viernes, 11 de septiembre de 2009

España, la mejor del mundo (y lo demuestro)

So, Spain, as England, have now qualified for the 2010 World Cup with two matches to spare. Belgium may still sound like a respected name in European football, but after losing to Spain they fell to Armenia, so they’re likely to plummet down the ranks and join the likes of Austria and Hungary in the list of nations with a brilliant footballing past and a present and future as also-rans.

Remember June 22nd, 1986? Hand-of-God day? Well, on that same day, Spain was eliminated from the Mexico World Cup by Belgium on penalties, one of those typical Spanish tournament performances full of promise, but then cut short by a not necessarily better team. 23 years later, Spain are European champions, Belgium do not qualify for finals unless as hosts, and the latest result is 5-0 to the Spaniards. A ghost well put to rest.

In the meantime, look at who Argentina were playing to survive: Brazil, no less, then Paraguay, the other qualifiers from the region so far. You never see that happening in European qualifying tournaments: all the best teams in the region playing for points against each other, actually eliminating each other on the pitch, rather than waiting for everyone to make it safely through, unless they slip against lesser squads. Every now and then you see a single qualifying group featuring Italy and France, or England and Germany, but usually the big teams have to wait for years to play competitive matches against each other. For example, the last time Spain played England in a competitive game was in 1996, at the European Championships England hosted. Since then, there have only been four friendlies, while in the same space of time, Argentina have played 10 competitive matches against Brazil.

Obviously, the South American group is able to do this because there are only nine teams in the whole confederation, whereas in Europe the system would be unworkable with its 53 members, unless you eliminate early about 40 of them. So we’ll have to keep waiting, sometimes for decades, before we see competitive clashes among some of the best football-playing nations in the planet, which happen to be in Europe.

Anyway, I thought it would be interesting to see what would happen if you took the best national teams in the world and compiled their head-to-head results in the fairest way there is, a league format: you take the two most recent games they have played against each other, give them the usual three points for a win and one for a draw, and see what league table comes out of it. I did it a couple of years ago, and because I don’t have infinite time and geekiness to compile all the results in the world, I limited it to what seemed to me the top 8 of international football today. In alphabetical order: Argentina, Brazil, England, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands and Spain. Yes, it’s six Europeans and two South Americans, but I think you’ll agree that they are teams with tradition, present power, consistently good teams generation after generation, and in most cases, recent trophies to prove it.

This year, looking to enlarge the experiment, I added Portugal and, looking for a 10th nation to make it a neat Top Ten, I tried to look at national teams from other continents, but neither the USA, nor Japan, nor Paraguay nor Cameroon have results to seriously compete with the other 9. They’d be playing Portsmouth to the other nations’ Big Four, so they’d just clutter the board. I came back to Europe, and per the FIFA list, I tried Croatia, who stood up quite well until their 5-1 loss to England last night.

This is the league table, then:

(Position / (Won-Drawn-Lost) / Points)

1 (10-3-5) 33 Spain
2 (9-4-5) 31 Brazil
2 (9-4-5) 31 France
4 (8-3-7) 27 Italy
5 (6-5-7) 23 Argentina
5 (7-2-9) 23 Portugal
7 (5-7-6) 22 Netherlands
7 (5-5-8) 20 England
9 (4-6-8) 18 Germany
9 (5-3-10) 18 Croatia

Spain, who hadn’t beaten one of the other big 8 in a competitive match since 1984 (Germany, in a European Championship finals too), top the table due to a very good record in friendlies. They’ve got current victories over every other team in this league except the Netherlands, compensated by current doubles over England and Germany. Remarkably, they managed to play five matches at the Confederations Cup without encountering Italy or Brazil. Had Brazil managed to play and beat Spain in the Confederations Cup, they’d be top.

France, having gone through a bad Euro 2008 and a poor 2010 qualifying, still retain good past results against the top nations. England were propping the table until they beat Croatia twice in a year. If we removed Croatia and the current 6 points for England, the Three Lions would struggle again. Germany, for all their trophies, emerge as a bit of a flat-track bully when they face tougher opposition, at least looking at these current results.

I’ll be happy to hear thoughts on this. Would it be a fair system to rank everyone in the world, and especially teams in the same confederation, who play frequently against each other? Is it better, clearer and more straightforward than Fifa's convoluted system? Would it give friendlies an extra significance?

And if anyone can find other nations that wouldn’t finish last if their results against these ten teams were added, let me know. Scotland, for one, wouldn’t do too badly, I think.

These are the last two games between all the teams.

(Result / Date / Type of match)

FCC – FIFA Confederations’ Cup
Fri – Friendly
RTF – Regional tournament finals
RTQ – Regional tournament qualifying
WCF – World Cup finals
WCQ – World Cup qualifying

Arg 1-3 Bra 2009 09 06 WCQ
Arg 0-0 Bra 2008 06 18 WCQ
Arg 2-3 Cro 2006 03 01 Fri
Arg 1-0 Cro 1998 06 26 WCF
Arg 2-3 Eng 2005 11 12 Fri
Arg 0-1 Eng 2002 06 07 WCF
Arg 2-0 Fra 2009 02 11 Fri
Arg 1-0 Fra 2007 02 07 Fri
Arg 1-1 Ger 2006 06 30 WCF
Arg 2-2 Ger 2005 06 21 FCC
Arg 2-1 Ita 2001 02 28 Fri
Arg 1-1 Ita 1990 07 03 WCF
Arg 0-0 Net 2006 06 21 WCF
Arg 0-1 Net 2003 02 12 Fri
Arg 1-3 Por 1972 06 29 Fri
Arg 2-0 Por 1964 05 31 Fri
Arg 1-2 Spa 2006 10 11 Fri
Arg 2-0 Spa 1999 11 17 Fri
Bra 1-0 Cro 2006 06 13 WCF
Bra 1-1 Cro 2005 08 17 Fri
Bra 1-1 Eng 2007 06 01 Fri
Bra 2-1 Eng 2002 06 21 WCF
Bra 0-1 Fra 2006 07 01 WCF
Bra 0-0 Fra 2004 05 20 Fri
Bra 3-2 Ger 2005 06 25 FCC
Bra 1-1 Ger 2004 09 08 Fri
Bra 3-0 Ita 2009 06 21 FCC
Bra 2-0 Ita 2009 02 10 Fri
Bra 2-2 Net 1999 10 09 Fri
Bra 3-1 Net 1999 06 08 Fri
Bra 6-2 Por 2008 11 19 Fri
Bra 0-2 Por 2007 02 06 Fri
Bra 0-0 Spa 1999 11 13 Fri
Bra 0-3 Spa 1992 09 12 Fri
Cro 1-5 Eng 2009 09 09 WCQ
Cro 1-4 Eng 2008 09 10 WCQ
Cro 2-2 Fra 2004 06 17 RTF
Cro 0-2 Fra 2000 05 28 Fri
Cro 2-1 Ger 2008 06 12 RTF
Cro 1-2 Ger 2004 02 18 Fri
Cro 2-0 Ita 2006 08 16 Fri
Cro 2-1 Ita 2002 06 08 WCF
Cro 0-3 Net 2008 02 06 Fri
Cro 2-1 Net 1998 07 11 WCF
Cro 0-2 Por 2005 11 12 Fri
Cro 0-3 Por 1996 06 19 RTF
Cro 1-2 Spa 2006 06 07 Fri
Cro 0-0 Spa 2000 02 23 Fri
Eng 0-1 Fra 2008 03 26 Fri
Eng 1-2 Fra 2004 06 13 RTF
Eng 2-1 Ger 2008 11 19 Fri
Eng 1-2 Ger 2007 08 22 Fri
Eng 1-2 Ita 2002 03 27 Fri
Eng 0-1 Ita 2000 11 15 Fri
Eng 0-0 Por 2006 07 01 WCF
Eng 2-2 Por 2004 06 24 RTF
Eng 2-2 Net 2009 08 12 Fri
Eng 1-1 Net 2006 11 15 Fri
Eng 0-2 Spa 2009 02 11 Fri
Eng 0-1 Spa 2007 02 07 Fri
Fra 0-0 Ger 2005 11 12 Fri
Fra 3-0 Ger 2003 11 15 Fri
Fra 0-2 Ita 2008 06 13 RTF
Fra 0-0 Ita 2007 09 08 RTQ
Fra 1-4 Net 2008 06 13 RTF
Fra 0-0 Net 2004 03 31 Fri
Fra 1-0 Por 2006 07 05 WCF
Fra 4-0 Por 2001 04 25 Fri
Fra 0-1 Spa 2008 02 06 Fri
Fra 3-1 Spa 2006 06 27 WCF
Ger 0-2 Ita 2006 07 04 WCF
Ger 1-4 Ita 2006 03 01 Fri
Ger 3-2 Por 2008 06 19 RTF
Ger 3-1 Por 2006 07 08 WCF
Ger 2-2 Net 2005 08 17 Fri
Ger 1-1 Net 2004 06 15 RTF
Ger 0-1 Spa 2008 06 29 RTF
Ger 1-3 Spa 2003 02 12 Fri
Ita 0-3 Net 2008 06 09 RTF
Ita 3-1 Net 2005 11 12 Fri
Ita 0-0 Net 2000 06 29 RTF
Ita 3-1 Por 2008 02 06 Fri
Ita 2-1 Por 2004 03 31 Fri
Ita 0-0 Spa 2008 06 23 RTF
Ita 0-1 Spa 2008 03 26 Fri
Net 0-1 Por 2006 06 25 WCF
Net 1-2 Por 2004 06 30 RTF
Net 1-0 Spa 2002 03 27 Fri
Net 2-1 Spa 2000 11 15 Fri
Por 1-0 Spa 2004 06 20 RTF
Por 0-3 Spa 2003 04 06 Fri

Comments here or at:
http://timesonline.typepad.com/fanzine_fanzone/2009/09/world-cup-fanzone-a-league-of-nations.html#comments

5 comentarios:

Mamerto dijo...

No entiendo bien la argumentación, pero seguro q no está mal (teniendo en cuenta su autor)
Un salu(don)
B

Rogorn dijo...

Pues, mi querido Mamerto, la argumentación se dirige hacia demostrar que España tiene la mejor selección nacional de fútbol del momento, dado que si cogemos los resultados de los dos últimos partidos jugados contra cada una de las otras 9 mejores selecciones del mundo (un vulgar sistema de liga, vaya), La Roja tendría más puntos que nadie. Más que Brasil. Más que Argentina. Más que Alemania. Más que Francia. Más que Italia. Más que Inglaterra. Etcétera. Mundiales no habremos ganado ninguno, pero eso es porque nos echan de ellos Nigeria o Bélgica o Corea del Sur o Yugoslavia. Cuando nos dejan jugar contra los matones del barrio, les ganamos.

Excepto a Francia, que nos gana siempre, tengamos a Arkonada (antes Arconada), Zubizarreta o Casillas.

Gracias.

Mamerto dijo...

Gracias, jefe hereje

Clarííísssimo

Mamertito

Ado dijo...

Jode, no has tirado de datos...A eso lo llamo documentación. Pero hasta que no ganemos un mundial, hagamos lo que hagamos, juguemos como jueguemos, no nos van a considerar los mejores nunca...

Rogorn dijo...

Es que lo de los Mundiales siempre ha sido un poco una falacia. Un Mundial nombra al campeon de dicho torneo, no necesariamente al mejor equipo del mundo, ya que la suerte del dia influye muchisimo. Vease la actual campeona, Italia, que ni de coña es el mejor equipo del mundo, ni lo era cuando lo gano. Competitivo y agarrao a las reglas si, pero el mejor, de eso nada. Amos anda, Australia y Ucrania en eliminatorias mientras a nosotros nos caian Zidane, Henry y Ribery.

Que no, que viva mi sistema que pa eso es mio, jeje.