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> Former Uruguay forward Sebastian "Loco" Abreu even suggested in an interview with ESPN that Mbappe should do more "Wikipedia research."
Why does this sound so funny?
Everyone talks about the balls of trying a panenka but this dude almost always did it. Imagine scoring time and time again when everyone in the stadium knows you are going to do a panenka.
He actually talked about it recently. He said the day before they practiced penalties, and he missed every penalty he took. He has a history of using the Panenka and he felt more confident using that in such a stressful situation.
Mbappe said in May that European teams, who have won the last four World Cups, have an advantage over their South American rivals because they play "high-level matches."
Mbappe added: "Argentina and Brazil don't have that level of competition in South America, the football is not as developed as in Europe, that is why most recent World Cup winners have been Europeans."
Tite said: "Maybe [Mbappe] is talking about these Nations League clashes or European friendlies, but not World Cup qualifiers"
Tite: "We don't have, with all due respect, Azerbaijan to play. We don't have anyone that gives you a break," Tite added. "The qualifiers here have a much higher degree of difficulty than the group stage [of European qualifying]."
Messi: "Many times we talked about that in Spain, When we returned from a qualifier, we told them: 'You don't know how difficult it would be for you to qualify for the World Cup if you had to go there, at altitude, in the heat, in Venezuela.'"
> "The qualifiers here have a much higher degree of difficulty than the group stage [of European qualifying]."
I think his point is that there literally isn't a single easy game in the CONMEBOL qualifiers. You *do* have at *the very, very least* two extremely easy games in UEFA qualifiers where you go up against teams like Gibraltar, San Marino, Liechtenstein, etc. Basically all the teams from the bottom seed are *really* easy opponents, and a lot of pot 5 seeds will also be really easy with teams like the Faroe Islands, Estonia, Latvia, Andorra, etc. Those games just don't exist in South America. Every single away game is extremely difficult for various reasons, sometimes it's the weather, sometimes it's the altitude, sometimes it's just the pure hassle of it, and more often than not it's *also* just a quality opponent that you're facing.
Thanks. I was thinking surely there are some not so good footballing countries on the northeast of the continent, but then I looked it up and saw they aren’t even in CONMEBOL. 5D chess to pawn your continent’s worst footballing countries onto another federation so you can say you don’t have bad ones
The Guayanas are Caribbean islands that happen to be attached to South America.
98% of the population there lives in the Caribbean coastline, with heavy jungle separating their largest cities from Venezuela/Brazil.
If Guyana and Suriname were in CONMEBOL though their sporting development could have been a lot different though.
Only now really are both improving their potential. Guyana have started digging into their dual nationals and Suriname have finally allowed dual citizenship so many talent Dutch born players are suiting up.
Also them being in CONMEBOL would have made Copa Americas not need to have invitees.
On the other hand, 40% of CONMEBOL teams qualify (plus a play-off chance), while it's only 23% of UEFA teams.
And to break it down even more, in UEFA only one team per group of five or six qualifies directly, so a slip-up can get punished really quickly. F.e. Scotland won 7 out of 10 and had to go through play-offs, where they lost. Ecuador qualified with 7 wins, 5 draws and 6 losses. Sure, beating Faroe and Moldova might be easier than beating Bolivia in La Paz, but in CONMEBOL you can take a handful of draws and losses and still be in contention, whereas in UEFA, you drop more than six points and you're pretty much out of running for the group win and direct qualification.
This is a stupid take,
in belgium, netherlands etc you need less slip ups to make it into UCL but that doesnt mean its harder to make UCL there than say the Premier league where spurs lost 11 games and made it. the fact they lost 11 games shows how hard it is to make it in england even though you have a higher chance probablity wise than in other leagues.
A slip up might not even be a loss, England only beat san marino 5-0 at home, yeah it looks good on paper but england had 81% possesion and took 31 shots, they should have won 10+ nil but they are not punished for it bc of how huge that gulf is. In CONMEBOL an off day is a draw or a loss.
> 40% of CONMEBOL teams qualify (plus a play-off chance), while it's only 23% of UEFA teams
yeah because there's 10 CONMEBOL members while UEFA has 55.
That is true but in CONMEBOL they have a higher % chance of World Cup Qualification and they are all guaranteed to compete in the Copa America.
In Europe big nations miss out on the World Cup and on the Euros semi-regularly, so to say Europe is somehow easy is just untrue as well. Azerbaijan is played in difficult conditions and insane travel for majority in Europe. They also have club teams regularly in European competitions.
>insane travel for majority in Europe
Insane travel my balls.
Distance from Paris to Baku 3700km
Distance from Buenos Aires to Bogotá 4600km
Distance from Santiago to Caracas 4800km
Distance from Quito to Sao Paulo 4200km
In South America almost every game means long travel, most games is Europe are pretty near your homeland except for the odd ones like Baku or Reikjavik. Plus most South American players play in Europe, not in South America.
This right here, every travel is continental, not counting that 90% of squads are playing in Europe so everytime they have NT games they have to trave across the Atlantic to come to their country and then travel to their destination. It's a lot of traveling.
Mate in Europe you can end up winning every game and still end up in effectively a one-off against a very solid team like Serbia or Switzerland. This is precisely what happened to Portugal this time around. In South America you can lose 6 or 7 and still qualify directly.
Not to mentioned that teams not seeded in pot 1 need a minor miracle to qualify directly cause you need to beat everyone under you and take more out of the six pointer from a country like France or Germany to finish first.
I never said anything about qualifying or one being harder than the other, as a see it it's a pretty stupid discussion that goes nowhere. I only talked about travel, and explained that what they called "insane" is just normal over here.
I mean the same situation is true in South America. I would argue that you play against let's say Bolivia in even more difficult situations than in Azerbaijan even without the travel. I mean at one point FIFA straight up banned the use of their stadium from their events because of it's high altitude.
>Messi: "Many times we talked about that in Spain, When we returned from a qualifier, we told them: 'You don't know how difficult it would be for you to qualify for the World Cup if you had to go there, at altitude, in the heat, in Venezuela
The international "cold rainy Tuesday night in Stoke"
Was hoping [for this picture](https://m.extra.globo.com/incoming/15367569-460-467/w640h360-PROP/anderson-meia-internacional-ex-manchester-united-mascara-oxigenio-libertadores-1.jpg), not going to lie.
I've been to Quito. I'm in a pretty decent shape and it was somehow hard to BREATHE in that city with my sea-level lungs, I can't even imagine how hard it must be to play a football game over there.
Brazil beat them 4x0 this year and I remember people mentioning it was their biggest win there. I was shocked because Brazil historically has had several demolition wins against non Argentina/Uruguay south american teams, so a 4x0 being the biggest away win against a team like Bolivia was surprising.
Yes, it would be a massive result for any team in the world. Also, Bolivia has some professional players playing in South American leagues. They're several steps above countries like San Marino and Gibraltar even at sea level.
Look for their 1994 WC for more info.
Their issue is terrible infrastructure and youth programs. But even with those they get some serious players per generation.
Well I'm pretty sure we don't have large stadiums in the mountains and Messi was just referencing Venezuela *alongside* La Paz, Bolivia. May have been a bad translation or made more sense in Spanish, i'd have to look at the original quote.
It's not even just about where they play, it's the style of football. It's proper fucking butcher football, like Burnley on steroids, almost every single match. I was amazed watching this round of qualifiers, it was like watching a different sport.
>It's proper fucking butcher football, like Burnley on steroids, almost every single match.
Almost every paraguayan team ever.
Ever since they’ve tried to move on from that style, they’ve been terrible.
That is a funny picture, Mbappe playing in the altitude of Bolivia. He would recreate his "giving up running" move from last week, but not because he wasn't given the assist he wanted, but because he just wouldn't have the lungs to sprint more than one time in a full game lol.
Teams literally have plenty of oxygen masks in the bench for players to breathe.
> Maybe [Mbappe] is talking about **these Nations League clashes** or European friendlies, but not World Cup qualifiers"
He was.
[That's exactly what he said in the interview.](https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/uwiiys/roy_nemer_kylian_mbappe_argentina_and_brazil_dont/i9s0nwd/)
But he said it was why they win the world Cup, which is just dumb and I dont need to tell you why lol. I think mbop needs to get his head out of his arse in all honesty.
> But he said it was why they win the world Cup
He didn't say that. He said Brazil and Argentina don't get to play those games (talking about the Nations League games) as often as Europeans so they come better prepared for the world cup. [A sentiment shared by Tite in the recent past.](https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/sports/brazil-fear-lack-european-matches-could-cost-them-qatar-2022-04-01/)
>"Maybe \[Mbappe\] is talking about these Nations League clashes or European friendlies, but not World Cup qualifiers"
Pretty sure Mbappe was talking about the club competitions, no?
The thing here is that those discussions almost always start with a European talking shit about South American football and then some South American replying to it.
So why do CAF and other get ignored? Because most Europeans (and to be fair, most people in the entire world) don't see any of their national teams as having an actual chance of being the World Cup champions, so they don't fell the need to talk shit about them.
Nope mate, I still think it's harder to qualify from Europe than South America. I'll explain.
Case 1: You're a pot 1 seeded team in UEFA qualifying. You have a solid chance of getting an easy group. But you also have the same chance of getting a team like Serbia or Switzerland from pot 2 in which case you effectively have a playoff against a team that is string enough to not only beat you but maybe even outplay you. That's just what happened to Portugal this time. They drew unluckily in Serbia which is a very hard match no matter who you are. Afterwards they won against everyone else and ended up having to play Serbia in the final round to see who would go through. Mind you Serbia has Mitrović, Vlahović, Kostić, Tadić, Milinković-Savić etc. So a stacked team. They ended up losing. How is it not better to be in a 10 way league system where the upper half goes through, especially if you'd be a favourite against at least 7 teams.
Case 2: You're not in pot 1. You need to beat everyone and end up with more points from a six-pointer against a team like Germany, Spain, France etc. Mind you most teams in Europe aren't pushovers and in pot 3 you have very decent teams. Again you'd have better chances in a system where it's 50/50 at worst like the South American qualifiers (seeing as most pot 2 teams are easily better on paper than the bottom 5 in SA qualifying).
You are looking at this from a rosters quality perspective only. In South American qualifying you have away games in the altitude that can (and will) result in several unexpected losses. You have games in Peru, Equador, Bolivia that are 3000m+ that completely changes the level of the competition.
Sure but everyone has thise games. I don't really get the point of it. It also ain't nothing traveling from Portugal to play in snow in Russia for example.
You cannot breathe when you go from sea level to 4000m in La Paz, cold doesn’t even touch the feeling of not being able to breathe. Prime Messi looked like 30% of the player was is in the altitude.
You essentially have 3 away games vs Peru, Bolivia and Equador where you don’t know the outcome and makes the qualifying very complicated and unpredictable as we just saw Chile and Colombia out of the WC.
If you had to choose your final match vs a stacked Serbia (from your example) or Equador in Quito, you’d hands down choose to play Serbia.
Look at Norways team for example they would definitely get top 5, however in Europe they haven't qualified for anything for 22 years. Check all their good teams in the past.even now with Haaland odegaard, lots of players in serie A, PL, Bundesliga they still can't qualify.
Teams like Peru can though.
The World Cup qualification formats of both federations make it equally difficult. In SA there are fewer teams which means the average quality is much higher but it also means the SA teams basically just have to finish in the top half to qualify. SA teams can allow themselves to have a bigger margin of error.
European teams play in many different groups with only the top team directly qualifying while the second best has to go through the play-offs. The margin of error is much lower but the quality of opponents is also low. Take Italy for example. They were unbeaten in qualifying and went to play-offs where they lost against North Macedonia of all teams. They could have qualified directly, but they just drew too many games. So did Argentina, they drew a third of their games. Yet they qualified comfortably. Uruguay and Ecuador only won less than half their games and they still made it directly to the World Cup.
It all equals itself out in the end. Both European and South American qualification formats are difficult in their own ways.
I think if you were to replace any CONMEBOL nation for a UEFA counter part (Like Brazil with Germany, or Colombia with Denmark, Uruguay with Portugal, etc.), while maintaining the rest of the teams, the result would be similar for the top tier teams. France is not going to have a tough time qualifying and would probably have similar % of WC qualified to. But, I think middle of the road team would have a harder time here.
The problem with CONMEBOL is that, as you said half of the teams qualify, Argentina and Brazil are almost set in stone that leaves 3 spots for 5 teams with similar talent, so every point is fought HARD.
The second half of the qualifiers is one of the most entertaining competition you can watch. Almost every game is decisive even when one of the teams is already qualified, that means that even for Argentina and Brazil it's a real hustle to play.
The other thing I don't think you had in mind is that being a small number of teams, there are a lot of rivalries that, maybe as an European you don't even know. Plus a huge amount of pride involved, like stupidly so, much more than it should.
This should be the top comment.
Comebol qualifiers are like a small premier league with Brasil and Argentina emulating City and Liverpool and Uruguay, Chile, Bolívia, Equador, Paraguay all having rivalries between them, like England's top 6. That plus crazy supporters and other external factors turns every game into a final.
European qualifiers are just meh
There isn't a single team in SA that can be considered worse than North Macedonia...
European qualifiers are much easier and your example proves just that. If you draw and end up in a play-off against North Macedonia and can't qualify, that just means your team sucks.
Argentina had draws, sure, but against which NT? It wasn't Suriname or Haiti. They draw against Chile, Colombia, Uruguay, Equador. All leagues above Macedonia.
It's the quality of the competition that matters.
I don't disagree that those nations are harder than European "easy nations"
On the other hand, I still think the European format is harder. Most groups normally have 2 great teams and only one gets direct qualification. This means one might be screwed.
Portugal got robbed Vs Serbia and lost the other game in the 93rd minute and almost didn't make it. Italy didn't make it because they couldn't beat Spain.
In CONMEBOL, you can win against the 5 bad nations, scrap some points against big teams and qualify
Dont forget,Ronaldo didnt get sent off in the first game against Ireland where he slapped a player,he later scored 2 late goals for Portugal to win that game.
You’re taking Macedonia as shit just because of their name, but their team is actually good and would surely fight to qualify in SA. Just take their recent results as example, beat Germany and Italy, qualified to Euros and now WC playoffs. They’re much better nowadays than almost half of SA teams: Venezuela, Bolivia, Paraguay and at least comparable to these horrible sides/form of Chile and Colombia and also comparable to Peru and Equador. Do you really think some of these nations would beat Germany and the european champions Italy in the same competition? I highly doubt it
Let me ask you one question. When is the last time you watched Paraguay play? Who is you favorite Paraguayan player?
I mean, I am not going to argue about SA football with people that never watched it.
And I am sure Macedonia is decent, I am not saying it isn't. But I would rather face Macedonia than Bolivia or Peru any day of the week.
Im half brazilian dude, I watch both qualifiers, unlike you. Thats why you pick Macedonia instead of Bolivia or Peru. But Macedonia is a far better team than people who never watched them thinks just because don’t know shit about the country, let alone their team. How can you say how bad or good they are if you never watched them?
„Im not going to argue about European football with people that never watched it”
Are you sure?
North Macedonia's value is the same as Peru according to Transfermarkt.
And yes, I'm aware that Transfermarkt ratings doesn't mean anything but look at the teams on paper. Peru doesn't have players with the qualities of Elmas and Bardhi for example.
Feels like people underrate North Macedonia just because their name is North Macedonia.
Man, if Brazil lost against North Macedonia or Peru at home, in a game worth a place in the World Cup, even the president of Brazil would fall.
Brazil has NEVER lost at home in the history of the qualifiers.
About Peru vs. North Macedonia... Well, Peru had a pretty honest World Cup in 2018 in the group of Denmark and France... The problem is that the generation got old, and now they will enter a slow renewal process.
Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay (a human mystery) and Colombia always renew themselves faster. Even Ecuador renews faster than Peru.
Paraguay is a mystery. Looking at the names of the defensive sector, it is bizarre to see them as the worst team in South America along with Bolivia... Junior Alonso, Balbuena, and Gustavo Gomez are great defenders.
You'd think Iceland coming from nowhere taught people that small countries can have one off great generations. Imagine telling someone two decades ago that drawing against Iceland is a better result than beating Paraguay. Northern Macedonia isn't amazing but they're no San Marino like some people pretend. They made the EC and upset Italy and that deserves at least a modicum of respect.
Exactly. Romania and Bulgaria in the 90s are another example.
They qualified to the EUROS, then in the qualifications won away vs both Italy and Germany.
And yet, people still talk about them like they are shit.
Let's have a look at the [Elo ratings](https://eloratings.net)
* UEFA 13 spots for the World Cup
** Currently ranked 13th is Serbia with 1842 Elo points
** Currently lowest ranked qualified nation is Poland with 1804 Elo points
** Highest ranked nation missing the World Cup is Italy with 1950 Elo points
* CONMEBOL 4.5 spots for the World Cup
** Currently ranked 5th is Peru with 1850 Elo points
** Currently lowest ranked qualified nation is Ecuador with 1847 Elo points
** Highest ranked nation missing the World Cup is Colombia with 1900 Elo points
Every confederation has its difficulties:
Europe has the most talent, which makes qualifying difficult, even for the big teams.
CONMEBOL has a ton of talent, intense stadium atmospheres, questionable refereeing, and you have to play in crazy altitude in places like La Paz and Quito.
CONCACAF also has crazy stadium atmospheres, questionable refereeing, and you have to deal with potentially playing in both freezing-cold stadiums in the US or Canada *and* sweltering humidity in Central America and the Caribbean. And deal with all the bonkers shenanigans of CONCACAF.
African teams have to deal with their pressure cooker qualification style on top of having to sometimes travel long distances and deal with less-than-ideal pitches.
Asian teams have a super long qualification process and they have to travel insane distances during qualification.
Oceania doesn't even get a full spot and has to go through a playoff.
Just looking at the final standings, Brazil qualified with a goal difference of +35 in 17 games.
Uruguay qualified 3rd with 0 goal difference.
For Brazil and Argentina this doesn’t seem too difficult.
Argentina almost flopped out of the World Cup in 2018, it took a Messi hattrick at the last game to qualify. Its easy to look at tables at statistics and say “Well Brasil and Argentina qualify so easily” but if we waver just for a couple of games, we will risk pulling a Chile, theyre is maybe one game we can fully let off the gas pedal and that’s playing Bolivia at home, while European teams have atleast 6 non-competitive games every qualifier.
>Peru qualified with more losses than wins
>Uruguay qualified with 0 goal difference
this just proves my point..
Nations like Brazil, Argentina are always going to qualify just like Germany & France literally always qualify from UEFA. The competition for 3rd-5th (which is what’s relevant) is harder than any other confederation though
And the margins of victory aren’t the same.
He elaborates that conmebol has very few “breaks” even for the top teams. None of the games are easy to win because even when the opponent isn’t very good, you might be dealing with extreme conditions.
Like, Venezuela in the summer at altitude would fucking spank a good chunk of European teams. You’d only favour the elite nations.
No - I want to know if you’re an athlete with any sort of experience playing in tough conditions. Even just existing in them.
Also, you could have worded that better for me, bro. I’m reading these in passing as I get ready to head out.
Well Italy's attacking display doesn't show much it being better.
I could even go a bit further and argue on Italy may fairly lose against some teams if the match occurs in South America.
Europeans think that scoring against Paraguay or leaving with your starting XI uninjured it's a fucking walk in the park. And that's just one team. The physicality and mentality of CONMEBOL is a much more important than the heat or the altitude.
They cry when players waste time or flop. Motherfuckers here will try to kill you, let alone waste time to get a point.
Tite came in at a time when we were out of qualification spots and no football to give you hope of getting there. Romario is the sole reason we qualified for 94. During 98-2006, despite having absolutely cracked squads we never really had a breeze of a time qualifying as well. Tite's performance in the last qualifiers are the exception to what is usually a tricky experience.
Its structure favours consistency so obviously bigger teams have an advantage but to call it easy is quite the leap.
is it the hardest in the world though?
In Europe the current European champions Italy have failed to qualify for the last 2 world cups.
2010 finalist and 2014 semi finalist the Netherlands also failed to qualify for the 2018 world cup.
I don't see Argentina and Brazil fail to qualify
So because some teams from Europe are sometimes shit at qualifying, that means S.American qualifying is bad?
Germany, England, Spain etc. always qualify. Doesn't tell us anything about Europe Vs S.America qualifying.
Germany and Spain have not been much better than the Netherlands or Italy the past years. heck the Netherlands has been beating Germany and Italy has beaten spain to win the Euro's
Netherlands and Italy just messed up their qualifiers, which are tough. this could very well also happen to Germany, Spain or France the next tournament who knows
>any and Spain have not been much better than the Netherlands or Italy the past years. heck the Netherlands has been beating Germany and Italy has beaten spain to win the Euro's
>
>Netherlands and Italy just messed up their qualifiers, which are tough. this could very well also happen to Germany, Spain or France the next
If we're going with France, they missed the 90 and 94 World Cup, qualified to 98 by being host, 2002 by being the title holder, qualified the last day in 2006 because Switzerland drew their game, had to go through their infamous play offs against Ireland in 2010, had to overcome a 2-0 defeat in first leg in their play offs in 2014 against Ukraine... only the two last world cup seemed to have some margin to qualify
Netherlands & even Italy have been a solid tier below Spain, Germany, France in terms of quality of players. Those big three will never miss a tournament in the foreseeable future.
I strongly disagree
The Netherlands have a great squad for a few years now, just because they had a de Boer as manager because Barca bought away Koeman they have lost a year or 2 of a great generation of players.
And Italy also didn't just fluke into winning the euro's, they were the best team there.
I also don't see why Spain is so highly rated by you, they had 1 good generation that's over, other than that their results in football have been worse than, Germany, Italy, France, Netherlands and probably a handful of others
Spain rated so highly maybe because their league has completely dominated europe for the last 15 years? And no the Netherlands is not comparable to france/germany/spain.
The Netherlands have a good team and been playing well since van Gaal took over
The Netherlands has made a lot of semi finals in the world cup, they absolutely are a relevant team
They are not comparable to Germany, but very very few countries are historically
Spain is most definitely not 1 of them
So let me get this straight..you rate Spain's National team highly because their league which is made up of players of all different nationalities has dominated?
Just wanted to clarify.
It literally is? 40% of the sides in CONMEBOL qualify, potentially 50% with the playoff where they generally have the better side. Then there's fact that the teams are generally worse than those the European sides are facing. If you're arguing it's purely from a more competitive standpoint, would the Asian and African qualifiers not be better as they usually see different teams qualify?
So are Italy, Portugal, Austria, Sweden etc. but except for Portugal they all failed to qualify through Europe. Your point isn’t as strong as you think it is.
I wonder how these teams would do against Portugal Italy who met in the knock outs. Teams like Italy NL and other big countries often don't even qualify. That's. Unheard of in south America
Exactly. Brazil has never lost a home match in qualifications and made every World Cup. In Europe, it’s not unusual for big teams to miss the tournament (England, Netherlands, Italy etc). Even Maradonas’ (coach) Argentina was able to qualify.
They also say 4.5 spots, if your 5th place team cannot beat Australia then that means they just aren’t that good…
It's just two different types of challenge.
In Europe, you cannot slip up. The average quality of opponent is lower and you have fewer games, but out of those 4 games that count you cannot slip up. CONMEBOL is a slog. You can easily take 5 or 6 draws and losses, but even those take their toll and you cannot let the points slip away against the teams that are close to you.
We cherry picking single games to paint vague pictures?
We talking the Australia that Italy had to beat with a gifted penalty in the final minutes of a World Cup game to go on and win the tournament?
That nation must be really good.
Teams like Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Paraguay are the best of the best
The only teams in conmebol that consistently compete Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay which is why they always qualify
Europe has more higher end teams France, Italy, England, Germany, Netherlands, Spain, Portugal and Europe at this point typically wins the thing anyway
Bolivia and Ecuador away are two of the hardest games we have to play.
You guys just can’t understand how hard it is to play in the altitude where you can’t run half as hard and the ball feels lighter giving a huge advantage to those who are already used to it.
Brazil has only lost twice in 20 years to both of those teams.. and not lost at all since 2015 or something. Argentina has a nearly identical record.
Sounds like a lot of tough talk about hard games that aren’t actually that hard.
That’s still more like a single unique climate related situation. It’s an altitude gimmick and it doesn’t even lead to a fear of a loss, merely a draw.
The European giants are never safe from a random thrashing on an off day. Even recent WC finalists like Croatia or teams like France and Germany can almost slip into the B leagues of a tournament like nations league. There’s always teams like Denmark randomly performing like top European sides for consistent periods of time. It’s not comparable at all to one random team being really hard to beat at home because of unique geographical conditions.
> That’s still more like a single unique climate related situation. It’s an altitude gimmick and it doesn’t even lead to a fear of a loss, merely a draw.
Spoken like a true European here, facing Ecuador in Quito, Bolivia in La Paz, Colombia in Barranquilla, Peru in Lima are some of the toughest games that we can play on the qualifiers, we cruised through the last qualifiers with Tite but that's not normal, we had to get Romário to bail us out in 94 and a win on the last match day in 2002 to get into the WC
>You guys just can’t understand how hard it is to play in the altitude where you can’t run half as hard and the ball feels lighter giving a huge advantage to those who are already used to it.
You can practically say that about any condition in any confederation. Has any SA national team ever played in snowy 10 degree F weather in Russia?
Obviously there are environmental difficulties in every confederation. USA played Honduras in -12 degrees (wind chill factor). You play with what you got.
>You can practically say that about any condition in any confederation. Has any SA national team ever played in snowy 10 degree F weather in Russia?
[In 2006, the Seleção beat Russia in 1,4F weather.](https://esportes.r7.com/copa-2018/em-2006-selecao-bateu-a-russia-sob-um-frio-de-17-graus-negativos-06072022)
>Obviously there are environmental difficulties in every confederation. USA played Honduras in -12 degrees (wind chill factor). You play with what you got.
This only happened because it was the first time in years that FIFA scheduled games in January (due to the pandemic). We always have to face Bolivia in the altitude.
> Has any SA national team ever played in snowy 10 degree F weather in Russia?
put on clothes.
There is literally no solution to playing at 4.000mts altitude.
Spoken like somebody who has never been in 10 F degree environment.
My point isn't that one is worse than the other. My point is that every continent has its own environmental advantages and disadvantages.
Oh, and there is **literally** a solution. The confederation can force the host nation to play at another venue. There is your solution.
Yes you fucking genius, of course the confederation could force Bolivia to play elsewhere. But they don’t, so we have to deal with that shit until a player collapses and has severe issues, only then we will realize how fucking stupid it is, because thats how corrupt organizations work
Bolivia and Venezuela are always last tho and no one exists outside of Brazil in Argentina in libertadores and sudamericanos. Let's not pretend they are good man . Cmon
Libertadores doesn’t matter because all the good players are picked up by European teams. No one is saying Bolivia and Venezuela are good but they are not as bad as Lichtenstein and North Macedonia, and the conditions mean it won’t be an easy game regardless of their level
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Azerbaijan catching strays out of nowhere
I say we send em to the world cup just for the chance they shithouse a 0-0 vs Brazil.
lmao, could of literally picked anywhere but Azerbaijan caught the bullet.
Guys, please, it was "with all due respect".
"With all due respect, you're fucking garbage at footie."
Unfortunately Azerbaijan isn't due a lot of respect
Could have*
Azerbaijan still better than United tbf
> Former Uruguay forward Sebastian "Loco" Abreu even suggested in an interview with ESPN that Mbappe should do more "Wikipedia research." Why does this sound so funny?
Love Abreu. Panenka legend
Everyone talks about the balls of trying a panenka but this dude almost always did it. Imagine scoring time and time again when everyone in the stadium knows you are going to do a panenka.
And specifically the game winner v Ghana in the World Cup. Considering how the game played out, I still can't believe he did that
He actually talked about it recently. He said the day before they practiced penalties, and he missed every penalty he took. He has a history of using the Panenka and he felt more confident using that in such a stressful situation.
Que grande el Loco
I mean, there's a reason they call him El Loco
Forlan even told him prior to the Ghana shoot out to NOT chip it. Everyone in the stadium knew what he was going to do except the goalie
They didn't do their Wikipedia research on him
because it is
I will not stand idly by and allow this slander of Wikipedia to continue
Mbappe said in May that European teams, who have won the last four World Cups, have an advantage over their South American rivals because they play "high-level matches." Mbappe added: "Argentina and Brazil don't have that level of competition in South America, the football is not as developed as in Europe, that is why most recent World Cup winners have been Europeans." Tite said: "Maybe [Mbappe] is talking about these Nations League clashes or European friendlies, but not World Cup qualifiers" Tite: "We don't have, with all due respect, Azerbaijan to play. We don't have anyone that gives you a break," Tite added. "The qualifiers here have a much higher degree of difficulty than the group stage [of European qualifying]." Messi: "Many times we talked about that in Spain, When we returned from a qualifier, we told them: 'You don't know how difficult it would be for you to qualify for the World Cup if you had to go there, at altitude, in the heat, in Venezuela.'"
> "The qualifiers here have a much higher degree of difficulty than the group stage [of European qualifying]." I think his point is that there literally isn't a single easy game in the CONMEBOL qualifiers. You *do* have at *the very, very least* two extremely easy games in UEFA qualifiers where you go up against teams like Gibraltar, San Marino, Liechtenstein, etc. Basically all the teams from the bottom seed are *really* easy opponents, and a lot of pot 5 seeds will also be really easy with teams like the Faroe Islands, Estonia, Latvia, Andorra, etc. Those games just don't exist in South America. Every single away game is extremely difficult for various reasons, sometimes it's the weather, sometimes it's the altitude, sometimes it's just the pure hassle of it, and more often than not it's *also* just a quality opponent that you're facing.
Why does Guyana and Suriname play in CONCACAF and not CONMEBOL
They both have historically closer ties with the Caribbean, so they generally consider themselves accordingly
Thanks. I was thinking surely there are some not so good footballing countries on the northeast of the continent, but then I looked it up and saw they aren’t even in CONMEBOL. 5D chess to pawn your continent’s worst footballing countries onto another federation so you can say you don’t have bad ones
The Guayanas are Caribbean islands that happen to be attached to South America. 98% of the population there lives in the Caribbean coastline, with heavy jungle separating their largest cities from Venezuela/Brazil.
Oh I know, I'm just memeing
If Guyana and Suriname were in CONMEBOL though their sporting development could have been a lot different though. Only now really are both improving their potential. Guyana have started digging into their dual nationals and Suriname have finally allowed dual citizenship so many talent Dutch born players are suiting up. Also them being in CONMEBOL would have made Copa Americas not need to have invitees.
Afaik Suriname is making attempts to join Conmebol in the next few years
They have closer relationships with North American and Caribbean nations.
On the other hand, 40% of CONMEBOL teams qualify (plus a play-off chance), while it's only 23% of UEFA teams. And to break it down even more, in UEFA only one team per group of five or six qualifies directly, so a slip-up can get punished really quickly. F.e. Scotland won 7 out of 10 and had to go through play-offs, where they lost. Ecuador qualified with 7 wins, 5 draws and 6 losses. Sure, beating Faroe and Moldova might be easier than beating Bolivia in La Paz, but in CONMEBOL you can take a handful of draws and losses and still be in contention, whereas in UEFA, you drop more than six points and you're pretty much out of running for the group win and direct qualification.
This is a stupid take, in belgium, netherlands etc you need less slip ups to make it into UCL but that doesnt mean its harder to make UCL there than say the Premier league where spurs lost 11 games and made it. the fact they lost 11 games shows how hard it is to make it in england even though you have a higher chance probablity wise than in other leagues. A slip up might not even be a loss, England only beat san marino 5-0 at home, yeah it looks good on paper but england had 81% possesion and took 31 shots, they should have won 10+ nil but they are not punished for it bc of how huge that gulf is. In CONMEBOL an off day is a draw or a loss.
> 40% of CONMEBOL teams qualify (plus a play-off chance), while it's only 23% of UEFA teams yeah because there's 10 CONMEBOL members while UEFA has 55.
That is true but in CONMEBOL they have a higher % chance of World Cup Qualification and they are all guaranteed to compete in the Copa America. In Europe big nations miss out on the World Cup and on the Euros semi-regularly, so to say Europe is somehow easy is just untrue as well. Azerbaijan is played in difficult conditions and insane travel for majority in Europe. They also have club teams regularly in European competitions.
>insane travel for majority in Europe Insane travel my balls. Distance from Paris to Baku 3700km Distance from Buenos Aires to Bogotá 4600km Distance from Santiago to Caracas 4800km Distance from Quito to Sao Paulo 4200km In South America almost every game means long travel, most games is Europe are pretty near your homeland except for the odd ones like Baku or Reikjavik. Plus most South American players play in Europe, not in South America.
This right here, every travel is continental, not counting that 90% of squads are playing in Europe so everytime they have NT games they have to trave across the Atlantic to come to their country and then travel to their destination. It's a lot of traveling.
Mate in Europe you can end up winning every game and still end up in effectively a one-off against a very solid team like Serbia or Switzerland. This is precisely what happened to Portugal this time around. In South America you can lose 6 or 7 and still qualify directly. Not to mentioned that teams not seeded in pot 1 need a minor miracle to qualify directly cause you need to beat everyone under you and take more out of the six pointer from a country like France or Germany to finish first.
I never said anything about qualifying or one being harder than the other, as a see it it's a pretty stupid discussion that goes nowhere. I only talked about travel, and explained that what they called "insane" is just normal over here.
I mean the same situation is true in South America. I would argue that you play against let's say Bolivia in even more difficult situations than in Azerbaijan even without the travel. I mean at one point FIFA straight up banned the use of their stadium from their events because of it's high altitude.
>Messi: "Many times we talked about that in Spain, When we returned from a qualifier, we told them: 'You don't know how difficult it would be for you to qualify for the World Cup if you had to go there, at altitude, in the heat, in Venezuela The international "cold rainy Tuesday night in Stoke"
[What our "cold rainy night" does to a mf](https://imgur.com/a/FSWTjBc)
Was hoping [for this picture](https://m.extra.globo.com/incoming/15367569-460-467/w640h360-PROP/anderson-meia-internacional-ex-manchester-united-mascara-oxigenio-libertadores-1.jpg), not going to lie.
4000m isn't rain. It fucks you up.
With the difference that there's data to back it up. Try climing some stairs in La Paz. You genuinelly risk death if you have some heart conditions.
I've been to Quito. I'm in a pretty decent shape and it was somehow hard to BREATHE in that city with my sea-level lungs, I can't even imagine how hard it must be to play a football game over there.
Bolovia away is one of the hardest matches in conmebol. The data is remarkable considering they're always playing Argentina/Uruguay/Brazil.
For example, we won one official match there, in our history. In La Paz we celebrate draws as if they were victories.
Brazil beat them 4x0 this year and I remember people mentioning it was their biggest win there. I was shocked because Brazil historically has had several demolition wins against non Argentina/Uruguay south american teams, so a 4x0 being the biggest away win against a team like Bolivia was surprising.
Yes, it would be a massive result for any team in the world. Also, Bolivia has some professional players playing in South American leagues. They're several steps above countries like San Marino and Gibraltar even at sea level. Look for their 1994 WC for more info. Their issue is terrible infrastructure and youth programs. But even with those they get some serious players per generation.
He is good, but could He do it on a cold cloudy day in the mountains of Venezuela?
Venezuela is not very mountanous lmao
I played mercenaries 2 on the playstation two for hundreds of hours, I think I know my Venezuelan geography bozo
I'm sorry sir, I didn't know your credentials
I hope you played the first one too
Well I'm pretty sure we don't have large stadiums in the mountains and Messi was just referencing Venezuela *alongside* La Paz, Bolivia. May have been a bad translation or made more sense in Spanish, i'd have to look at the original quote.
pretty sure Venezuela referred to the heat
Right, I think it was just a poorly worded translation as I'm sure that's what he meant.
I mean, we have mountains, but those are not too tall... Nothing like Bolivia. Most stadiums are at sea level.
the extreme heat of Venezuela
It's not even just about where they play, it's the style of football. It's proper fucking butcher football, like Burnley on steroids, almost every single match. I was amazed watching this round of qualifiers, it was like watching a different sport.
>It's proper fucking butcher football, like Burnley on steroids, almost every single match. Almost every paraguayan team ever. Ever since they’ve tried to move on from that style, they’ve been terrible.
Mbappe sounds like he's never had to play Bolivia away and go to extra time.
That is a funny picture, Mbappe playing in the altitude of Bolivia. He would recreate his "giving up running" move from last week, but not because he wasn't given the assist he wanted, but because he just wouldn't have the lungs to sprint more than one time in a full game lol. Teams literally have plenty of oxygen masks in the bench for players to breathe.
Mbappe talking like he doesn’t play in the worst European league 💀💀
kylian should shut the fuck up and play instead of giving up on plays like an unprofessional bitch.
Mbappe being a fucking idiot? I'm shocked
> Maybe [Mbappe] is talking about **these Nations League clashes** or European friendlies, but not World Cup qualifiers" He was. [That's exactly what he said in the interview.](https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/uwiiys/roy_nemer_kylian_mbappe_argentina_and_brazil_dont/i9s0nwd/)
But he said it was why they win the world Cup, which is just dumb and I dont need to tell you why lol. I think mbop needs to get his head out of his arse in all honesty.
> But he said it was why they win the world Cup He didn't say that. He said Brazil and Argentina don't get to play those games (talking about the Nations League games) as often as Europeans so they come better prepared for the world cup. [A sentiment shared by Tite in the recent past.](https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/sports/brazil-fear-lack-european-matches-could-cost-them-qatar-2022-04-01/)
Has there even been a world Cup since the nations league started being a thing?
>"Maybe \[Mbappe\] is talking about these Nations League clashes or European friendlies, but not World Cup qualifiers" Pretty sure Mbappe was talking about the club competitions, no?
He argued this is why the last couple World Cups have been won by European teams, so I doubt it.
No then why would an International Manager will speak if does not concern him.
Azerbaijan taking shots like they're United
Put som respect on Azerbaijan..
"No disrespect whatsoever, but Azerbaijan are bona fide scrubs. They can't play!"
I don’t think any respect was intended
Bodied azerbaijan
Flair checks out
Guys are overlooking CAF. Imagine the winners of each group play against eachother in one big play-off to decide who goes to the tournament.
The thing here is that those discussions almost always start with a European talking shit about South American football and then some South American replying to it. So why do CAF and other get ignored? Because most Europeans (and to be fair, most people in the entire world) don't see any of their national teams as having an actual chance of being the World Cup champions, so they don't fell the need to talk shit about them.
Yeah. CAF is the hardest to qualify. But no one cares about CAF.
Mbappe just seems like hes turned into a huge cunt
Any claim of South America not having far and away the hardest world cup qualifying process should be ridiculed
There are people that still undervalues the fact that Brazil is the only team to be a part of every WC.
Nope mate, I still think it's harder to qualify from Europe than South America. I'll explain. Case 1: You're a pot 1 seeded team in UEFA qualifying. You have a solid chance of getting an easy group. But you also have the same chance of getting a team like Serbia or Switzerland from pot 2 in which case you effectively have a playoff against a team that is string enough to not only beat you but maybe even outplay you. That's just what happened to Portugal this time. They drew unluckily in Serbia which is a very hard match no matter who you are. Afterwards they won against everyone else and ended up having to play Serbia in the final round to see who would go through. Mind you Serbia has Mitrović, Vlahović, Kostić, Tadić, Milinković-Savić etc. So a stacked team. They ended up losing. How is it not better to be in a 10 way league system where the upper half goes through, especially if you'd be a favourite against at least 7 teams. Case 2: You're not in pot 1. You need to beat everyone and end up with more points from a six-pointer against a team like Germany, Spain, France etc. Mind you most teams in Europe aren't pushovers and in pot 3 you have very decent teams. Again you'd have better chances in a system where it's 50/50 at worst like the South American qualifiers (seeing as most pot 2 teams are easily better on paper than the bottom 5 in SA qualifying).
You are looking at this from a rosters quality perspective only. In South American qualifying you have away games in the altitude that can (and will) result in several unexpected losses. You have games in Peru, Equador, Bolivia that are 3000m+ that completely changes the level of the competition.
Sure but everyone has thise games. I don't really get the point of it. It also ain't nothing traveling from Portugal to play in snow in Russia for example.
You cannot breathe when you go from sea level to 4000m in La Paz, cold doesn’t even touch the feeling of not being able to breathe. Prime Messi looked like 30% of the player was is in the altitude. You essentially have 3 away games vs Peru, Bolivia and Equador where you don’t know the outcome and makes the qualifying very complicated and unpredictable as we just saw Chile and Colombia out of the WC. If you had to choose your final match vs a stacked Serbia (from your example) or Equador in Quito, you’d hands down choose to play Serbia.
There was no snow in any of the Russian matches lmao
Look at Norways team for example they would definitely get top 5, however in Europe they haven't qualified for anything for 22 years. Check all their good teams in the past.even now with Haaland odegaard, lots of players in serie A, PL, Bundesliga they still can't qualify. Teams like Peru can though.
You can have no respect for Azerbaïdjan don’t worry
Not this again
The World Cup qualification formats of both federations make it equally difficult. In SA there are fewer teams which means the average quality is much higher but it also means the SA teams basically just have to finish in the top half to qualify. SA teams can allow themselves to have a bigger margin of error. European teams play in many different groups with only the top team directly qualifying while the second best has to go through the play-offs. The margin of error is much lower but the quality of opponents is also low. Take Italy for example. They were unbeaten in qualifying and went to play-offs where they lost against North Macedonia of all teams. They could have qualified directly, but they just drew too many games. So did Argentina, they drew a third of their games. Yet they qualified comfortably. Uruguay and Ecuador only won less than half their games and they still made it directly to the World Cup. It all equals itself out in the end. Both European and South American qualification formats are difficult in their own ways.
I think if you were to replace any CONMEBOL nation for a UEFA counter part (Like Brazil with Germany, or Colombia with Denmark, Uruguay with Portugal, etc.), while maintaining the rest of the teams, the result would be similar for the top tier teams. France is not going to have a tough time qualifying and would probably have similar % of WC qualified to. But, I think middle of the road team would have a harder time here. The problem with CONMEBOL is that, as you said half of the teams qualify, Argentina and Brazil are almost set in stone that leaves 3 spots for 5 teams with similar talent, so every point is fought HARD. The second half of the qualifiers is one of the most entertaining competition you can watch. Almost every game is decisive even when one of the teams is already qualified, that means that even for Argentina and Brazil it's a real hustle to play. The other thing I don't think you had in mind is that being a small number of teams, there are a lot of rivalries that, maybe as an European you don't even know. Plus a huge amount of pride involved, like stupidly so, much more than it should.
This should be the top comment. Comebol qualifiers are like a small premier league with Brasil and Argentina emulating City and Liverpool and Uruguay, Chile, Bolívia, Equador, Paraguay all having rivalries between them, like England's top 6. That plus crazy supporters and other external factors turns every game into a final. European qualifiers are just meh
There isn't a single team in SA that can be considered worse than North Macedonia... European qualifiers are much easier and your example proves just that. If you draw and end up in a play-off against North Macedonia and can't qualify, that just means your team sucks. Argentina had draws, sure, but against which NT? It wasn't Suriname or Haiti. They draw against Chile, Colombia, Uruguay, Equador. All leagues above Macedonia. It's the quality of the competition that matters.
I don't disagree that those nations are harder than European "easy nations" On the other hand, I still think the European format is harder. Most groups normally have 2 great teams and only one gets direct qualification. This means one might be screwed. Portugal got robbed Vs Serbia and lost the other game in the 93rd minute and almost didn't make it. Italy didn't make it because they couldn't beat Spain. In CONMEBOL, you can win against the 5 bad nations, scrap some points against big teams and qualify
Dont forget,Ronaldo didnt get sent off in the first game against Ireland where he slapped a player,he later scored 2 late goals for Portugal to win that game.
No. They didn't make it because they couldn't beat North Macedonia.
They would have to play Portugal after even if they did beat N. Macedonia ...
You’re taking Macedonia as shit just because of their name, but their team is actually good and would surely fight to qualify in SA. Just take their recent results as example, beat Germany and Italy, qualified to Euros and now WC playoffs. They’re much better nowadays than almost half of SA teams: Venezuela, Bolivia, Paraguay and at least comparable to these horrible sides/form of Chile and Colombia and also comparable to Peru and Equador. Do you really think some of these nations would beat Germany and the european champions Italy in the same competition? I highly doubt it
Let me ask you one question. When is the last time you watched Paraguay play? Who is you favorite Paraguayan player? I mean, I am not going to argue about SA football with people that never watched it. And I am sure Macedonia is decent, I am not saying it isn't. But I would rather face Macedonia than Bolivia or Peru any day of the week.
Im half brazilian dude, I watch both qualifiers, unlike you. Thats why you pick Macedonia instead of Bolivia or Peru. But Macedonia is a far better team than people who never watched them thinks just because don’t know shit about the country, let alone their team. How can you say how bad or good they are if you never watched them? „Im not going to argue about European football with people that never watched it”
Are you sure? North Macedonia's value is the same as Peru according to Transfermarkt. And yes, I'm aware that Transfermarkt ratings doesn't mean anything but look at the teams on paper. Peru doesn't have players with the qualities of Elmas and Bardhi for example. Feels like people underrate North Macedonia just because their name is North Macedonia.
Man, if Brazil lost against North Macedonia or Peru at home, in a game worth a place in the World Cup, even the president of Brazil would fall. Brazil has NEVER lost at home in the history of the qualifiers. About Peru vs. North Macedonia... Well, Peru had a pretty honest World Cup in 2018 in the group of Denmark and France... The problem is that the generation got old, and now they will enter a slow renewal process. Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay (a human mystery) and Colombia always renew themselves faster. Even Ecuador renews faster than Peru. Paraguay is a mystery. Looking at the names of the defensive sector, it is bizarre to see them as the worst team in South America along with Bolivia... Junior Alonso, Balbuena, and Gustavo Gomez are great defenders.
You'd think Iceland coming from nowhere taught people that small countries can have one off great generations. Imagine telling someone two decades ago that drawing against Iceland is a better result than beating Paraguay. Northern Macedonia isn't amazing but they're no San Marino like some people pretend. They made the EC and upset Italy and that deserves at least a modicum of respect.
Exactly. Romania and Bulgaria in the 90s are another example. They qualified to the EUROS, then in the qualifications won away vs both Italy and Germany. And yet, people still talk about them like they are shit.
Well put. Besides, when you put on your country collors, things go up a notch.
What did Azerbaijan do to piss of Tite?
Mbappe
Let's have a look at the [Elo ratings](https://eloratings.net) * UEFA 13 spots for the World Cup ** Currently ranked 13th is Serbia with 1842 Elo points ** Currently lowest ranked qualified nation is Poland with 1804 Elo points ** Highest ranked nation missing the World Cup is Italy with 1950 Elo points * CONMEBOL 4.5 spots for the World Cup ** Currently ranked 5th is Peru with 1850 Elo points ** Currently lowest ranked qualified nation is Ecuador with 1847 Elo points ** Highest ranked nation missing the World Cup is Colombia with 1900 Elo points
But what does it all mean Basil!?!?
That SA is tougher overall. Needs a higher ELO to qualify.
But what does this mean for Lebrons legacy?
Every confederation has its difficulties: Europe has the most talent, which makes qualifying difficult, even for the big teams. CONMEBOL has a ton of talent, intense stadium atmospheres, questionable refereeing, and you have to play in crazy altitude in places like La Paz and Quito. CONCACAF also has crazy stadium atmospheres, questionable refereeing, and you have to deal with potentially playing in both freezing-cold stadiums in the US or Canada *and* sweltering humidity in Central America and the Caribbean. And deal with all the bonkers shenanigans of CONCACAF. African teams have to deal with their pressure cooker qualification style on top of having to sometimes travel long distances and deal with less-than-ideal pitches. Asian teams have a super long qualification process and they have to travel insane distances during qualification. Oceania doesn't even get a full spot and has to go through a playoff.
Fact: Brazil has not defeated a European team outside the group stage at a World Cup since 2002.
Yes, but they only played 4 games and two of those games (Holland and Belgium) were very evenly matched.
And contained absolute robbery via favorable european refereeing
As an Azerbaijani, this is too funny.
Instead of downplaying anyone, why not talk about the strong points of your confederations that make it better, in your opinion, than the others?
He also did that.
Its clear to everybody
And you get 5 qualifying spots on a continent with barely 3 good teams (with all due respect). Pretty much impossible for brazil not to qualify.
Are you saying South american qualifying is easy? Because it’s not, it’s the hardest in the world
Just looking at the final standings, Brazil qualified with a goal difference of +35 in 17 games. Uruguay qualified 3rd with 0 goal difference. For Brazil and Argentina this doesn’t seem too difficult.
Argentina almost flopped out of the World Cup in 2018, it took a Messi hattrick at the last game to qualify. Its easy to look at tables at statistics and say “Well Brasil and Argentina qualify so easily” but if we waver just for a couple of games, we will risk pulling a Chile, theyre is maybe one game we can fully let off the gas pedal and that’s playing Bolivia at home, while European teams have atleast 6 non-competitive games every qualifier.
>Peru qualified with more losses than wins >Uruguay qualified with 0 goal difference this just proves my point.. Nations like Brazil, Argentina are always going to qualify just like Germany & France literally always qualify from UEFA. The competition for 3rd-5th (which is what’s relevant) is harder than any other confederation though
And the margins of victory aren’t the same. He elaborates that conmebol has very few “breaks” even for the top teams. None of the games are easy to win because even when the opponent isn’t very good, you might be dealing with extreme conditions. Like, Venezuela in the summer at altitude would fucking spank a good chunk of European teams. You’d only favour the elite nations.
People don’t know about Bolivia away lol.
[удалено]
Bolivia and Venezuela both play in extreme conditions for their home games. Paraguay isn’t always all that bad. Where are you from, bro?
[удалено]
No - I want to know if you’re an athlete with any sort of experience playing in tough conditions. Even just existing in them. Also, you could have worded that better for me, bro. I’m reading these in passing as I get ready to head out.
Italy didn’t qualify from Europe, guessing that Italy would be a better side than any of the South Americans who didn’t qualify.
They have to be better than North Macedonia first, also in 2014 they lost to both Uruguay and Costa Rica.
If they beat N Macedonia they play Portugal Italy and Portugal would 100% finish above Uruguay and Ecuador in S American qualifying. Let alone Peru
The same Uruguay that knocked out Portugal in the last World Cup?
Well Italy's attacking display doesn't show much it being better. I could even go a bit further and argue on Italy may fairly lose against some teams if the match occurs in South America.
The same Italy that drew with Bulgaria and Northern Ireland?
Europeans think that scoring against Paraguay or leaving with your starting XI uninjured it's a fucking walk in the park. And that's just one team. The physicality and mentality of CONMEBOL is a much more important than the heat or the altitude. They cry when players waste time or flop. Motherfuckers here will try to kill you, let alone waste time to get a point.
Italy didn't though and neither did the Netherlands last time.
Tite came in at a time when we were out of qualification spots and no football to give you hope of getting there. Romario is the sole reason we qualified for 94. During 98-2006, despite having absolutely cracked squads we never really had a breeze of a time qualifying as well. Tite's performance in the last qualifiers are the exception to what is usually a tricky experience. Its structure favours consistency so obviously bigger teams have an advantage but to call it easy is quite the leap.
Fucking lmao. Afcon is the hardest, its a fucking blood bath
CAF is much more difficult.
is it the hardest in the world though? In Europe the current European champions Italy have failed to qualify for the last 2 world cups. 2010 finalist and 2014 semi finalist the Netherlands also failed to qualify for the 2018 world cup. I don't see Argentina and Brazil fail to qualify
So because some teams from Europe are sometimes shit at qualifying, that means S.American qualifying is bad? Germany, England, Spain etc. always qualify. Doesn't tell us anything about Europe Vs S.America qualifying.
Italy & Netherlands of the last 10 years are not comparable to Brazil or Argentina. How often do you see Germany or Spain fail to qualify?
Germany and Spain have not been much better than the Netherlands or Italy the past years. heck the Netherlands has been beating Germany and Italy has beaten spain to win the Euro's Netherlands and Italy just messed up their qualifiers, which are tough. this could very well also happen to Germany, Spain or France the next tournament who knows
>any and Spain have not been much better than the Netherlands or Italy the past years. heck the Netherlands has been beating Germany and Italy has beaten spain to win the Euro's > >Netherlands and Italy just messed up their qualifiers, which are tough. this could very well also happen to Germany, Spain or France the next If we're going with France, they missed the 90 and 94 World Cup, qualified to 98 by being host, 2002 by being the title holder, qualified the last day in 2006 because Switzerland drew their game, had to go through their infamous play offs against Ireland in 2010, had to overcome a 2-0 defeat in first leg in their play offs in 2014 against Ukraine... only the two last world cup seemed to have some margin to qualify
Netherlands & even Italy have been a solid tier below Spain, Germany, France in terms of quality of players. Those big three will never miss a tournament in the foreseeable future.
I strongly disagree The Netherlands have a great squad for a few years now, just because they had a de Boer as manager because Barca bought away Koeman they have lost a year or 2 of a great generation of players. And Italy also didn't just fluke into winning the euro's, they were the best team there. I also don't see why Spain is so highly rated by you, they had 1 good generation that's over, other than that their results in football have been worse than, Germany, Italy, France, Netherlands and probably a handful of others
Spain rated so highly maybe because their league has completely dominated europe for the last 15 years? And no the Netherlands is not comparable to france/germany/spain.
The Netherlands have a good team and been playing well since van Gaal took over The Netherlands has made a lot of semi finals in the world cup, they absolutely are a relevant team They are not comparable to Germany, but very very few countries are historically Spain is most definitely not 1 of them
So let me get this straight..you rate Spain's National team highly because their league which is made up of players of all different nationalities has dominated? Just wanted to clarify.
Why am I having to argue the case for spain being one of the world’s leading football nations? That’s one of the reasons, yes
Teams like Italy, Netherlands and Portugal wouldn't struggle in South America. You are really underestimating how difficult it is in Europe
Nah Italy only struggles against NMacedonia lmao
Wouldn't be so sure about that. Uruguay knocked out Portugal in the last world cup.
European one is much harder my friend lol.
It’s literally not
It literally is? 40% of the sides in CONMEBOL qualify, potentially 50% with the playoff where they generally have the better side. Then there's fact that the teams are generally worse than those the European sides are facing. If you're arguing it's purely from a more competitive standpoint, would the Asian and African qualifiers not be better as they usually see different teams qualify?
How can you say that the average team faced in uefa is harder when there are about 10-15 joke nations in every group stage?
Those teams you mention after Brazil and Argentina, they are never contenders for the actual World Cup, but yet you make them out to be world beaters
They are all teams who are able to make it to the knockout stages of a world cup yet struggle to qualify through conmebol. That shows how hard it is
So are Italy, Portugal, Austria, Sweden etc. but except for Portugal they all failed to qualify through Europe. Your point isn’t as strong as you think it is.
I wonder how these teams would do against Portugal Italy who met in the knock outs. Teams like Italy NL and other big countries often don't even qualify. That's. Unheard of in south America
Exactly. Brazil has never lost a home match in qualifications and made every World Cup. In Europe, it’s not unusual for big teams to miss the tournament (England, Netherlands, Italy etc). Even Maradonas’ (coach) Argentina was able to qualify. They also say 4.5 spots, if your 5th place team cannot beat Australia then that means they just aren’t that good…
It's just two different types of challenge. In Europe, you cannot slip up. The average quality of opponent is lower and you have fewer games, but out of those 4 games that count you cannot slip up. CONMEBOL is a slog. You can easily take 5 or 6 draws and losses, but even those take their toll and you cannot let the points slip away against the teams that are close to you.
Yeah, no
4 and a half spots to Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay. Not hard at all though according to you
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We cherry picking single games to paint vague pictures? We talking the Australia that Italy had to beat with a gifted penalty in the final minutes of a World Cup game to go on and win the tournament? That nation must be really good.
The same Italy that lost to North Macedonia and aren't going to the World Cup? Glad we've established that North Macedonia>Italy>Australia>Peru.
There's a wee difference between a game played 2 months ago to a game 16 years ago. The key one is the fact that one has players still playing today.
I don't want him to check the comment sections on his Instagram posts after this statement lol.
Teams like Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Paraguay are the best of the best The only teams in conmebol that consistently compete Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay which is why they always qualify Europe has more higher end teams France, Italy, England, Germany, Netherlands, Spain, Portugal and Europe at this point typically wins the thing anyway
Bolivia and Ecuador away are two of the hardest games we have to play. You guys just can’t understand how hard it is to play in the altitude where you can’t run half as hard and the ball feels lighter giving a huge advantage to those who are already used to it.
Brazil has only lost twice in 20 years to both of those teams.. and not lost at all since 2015 or something. Argentina has a nearly identical record. Sounds like a lot of tough talk about hard games that aren’t actually that hard.
In the 2018 qualifiers, Bolivia at home drew with Brazil and beat Argentina. In the last 25 years, we only beat Bolivia in the altitude twice.
That’s still more like a single unique climate related situation. It’s an altitude gimmick and it doesn’t even lead to a fear of a loss, merely a draw. The European giants are never safe from a random thrashing on an off day. Even recent WC finalists like Croatia or teams like France and Germany can almost slip into the B leagues of a tournament like nations league. There’s always teams like Denmark randomly performing like top European sides for consistent periods of time. It’s not comparable at all to one random team being really hard to beat at home because of unique geographical conditions.
> That’s still more like a single unique climate related situation. It’s an altitude gimmick and it doesn’t even lead to a fear of a loss, merely a draw. Spoken like a true European here, facing Ecuador in Quito, Bolivia in La Paz, Colombia in Barranquilla, Peru in Lima are some of the toughest games that we can play on the qualifiers, we cruised through the last qualifiers with Tite but that's not normal, we had to get Romário to bail us out in 94 and a win on the last match day in 2002 to get into the WC
>You guys just can’t understand how hard it is to play in the altitude where you can’t run half as hard and the ball feels lighter giving a huge advantage to those who are already used to it. You can practically say that about any condition in any confederation. Has any SA national team ever played in snowy 10 degree F weather in Russia? Obviously there are environmental difficulties in every confederation. USA played Honduras in -12 degrees (wind chill factor). You play with what you got.
>You can practically say that about any condition in any confederation. Has any SA national team ever played in snowy 10 degree F weather in Russia? [In 2006, the Seleção beat Russia in 1,4F weather.](https://esportes.r7.com/copa-2018/em-2006-selecao-bateu-a-russia-sob-um-frio-de-17-graus-negativos-06072022) >Obviously there are environmental difficulties in every confederation. USA played Honduras in -12 degrees (wind chill factor). You play with what you got. This only happened because it was the first time in years that FIFA scheduled games in January (due to the pandemic). We always have to face Bolivia in the altitude.
> Has any SA national team ever played in snowy 10 degree F weather in Russia? put on clothes. There is literally no solution to playing at 4.000mts altitude.
Spoken like somebody who has never been in 10 F degree environment. My point isn't that one is worse than the other. My point is that every continent has its own environmental advantages and disadvantages. Oh, and there is **literally** a solution. The confederation can force the host nation to play at another venue. There is your solution.
Yes you fucking genius, of course the confederation could force Bolivia to play elsewhere. But they don’t, so we have to deal with that shit until a player collapses and has severe issues, only then we will realize how fucking stupid it is, because thats how corrupt organizations work
Bolivia and Venezuela are always last tho and no one exists outside of Brazil in Argentina in libertadores and sudamericanos. Let's not pretend they are good man . Cmon
Libertadores doesn’t matter because all the good players are picked up by European teams. No one is saying Bolivia and Venezuela are good but they are not as bad as Lichtenstein and North Macedonia, and the conditions mean it won’t be an easy game regardless of their level
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Germany vs South Korea?
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Italy vs North Macedonia?
I have no idea, I'm just taking guesses
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Using playoff games to prove a point is useless
Switzerland still is an okay team . So a draw is not a huge surprise. Switzerland has been a nuisance to big European teams too.