Quote:
Originally Posted by crow01  ESPN interviewed today, Pele (one the best players in the history of soccer), said how this world cup was to become dominated by Underdogs:
It was forecasted that these matches were going to be:
England vs USA: 4 to 1 (Actual: 1 to 1)
Mexico vs South Africa: 3 to 0 (Actual: 1 to 1)
Uruguay vs France: 0 to 2 (Actual: 0 to 0)
Argentina vs Nigeria: 3 to 0 (Actual: 1 to 0)
Italy vs Paraguay: 3 to 1 (Actual: 1 to 1)
Ivory Coast vs Portugal: 0 to 4 (Actual: 0 to 0)
Instead the best teams: England, Mexico, France, Argentina, Italy and Portugal have played a very poor game. It's so bad that these teams struggle to tie a game.
On the other hand the Africans teams have played as if they had classified to most world cups.
USA played much better than England and England's Rooney performed very poor.
Portugal is currently struggling to keep up with Ivory Coast.
The "best players" in the world, Ronaldo, Messi, Rooney have played a 2nd rate game.
Pele says "I have never seen such bad games played by the soccer powers of the world. I guess the underdogs are also becoming powers" |
I'd be interested to know who forecast those scores, because no one I know who knows anything about football would seriously have thought England were going to beat the USA 4-1. Conservative estimates were 1-0 and even the most outlandish (sensible) bet that I saw was only 3-0.
South Africa are the hosts and it's not unusual for the hosts to perform above their average. South Korea did it in 2002.
France have been poor throughout the qualifying, so no one in their right mind would expect them to do very well.
Ditto Italy, ditto Portugal.
Nigeria are recognised as one of the best African sides and Argentina under Maradona have been misfiring for the last year or so.
I think this is some hype from the American media, but I guess so what? If it motivates the US team to think that 1-1 is an upset, and motivates the fans to get behind them, then I guess that's all for the best.
However I've said it before: the US are NOT underdogs. They only rank a few places behind England and based on Saturday's performance that's merited, though I'd also contest the USA were not 'much better than England' as England dominated the last quarter of the match, just being unable to find a second goal.
I can see why people who only watch football once every four years would think these are 'shock' results based on the respective teams reputations and previous performances, but for those of us who have followed this right through qualification none of these results are particularly surprising. I'd also add that the scores have been lower than expected (the average is only just over a goal a game) thanks in no small part to the ball being used which several players have complained about being too light and difficult to control. The fact that the Germans managed to score 4 against Australia is thanks in no small part to them having been using the ball in the Bundesliga since it was made available to the national associations some months ago.
