Spain are also six years older and there just aren't the players coming through to replace, let's be honest, some of the best players that've ever played the game.

Spain were just poor last night, though. Still could've gotten a result, had things gone their way, but poor nonetheless.

Spain in 2010 was like Hungary in 1954. Just a particular generation of players that was much stronger than other generations from the same country.

And in 1998 France won, in 2002 they left without scoring, in 2006 Italy won, in 2010, Italy left in the group stage. In 2010, Spain won, in 2014, Spain left the group stage. European countries national teams usually have a particularly strong vintage of players when they win the world cup, afterwards their new vintage is weaker and the old vintage is well, old, so the team is naturally weaker.

Brazil, however, is a country of 200 million people that produces a huge number of great football players (Brazil is the most populous country where football is the national sport), hence, in every world cup Brazil always has a strong team. That's why they won more world cups and are always the favorites: we pick the 11 players out of a population 200 million while Spain, France, England, Italy and Argentina pick 11 out of a population of 40 - 60 million people (that's why FIFA's chairman once said that if the best team always won Brazil would have won 16 world cups). While Germany has been the second strongest national football team since the 1950's simply because Germany is the second most populous country that plays football.

Also, for Brazil, losing the world cup is always considered a disappointment, at home or not. We even had the joke that politicians would get reelected if the national team won the world cup and wouldn't if they lost. Though in reality if appears to be the inverse: in 1994 we won, the president didn't get reelected (he was impeached actually ) In 1998, we lost, and the president got reelected, in 2002, we won, and the ruling political party was out of the government, in 2006 and 2010, we lost both and in both cases the ruling political party got reelected. I sure hope we win this time as to remove this corrupt political party from power.

Value of the national teams playing the world cup in million euros:



On paper, it appears that with Spain out the strongest team in market value is Germany. Brazil is right after but note that France and Argentina are close by. Spain was overvalued though, since the team was older so the older players tend to be overvalued, while Brazil's team is very young so the team tends to be undervalued.

Shame to tie with Mexico which is a second rate team by market valuation. Though in that match we had 9 chances and Mexico had 3 (shoots inside the goal), usually that would yield a score of 2-0 or 2-1. For comparison in Australia and Netherlands the number of shoots inside the goal was 13-8 and the score was 3-2.

Yeah, football doesn't work like that. I mean, the better teams usually win and the better players usually cost the most, but I think it's mental as much as anything else at that level.

Does anyone think that Spain are that bad? They're not and, in cup competition, upsets happen a lot more often and having a bad day means you're out.

Only Guap would think "market valuation" has anything to do with the outcome of a World Cup match.

Anyway, from the terrible draw I got in our pool Belgium is my best hope to win. So, go Belgium!

Uruguay! Pure elan. They don't play the best football on a technical level but they never give up.

Ok, England and Spain are already out. So main competitors are getting kicked out one by one from this cup. I guess putting only second rate teams in some groups while putting 3 world champions in one group was meant to increase the chances of we getting a Brazil-Argentina final.

^ England are not out yet, depending on the next few games in our group. We need Italy in our group to win their next two games and then England winning against Costa Rica, something like that.

Fingers crossed.

Looking at the tables it appears that ignoring the home ground factor Germany is the favorite to win right now. The strongest team that they can face before the semi-finals is Belgium, which is strong right now but it has little tradition (which matters in world cup for some reason), then they just need to beat probably Brazil in the semi-final and probably Argentina in the final (or maybe France or Italy).