FIFA World Cup 2018 - GROUP A [Russia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Uruguay - 14/15/19/20/25 June] **spoiler
- Thread starter Cosimo
- Start date
Take a look at Saudis qualifying group and take a guess
Rankings are based on competitive games aren't they? Possibly Russia have slipped due to not having to play qualifiers?
Edit seems it includes friendlies if Fifa deem the teams put out are close enough to a 'A Team' but even then heavily weighted on competition in comparison to friendlies.
Holland are poor but Italy had to survive double scare, first with Spain in their group, then the second placed Sweden from the other group of death with France and Holland.
I think Italy should have been given a wild card for the tournament - there are many mediocre teams that shouldn't be there:
Australia;
Iran;
Morrocco;
Tunisia;
Panama;
Peru;
Saudi Arabia
Oh dear...shes been good?
some of those goals were stellar (admittedly after a few pints) but SA were really poor, yeah they had a couple of chances but generally they were bang average.
Not sure how good Russia actually are, wouldn't surprise me if they didn't qualify though - Mo Salah can probably out score all of Russia's attackers, and a certain ex Liverpool player will try to eat anyone who goes anywhere near Uruguay 's goal
Not sure how good Russia actually are, wouldn't surprise me if they didn't qualify though - Mo Salah can probably out score all of Russia's attackers, and a certain ex Liverpool player will try to eat anyone who goes anywhere near Uruguay 's goal
Caporegime
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Personally I want the best teams, whether all of the teams are European or none are.
It's nice to let some minnows into the tournament. I mean we all remember Greece winning the Euro. That was a good story. It's just this WC seems to have an awful lot of minnows, and teams like Italy not participating is criminal.
Italy is not participating because they lost too many matches in qualifying. It's not like it's an arbitrary outcome.
Exactly.2 years, Euros
Caporegime
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uruguay are decent, so is teams like japan, nigeria, mexico is alright.
basically there is a lot more out there than just brazil. argentina aren't that great tbh. forwards yes, but midfield and defence no thanks.
Italy lost only one game, versus Spain on Sep. 2, 2017 in Madrid.And lost 4 more points by another draw with Spain in Turin, and a draw with Macedonia in Turin.
It looks like Italy has no luck whatsover in this city of Torino
And lost 4 more points by another draw with Spain in Turin, and a draw with Macedonia in Turin.
Italy lost against Sweden in the playoffs. That's why Sweden are here and Italy aren't.
Sweden lost 3 games in their group (against France, Bulgaria and Holland), Italy lost only 1 game against a more classy opposition Spain in Madrid.
How do you compare it?
And in the playoffs Italy at least in the second match dominated and outclassed the swedes but had no luck because the stupid ball didn't want to visit behind the swede goalkeeper.
