Is the World Cup still the pinnacle of the game?

RobinHood said:
Bayern v Germany?

PSG v France?

Dunno what the rules are to this though... Like if the clubs could play their local players (i.e. German or French players) then I suppose the clubs would have the edge
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I was just taking it as an imaginary situation where 2 of the player exists thus plays for both the team and the country.

As I said, I think there's little difference in terms of quality between Bayern and Germany, and I don't think PSG have a better side then France.
 
Annihilate Now! said:
I was just taking it as an imaginary situation where 2 of the player exists thus plays for both the team and the country.

As I said, I think there's little difference in terms of quality between Bayern and Germany, and I don't think PSG have a better side then France.
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My bad, didn't fully read that. Yeah I agree with you though.
 
In terms of media coverage and tv rights money, the WC is still the major event. That's why FIFA keeps adding more teams to the competition.

More teams = more countries interested in having WC tv rights which is = to more coutries willing to pay more for those rights.
 
Annihilate Now! said:
I think you were in the minority there to be fair.

Most people regarded it as an incredibly entertaining tournament at the time, and is remembered as such.
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You could argue that it was acceptable, but 'incredibly entertaining' it certainly was not.
 
shield said:
You could argue that it was acceptable, but 'incredibly entertaining' it certainly was not.
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Yea, people seem to forget the group stage matches and focus only on the knockout matches when thinking about the UCL, while the WC gets criticized for the quality of their group matches.

Germany v Spain is just as good as Bayern v Madrid, the friendly they played recently was fantastic to watch.
 
shield said:
You could argue that it was acceptable, but 'incredibly entertaining' it certainly was not.
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http://www.skysports.com/football/news/12098/9371324/why-brazil-2014-is-the-best-world-cup-ever

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/f...-this-the-greatest-tournament-of-all-Yes.html

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/28268842

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/wo...0-reasons-Brazil-2014-best-World-Cup-ever.htm

Even on here at the time everyone was constantly praising the tournament... saying it was brilliant / the tournament that kept giving etc.

https://www.redcafe.net/threads/world-cup-2014-review.393433/


Charlie Foley said:
My memory is that tournament got worse as it went on
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The quarters, semi's and final weren't great - though they did contain the 7-1, and Brazil vs. Columbia... but that's only 7 games out of the whole thing.
 
Annihilate Now! said:
http://www.skysports.com/football/news/12098/9371324/why-brazil-2014-is-the-best-world-cup-ever

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/f...-this-the-greatest-tournament-of-all-Yes.html

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/28268842

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/wo...0-reasons-Brazil-2014-best-World-Cup-ever.htm

Even on here at the time everyone was constantly praising the tournament... saying it was brilliant / the tournament that kept giving etc.

https://www.redcafe.net/threads/world-cup-2014-review.393433/




The quarters, semi's and final weren't great - though they did contain the 7-1, and Brazil vs. Columbia... but that's only 7 games out of the whole thing.
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Yeah I wasn't disagreeing just stating my memory. I thought the group stages were great. It really seemed to slow as the tournament went deeper though. Argentina and Netherlands had poor knockout games throughout with some late goals/shoutouts causing excitement. 7-1 was remarkable and memorable but not a great game. Brazil Colombia was good!and Brazil Chile . The tournament missed Chile and Colombia after that.
 
Annihilate Now! said:
http://www.skysports.com/football/news/12098/9371324/why-brazil-2014-is-the-best-world-cup-ever

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/f...-this-the-greatest-tournament-of-all-Yes.html

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/28268842

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/wo...0-reasons-Brazil-2014-best-World-Cup-ever.htm

Even on here at the time everyone was constantly praising the tournament... saying it was brilliant / the tournament that kept giving etc.

https://www.redcafe.net/threads/world-cup-2014-review.393433/
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Problem is, those articles are comparing world cup tournaments and among these, the last WC might be considered to be one of the better ones, but still not good as 2006 for me (The Caf thread has about 11 posts, so we can ignore that)

Also, these articles reflect opinions, and you will always find some people who considered the last WC to be good, just like you will find people saying 2006 was the best, or 1998 etc.

From what I remember, it started slowly, then we saw a lot of goals in the group stages and things started looked promising, but then the final stages were quite disappointing, apart from the obvious 7-1 match. All in all, it wan't bad, but I still think that 'incredibly entertaining' is a stretch.

Even in the last Euro, like other international matches, there were so many big names and I was expecting much more, but I was disappointed with the number of misplaced passes and general caginess. The players are passionate and they really want to give their absolute best but, we can clearly see that things are not falling in place, because of limited training sessions, lack of awareness of how their team mates play etc. There is a lot of passion and celebration but the teams don't funtion like the well oiled machines like City, Madrid or even Liverpool (we unfortunately are still a work in progress).

CL football is still the best for me.
 
what is more important just depends on the level of investment you have in it for me. I like seeing countries and players i wouldn't otherwise ever watch once every 4 years for what feels like a truly global village kind of event even if it may not be qualitatively the very best that the sport has to offer, some CL games and the biggest PL matches entertain a lot more than a NT that doesn't have much time to gel.
 
Annihilate Now! said:
http://www.skysports.com/football/news/12098/9371324/why-brazil-2014-is-the-best-world-cup-ever

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/f...-this-the-greatest-tournament-of-all-Yes.html

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/28268842

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/wo...0-reasons-Brazil-2014-best-World-Cup-ever.htm

Even on here at the time everyone was constantly praising the tournament... saying it was brilliant / the tournament that kept giving etc.

https://www.redcafe.net/threads/world-cup-2014-review.393433/




The quarters, semi's and final weren't great - though they did contain the 7-1, and Brazil vs. Columbia... but that's only 7 games out of the whole thing.
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There's a lot of recency bias though, people were writing those articles in the heat of the moment, sitting in already paid for plush 5 star hotels along the copacabana in a football mad country.

I've been reading recent threads (including one on here) about which was the GOAT world cup, very few people now call the 2014 the GOAT world cup if you read the thread (although a lot did at the time). It was a good one, better than most, but not the GOAT.

You say "oh its only 7 games", but the knockout games are the most defining games, the ones that people most remember, and thus there's a lot more weighting put onto them.

1982 is a strong GOAT contender because not only does it have a really high goals per game average (2.81, highest since 1970) it also had classics like W.Germany 3-3 France, Italy 3-2 Brazil, Argentina 1-3 Brazil, Italy 3-1 Germany etc.
 
You cannot buy the passion of the world cup. Cl is just rich boys winning. Look at Mexico today, one cannot buy that. Quality may lack sometimes but the passion supersedes everything.
 
AshRK said:
You cannot buy the passion of the world cup. Cl is just rich boys winning. Look at Mexico today, one cannot buy that. Quality may lack sometimes but the passion supersedes everything.
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You rarely see bench clearing celebrations in the club game. In clubs, at the end of the day it's a job and the players on the bench mostly are thinking they want to be playing. Clearly this happens in international football but ultimately the national pride and passion takes over, and it's what makes these tournaments special.
 
The quality is nowhere near what it is at club level, so no - it's not the pinnacle of he sport. Although the prestige of winning it is probably greater than any sporting competition in the world.
 
World cup at least has a little romance left. Champions league is like watching team MC Donald's Vs team Apple.
 
Annihilate Now! said:
This is a huge overstatement.

I mean lets take Bayern... would they destroy Germany? Considering it's pretty much exactly the same back 5 (minus a left back)

Then you've got a midfield of Toni Kroos, Gundogan, Reus, Ozil and Muller... is that really any worse then Bayerns midfield? (Martinez, Vidal, Robben, Muller, James) ... I wouldn't say so. Certainly not to the point where they'd be "destroyed" anyway....

Then up front its Lewa vs. Werner.... Lewa is obviously better, but Werner is hardly crap.

So yeah, beat? Probably... destroy? No way.
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You saw the game yesterday right? You can't just throw in a bunch of big names and expect them to perform. Bayern trains and plays together just waaaaay more often than the NT and that is also why they would destroy the NT. I mean that's pretty logical if you think both teams are on the same level ability wise.
I can't see how Bayern would lost that game in such a way against a team like Mexico.
 
Now that we have seen most of the national teams in round 1 of the group stages, some of the games reminds me of pre qualification to the Champions League and one of the games, needs no mention was as a good as a great Champions league SF or Final.
Some of the games are forgetful and painful to watch with too many of the smaller countries playing for a draw, however unlike the Champions League, results like Iceland drawing with Argentina, Mexico beating Germany and Switzerland holding Brazil are far more common now in WC tournament football than they are in the CL and that's what creates more nationalistic pride and passion elevating the tournament to an unmissable spectacle!

One thing I definitely know that if you bet on all the Champions league 3rd and 4th seeds in September to qualify or win their groups , you will lose lots of money but so far my current Lucky 15's bet to qualify from the groups of Iceland, Serbia, Peru and Senegal doesn't look the worst bet in the world and my lucky 15 bet to win the groups of Russia, Denmark, Mexico and Switzerland looks positively inspired......I'll leave the forum that to ponder when deciding what is a great spectacle?
 
The CL knock-out games aregenerally much more dynamic.

Argentina ran the other deay 100km. That's pathetic. Liverpool, Bayern, Spurs run 120km in some CL games.
 
Treble said:
The CL knock-out games aregenerally much more dynamic.

Argentina ran the other deay 100km. That's pathetic. Liverpool, Bayern, Spurs run 120km in some CL games.
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Dunno - depends on the context. Those high pressing and counter-attacking teams have got good reasons to cover more ground, whereas Argentina had 72% of the ball against a low block. By contrast Barcelona's CL average last year was 104k. And that's in a winter season, not the 26C it was in Moscow on Saturday.
 
Imo it’s only (or mostly) people in the uk who tend to think CL can be compared to WC in terms of prestige and it being pinnacle of the game, you won’t find too many people across the globe who would relate.
 
Gio said:
Dunno - depends on the context. Those high pressing and counter-attacking teams have got good reasons to cover more ground, whereas Argentina had 72% of the ball against a low block. By contrast Barcelona's CL average last year was 104k. And that's in a winter season, not the 26C it was in Moscow on Saturday.
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There's a reason why Barca crashed out vs Roma. They run only 102km in that game. They struggled already vs Chelsea and were very lucky to win the tie with 3 goals.

There's a reason why Liverpool managed to stop City too. They out ran them.

I greatly enjoeyed Spain vs Portugal though.
 
For the amount of pressure on the players i think the World Cup is still the toughest comp. The CL is a nice comfort zone kickabout in comparison.

Obviously club football is generally sharper and more cohesive tactically
 
Somehow relating distance covered to results is bit silly. Arsenal and Chelsea covered more distance than City and finished way below them. West Brom were second in distance covered and they are relegated.
 
AshRK said:
You cannot buy the passion of the world cup. Cl is just rich boys winning. Look at Mexico today, one cannot buy that. Quality may lack sometimes but the passion supersedes everything.
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Transfers to the fans as well IMO. I absolutely love United, but nothing compares to the feeling I get when I see my national team lining up and hear our national anthem playing. Playing for your country means so so much more.
 
Treble said:
There's a reason why Barca crashed out vs Roma. They run only 102km in that game. They struggled already vs Chelsea and were very lucky to win the tie with 3 goals.

There's a reason why Liverpool managed to stop City too. They out ran them.

I greatly enjoeyed Spain vs Portugal though.
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Barcelona beat Roma 4-1 covering 6km less than the Italians. Distance covered is as much a product of the shape of the game than players' fitness.
 
For sure it is the top. Results like Costa Rica in the last world cup, the Mexicans beating the Germans, Argentina drawing with Iceland, all these results and the passion it brings to those countries is nothing like the CL could provide. The club football is a job. Playing for your country is a different ball game.
 
AshRK said:
You cannot buy the passion of the world cup. Cl is just rich boys winning. Look at Mexico today, one cannot buy that. Quality may lack sometimes but the passion supersedes everything.
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The quality of club football is overstated. Look at the dross the PL served up this past season. Hell, even the CL had some duds at both ends of the competition, from a quality perspective.

Yeah you'll get those games where the quality is top notch but what do you expect from months of training together and the money in the game?

And like you said, the passion of the World Cup supersedes all of that.

Only supporters of a top club would argue that club football is the pinnacle of the sport.
 
I’m not sure about the pinnacle but I think it’s my pinnacle. About to settle in for tonight’s matches with my kids and even though we’re not emotionally invested in Sweden/Korea or Belgium/Panama I can’t remember the last time we were collectively this excited to watch a United match. After the cherry on top that was Mexico and Chicharito’s post-whistle reaction I’m now balls deep in this World Cup. It’s coming home!
 
hasanejaz88 said:
Yea, people seem to forget the group stage matches and focus only on the knockout matches when thinking about the UCL, while the WC gets criticized for the quality of their group matches.

Germany v Spain is just as good as Bayern v Madrid, the friendly they played recently was fantastic to watch.
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I'm sure the friendly was fantastic to watch but I have my doubts regarding the overall quality of those national teams as compared to the clubs.

Germany vs Spain lack Ronaldo, Bale, James, Alaba, Modric, Marcelo, Robben, Ribery, Lewandoski and in general terms the players substituting them are not better.

Robben, Lewandoski, Ribery at a younger age would be starters for Germany as well imo. And I say at at a younger age because we try to analyze a dynamic situation, and not a fixed picture with those players clearly declining.

In Spain Isco is a definite starter, so is Silva, but they would share their time between the pitch and the bench at Real Madrid.
 
In terms of prestige? Yes and always has been.

In terms of quality? No and never has been.
 
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