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Uhm, if you're referring to 4,000 meters altitude, heat and 3rd world conditions, I think it proves my point, not yours. Why don't Ecuador go to the Netherlands and play Sweden a 100 games on sea level and we'll see if their home record is so great anymore.
Or I do the tonyaharding and see how many times Argentina can win Finland with all the players knees broken?
All those factors you mentioned has nothing to do with the skill level of the teams.
If anything, CONMEBOL is massively underestimated by Europeans. WC 2010 proves that: ALL southamerican teams get to the round of 16 and all (save Argentina against Germany cause we had no coach, lol) did a very impressive job at the world cup.
Take the current WORST side of conmebol: Paraguay. Recently played the BEST side of UEFA: Germany. They tied. And played in EUROPE
Yeah, i know, its a friendly and yada yada yada, but imagine taking the worst side of UEFA (i dont know, San Marino or one of those little countries you play there) and bring it to southamerica and make it play against Argentina or Brazil (or any other side for that matter): it would lose 30-0.
Thats the difference. Theres a HUGE gap between teams in UEFA, while Conmebol is so high in quality that every team can lose or be left out of WC anytime. Of course conmebol deserves more spots!
How does the WC 2010 prove that CONMEBOL is massively underestimated by Europeans? Three out of four semi-finalists were European, and the only non-European semi-finalist (Uruguay) got there by cheating. Do you know why there weren't more South American teams at the SF? Because the Netherlands kicked out Brazil, Germany kicked out Argentina and Spain kicked out Paraguay in the previous round. Uruguay were utterly hopeless against the Netherlands, they needed a penalty in the last minute of extra time to make the result seem even remotely close (3-2). I don't call this "very impressive".
In 2006, all semi-finalists were European. Know why? Because England and Sweden kicked out Paraguay, England kicked out Ecuador, Germany kicked out Argentina (again) and France kicked out Brazil. What about 2002 then? I'm sure you remember how Argentina didn't get past the group stage because it finished behind Sweden and England. You were joined by your neighbours in Uruguay who also didn't progress because it failed to beat the European teams in its group (Denmark and France). Paraguay at least made it to the first KO round but then they were kicked out by Germany. Want me to mention 1998 too? Norway beat Brazil in the group stage, Romania and England kicked out Colombia, France kicked out Paraguay, the Netherlands kicked out Argentina and France beat Brazil in the final.
Excuse Europeans for failing to see the superiority of South American teams.
You know very well that Paraguay isn't the worst team in CONMEBOL. They may have been poor this qualifying round but they usually do better. They qualified for 4 World Cups in a row before this. Anyway, two can play this game: Switzerland recently played the best team in CONMEBOL (Brazil) and beat them. I guess this proves what a world class team Switzerland is.
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Originally Posted by SophieLL
oh yeah, and cezech republik, denmark, turkey, sweden, croatia and ukraine would NEVER have make it to the WC if they played in COMEBOL. While in UEFA, depending on the group they land in, they could easily make it, cause they have to play against countries like san marino or luxemburg in those games that end up 20-0.
If THOSE teams played in conmebol, forget it, they would have never set foot in the world cup.
So, yeah, of course they are harder. There are many european teams that go to the wc every 4 years that would get TRASHED in southamerica.
The only european teams that could realistically compete in southamerica are germany, spain, netherlands, italy, maybe france, england, belgium and portugal and stop counting. Thats it. All the other european teams would get trashed here.
You are one of those people I talked about in my previous post, who believe UEFA qualifiers are basically one big team beating up on a bunch of minnows. What makes you think Denmark, Sweden, Croatia, Ukraine and possibly France, England and Portugal would get thrashed in South America? All of them have far better competitive records than any South American team apart from BRA/ARG/URU. For example:
France: WC 1998 winner, WC 2006 runner-up
Croatia: WC 2006 SF
Ukraine: WC 2006 QF
Denmark: WC 1998 QF
Sweden: WC 1994 SF
England: WC 1990 SF, WC 2002 QF, WC 2006 QF
Portugal: WC 2006 SF
I purposely limited myself to the past two decades. Most of these teams also did great at the Euros (reaching SF or even winning it) in this time period. Too bad many of them might miss out on the WC this time around. If only they were part of CONMEBOL
any european team?? hmmmm, serious level of underestimating here.
But even if they are, i wanna see the likes of even the big teams in europe like spain or germany, playing in quito a over 3,000 meters of height. They WON every game there, the only one that was able to tie was Argentina, with Messi and all the superstars. So, Ecuador might be weaker in the wc than in the qualys, for sure, but this proves just how incredibly hard conmebol qualys are. And dont even get me started on La paz, Bolivia: Argentina havent won there in like 20 years, and last game they played there (this year, wich ended up in a tie), Di Maria, Messi, etc couldnt even breathe. You saw them go try to breathe in those breaking masks every 5 minutes.
And this are players who have to go from their very competitive european teams to play at 4,000 meters altitude and play the next day in an environment that takes AT LEAST a week for humans to adapt to.
So, yeah, everything is hard in conmebol, even the "easy" teams like Bolivia. Between the fans, the insane conditions, the heat, the local crazyness and support of the fans, the pressure, etc, i would love seeing the european teams trying to play in conmebol. it would be kinda hilarious
Like I said, teams like Bolivia or Ecuador may be hard to beat at home but the reasons for this have nothing to do with their level of football. They can't rely on home advantage when they're playing in the WC, which is why Ecuador never made it past the first KO round and Bolivia never made it past the group stage. This is not a good argument to give CONMEBOL more berths at the WC.
You know very well that Paraguay isn't the worst team in CONMEBOL. They may have been poor this qualifying round but they usually do better. They qualified for 4 World Cups in a row before this. Anyway, two can play this game: Switzerland recently played the best team in CONMEBOL (Brazil) and beat them. I guess this proves what a world class team Switzerland is.
Paraguay is the worst team in conmebol now. They finished last. What is the worst team in UEFA? im not talking about switzerland, im talking about the WORST team, like one of those islands or little countries that group together a bunch of people that go walking in the streets and tell them "hey, lets do a national soccer team" and then they get grouped with spain and lose 20-0.
Bring the WORST team in UEFA and make it play against Argentina or Brazil in Southamerica and see the results.
I ve never found ONE european that didnt admit conmebol qualys are the hardest in the world. Heck, i even think there was a thread here in where everyone said CONMEBOL needed more spots.
You and Ariete might be the first people EVER that do not recognize the level of difficulty of CONMEBOL qualys and the fact that we need more spots.
Like I said, teams like Bolivia or Ecuador may be hard to beat at home but the reasons for this have nothing to do with their level of football. They can't rely on home advantage when they're playing in the WC, which is why Ecuador never made it past the first KO round and Bolivia never made it past the group stage. This is not a good argument to give CONMEBOL more berths at the WC.
The main argument is that the level is too high, even the WORST (see Paraguay) team is super hard to play, and we get LESS spots than UEFA, ASIA and AFRICA. While CONCACAF also gets too many spots for what they do?
dont you agree CONMEBOL should get more spots than ASIA or AFRICA? dont you understand than in CONCACAF Mexico won 1 game out of 10 and is almost in the world cup? Panama almost made it? Honduras and Costa Rica are in? Australia is in? Iran? Russia? ppppf whatever
and Paraguay, Venezuela, Peru are not. Of course its unfair. The worst southamerican team is a 100 times better than the worst team from EVERY other confederations. A millon times better.
this is actually pretty easy to prove, with fifa rankings, elo rankings, the ranking you want.
Use it to do an average of CONMEBOL teams and compare them to ANY confederation and you will see how unfair it is for us to have to play this super hard teams to get into the WC every four years.
Im not even asking for more spots alone, but a MERGE. MERGE conmebol with asia, africa, oceania (?), concacaf, and put the spots for grabs, thus giving the stronger teams (aka conmebol teams) more chances to make it.
And, heck, im from a country that ALWAYS gets into the world cup, im not even talking because im the one being damaged here. Argentina always make it. But it makes me sad that teams like Colombia and Ecuador havent been in WC since forever, and Venezuela has NEVER made it (if im not mistaken), and see a good team like Peru never being able to prove themselves internationally while CRAPPY teams from all over the world can.
Do you have any idea how much it must suck to be from Venezuela or Bolivia or Ecuador or Peru or even Colombia when you live and breathe soccer and seeing your dreams getting CRUSHED every 4 years??? and then seeing tons of teams inferior to you making it cause they have an easy qualifyer???
Do you understand that even Uruguay (whos 6th in FIFA ranking) only made it to the WC cause Brazil havent played this qualys???
I mean, techincally, Uruguay didnt qualify cause they finished 5th. And they are 6th in the world. I dont know what else to tell you. If you dont recognize how hard CONMEBOL qualys are then you must be biased against them cause its really undeniable.
Paraguay is the worst team in conmebol now. They finished last. What is the worst team in UEFA? im not talking about switzerland, im talking about the WORST team, like one of those islands or little countries that group together a bunch of people that go walking in the streets and tell them "hey, lets do a national soccer team" and then they get grouped with spain and lose 20-0.
Bring the WORST team in UEFA and make it play against Argentina or Brazil in Southamerica and see the results.
Paraguay are just in a slump right now but they're definitely not the worst team in CONMEBOL overall, nowhere near it.
You must not understand how UEFA qualifiers work because your analogies are absurd. You can't prove how much harder CONMEBOL qualifiers are compared to UEFA by letting the worst teams in UEFA (San Marino, Andorra, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Faroe Islands, etc.) play there because these countries have no chance whatsoever to qualify in UEFA either. They usually end up with 0 points and a goal ratio of -20 at the end of the qualifiers. On the other hand, the worst team in CONMEBOL (as you say) qualified for the previous four World Cups.
A more accurate comparison would be to let the CONMEBOL teams (apart from Brazil and Argentina) play in the UEFA groups. Imagine groups like this:
Belgium
Croatia
Paraguay
Italy
Denmark
Ecuador
Germany
Sweden
Uruguay
Netherlands
Romania
Venezuela
Russia
Portugal
Peru
England
Ukraine
Bolivia
Spain
France
Chile
These are all existing groups of the current UEFA WCQ, I just added a South American team. Keep in mind that for the SA team to qualify directly, it has to finish as #1 in their group. I can't see that happening in any of these cases - in fact, I think even managing a play-off spot would be a real struggle for most of them.
Quote:
I ve never found ONE european that didnt admit conmebol qualys are the hardest in the world. Heck, i even think there was a thread here in where everyone said CONMEBOL needed more spots.
You and Ariete might be the first people EVER that do not recognize the level of difficulty of CONMEBOL qualys and the fact that we need more spots.
Trust me, there are plenty of Europeans who feel this way. Most people just roll their eyes and wait until the next overhyped SA team flops at the WC.
Paraguay is the worst team in conmebol now. They finished last. What is the worst team in UEFA? im not talking about switzerland, im talking about the WORST team, like one of those islands or little countries that group together a bunch of people that go walking in the streets and tell them "hey, lets do a national soccer team" and then they get grouped with spain and lose 20-0.
Bring the WORST team in UEFA and make it play against Argentina or Brazil in Southamerica and see the results.
WTF? CONMEBOL has 10 members, UEFA has 54. In case you didn't know, the games against San Marino doesn't matter, as due to different sizes of the groups, games against the worst don't count.
The CONMEBOL group this year had a 50% of qualifying, and 56% of qualifying OR getting to the ridiculous playoffs against New Zealand. If Europe would have the same percentage, 30 teams from Europe would qualify to the WC. In all groups the chance for qualifying directly from UEFA was 20%.
I seriously would want to know how Bolivia would do in a Spain, France, Finland, Belarus, Georgia, Bolivia group. My gut says they've finish last.
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Norway beat Brazil in the group stage, Romania and England kicked out Colombia, France kicked out Paraguay, the Netherlands kicked out Argentina and France beat Brazil in the final. 
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