Steven Petrov
The Paw Print
The upcoming World Cup in 2014, promises to be one of the most interesting and most competitive World Cups so far. The game of Football (soccer) has been going through significant changes in the last two decades in terms of speed of play, physical capabilities of the players, and competitiveness on the local and the international scene.
Nowadays both club and international teams surprise the world almost every day by winning games against the so-called football “giants”. “Average” teams are not just winning the three points but also outplaying their famous opponents.
This is due to the fact that the game evolved throughout the last 20 years in a way that destroyed all previously established patterns and the status quo of the domination of the big football (soccer) nations like Germany, Brazil, Italy, Argentina, Uruguay etc. Their famous and rich club teams, who have been “terrorizing” the major European and World club championships like UEFA Champions League, Europa League, Copa Libertadores, CONCACAF Champions League etc. for decades now, know that there is no such thing as an easy opponent.
The first three examples when thinking of surprises in the soccer world are: Bulgaria winning 4th place in the 1994 World Cup held in the US, beating teams like Mexico, Germany, and Argentina; Greece becoming European Champions in 2004, beating teams like France, Czech Republic and Portugal; BATE Borisov (Belarus) beating the future champion of 2012/2013 Champions League, Bayern Munich with 3:1.
These are just few examples showing that in today’s soccer world any team can be beaten. Any team can take the trophy by surprise, while the others are trying to figure out how that happened. This makes football (soccer) so interesting, competitive, and passionate, setting the foundation for any future possible surprises in the upcoming World Cup next year. While expecting surprises in Brazil next summer, this rubric is mainly going to focus on two groups of teams: “The 6 Big Contenders” and those who have a lot to prove “Always Second”.
The teams in the first group are the so-called “favorites” in any major tournament due to the quality of their players, the “chemistry” in their team, the great major tournament experience that they have, and of course their history of winning the World Cup. Those 6 teams have won the World Cup in total 17 times, considering the fact that the 1st World Cup was held in 1930 in Uruguay. The tournament is held every four years, so there have been 19 World Cups so far and 17/19 tournaments the champion was one of The 6 Big Contenders – Brazil (5), Italy (4), Germany (3), Argentina (2), Uruguay (2), and Spain (1). This makes us believe that the future World Cup winner is somewhere in that group of teams.
On the other hand the “Always Second” group consists of teams that have never won the title, but have been very close to it multiple times. Netherlands has lost 3 World Cup finals – 2 consecutive ones in 1974 and 1978 and the last World Cup in South Africa in 2010. Portugal placed 3rd in 1966, but lost the game for the 3rd place in Germany in 2006. England has actually won a World Cup in 1966, but their poor results in the consecutive competitions placed them in this tier of teams. Ever since 1966 their only accomplishment in the World Cup competition was placing 4th far back in 1990, defining them as not good tournament players. Switzerland and Belgium are teams that never achieved huge success within this tournament, but are currently ranked in Top 15 in the FIFA World Ranking. Both of these countries have top-class players that can achieve something special next summer in Brazil.
Even though the statistics give a huge advantage to The 6 Big Contenders, the teams that have always been so close to that ultimate dream of becoming World Champions, they have a lot to prove and will give their best effort to get what they have always wanted. This will definitely raise the level of the competition and make it much more interesting and let’s not forget the other 21 teams that will definitely not go quietly into the night, but instead will fight hard to prove that in soccer statistics are not always right!
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