Are the Euros harder to win than the WC?

BarrileteCosmico wrote:No. It's very simple. To beat the Euros you need to beat the best in Europe. To beat the WC you need to beat the best in the world. The quality of competition might be higher, but that does not mean it's harder by any means.

dostoevsky wrote:Greece won it. /thread

In all seriousness though, you can talk about the concentration of quality teams at the European championships, however at the World Cup even if there are 'lesser' teams the best of South America, Africa and Asia require you to be able to deal with different styles. Diversity in competition is just as difficult to deal with as a succession of games against teams you're used to competing with in friendlies and qualification rounds.

As for teams who could make the European Championships from outside of Europe, those with a good chance of qualifying would be: Uruguay, Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Japan, Ghana, Mexico, Cote D'Ivoire and at most times, if not necessarily now, Egypt. Chile and Colombia are worth shouts as well though Chile need to adapt to their new coach and solidify their defence. Going forward they're still dangerous though. In a round robin qualification, I believe all of those have a shot given the 'big' teams who tend to struggle through qualification.

BarrileteCosmico wrote:You're comparing different things, as there are barely any superpowers outside of Europe (which is not to say that European teams always win the CWC, in fact, they lose it often), whereas there are when it comes to national teams. Apples and oranges.

You're mistaking the quality of competition (ie: the standard deviation in quality between each nation) with difficulty of winning.

aford92 wrote:Ok, but surely the more competitive something is the more difficult it is to win? If every match is between similarly good teams every game is difficult.

Surely it's harder to win 5 games against similar teams than it is to win 10 games against some good and some bad opponents. For example, if you were Spain winning matches against Germany, Holland, Italy, England and France is surely more difficult than winning games against Brazil, Uruguay, N.Korea, Australia, Honduras, Chile, Cameroon, S.Africa, Slovenia and USA?

aford92 wrote:

BarrileteCosmico wrote:You're comparing different things, as there are barely any superpowers outside of Europe (which is not to say that European teams always win the CWC, in fact, they lose it often), whereas there are when it comes to national teams. Apples and oranges.

You're mistaking the quality of competition (ie: the standard deviation in quality between each nation) with difficulty of winning.

Ok, but surely the more competitive something is the more difficult it is to win? If every match is between similarly good teams every game is difficult.

Surely it's harder to win 5 games against similar teams than it is to win 10 games against some good and some bad opponents. For example, if you were Spain winning matches against Germany, Holland, Italy, England and France is surely more difficult than winning games against Brazil, Uruguay, N.Korea, Australia, Honduras, Chile, Cameroon, S.Africa, Slovenia and USA?

aford92 wrote:I see your point, but it's not as if all the European teams play the same style of football, compare Spain to Greece for example. And it's rare that you are going to encounter the team that qualified with you.

Surely the concentration of good teams is what makes it more difficult? For example, if you were to make a 8 team tournament out of European club teams and then make an 8 team tournament using club teams from all over the world, the European one would be much harder because the teams are better.

Also, I'm not saying the Euro's in general are harder, just next years. There isn't a bad team in it. Meanwhile at last years World Cup you had teams like N.Korea, New Zealand, South Africa, Nigeria, Algeria and Honduras. All of whom are significantly worse than the worst team competing at Euro 2012.

Omniscient wrote:

aford92 wrote:

BarrileteCosmico wrote:You're comparing different things, as there are barely any superpowers outside of Europe (which is not to say that European teams always win the CWC, in fact, they lose it often), whereas there are when it comes to national teams. Apples and oranges.

You're mistaking the quality of competition (ie: the standard deviation in quality between each nation) with difficulty of winning.

Ok, but surely the more competitive something is the more difficult it is to win? If every match is between similarly good teams every game is difficult.

Surely it's harder to win 5 games against similar teams than it is to win 10 games against some good and some bad opponents. For example, if you were Spain winning matches against Germany, Holland, Italy, England and France is surely more difficult than winning games against Brazil, Uruguay, N.Korea, Australia, Honduras, Chile, Cameroon, S.Africa, Slovenia and USA?

Your argument is borderline retarded. Since when does a team face the 8 worst teams at the WC and 2 decent teams to win the World Cup? How does naming the 5 best teams in Europe indicate the Euros are harder? It is literally impossible for Spain to have to play all 5 of those teams at Euro 2012.

The only easy thing about the World Cup is the group stage. Spain had to beat Portugal, Paraguay, Germany and Holland to win the WC, Honduras, North Korea, Cameroon, and all the rest of the teams you mentioned aren't relevant at all.

dostoevsky wrote:

There's definitely diversity within Europe, however the majority of games that a European nation plays in preparation for the European Championships and for the World Cup will be against European teams. There may be drastic differences between teams within Europe, however you'll likely have a degree of experience against a team such as Slovenia rather than Paraguay or South Africa. We have played Switzerland far too many times to ever be surprised by them, though it equally allows them to reach up to us, however a team from another continent is far more likely to take advantage of us in my eyes.

South Africa actually played excellent and attractive football and even beat France at the World Cup, New Zealand were the only undefeated team at the World Cup and genuinely made the tournament more interesting in my eyes.

The World Cup involves an extra game - also making this tournament harder from the point of team endurance - however I think that tends to lead people to see it as diluted in quality. The knockout round shouldn't really be any easier at the European Championships if Europe's best consistently escaped the group stages, however at the last World Cup the following European teams failed to escape the group stage: Italy, France, Denmark, Serbia, Switzerland and Greece.

I don't believe that you can directly compare these teams with their current incarnations, so I won't use the line of reasoning that these teams are now expected to do well at the Euros, however going back to the previous tournament, again Poland, Serbia and Montenegro, the Czech Republic and Croatia didn't escape the group stage.

Only the European elite are truly to be feared in my eyes, otherwise the teams are in fairly similar tiers. The 'better' teams of Europe are quite capable of thumping or being thumped in return by the 'better' teams of South America. Tournaments are very much determined by the draw, form and fortune, so the greater length and types of challenge in the World Cup, as well as the inclusion of more 'elite' teams when the South American giants decide to show up makes it the harder tournament in my eyes.

It's not to make the European championship sound easy by any means, but especially to a team who might not be capable of winning, but merely doing well. The best can beat everybody on their day, that's part of being the best, however for others, fairy tale runs are easier in a Continental championship.

aford92 wrote:All of what you say is true. I said the Euros may be harder because of the fact that on paper there isn't an easy game whereas at last years WC there were plenty of easy games on paper. The competitiveness of every game is what made me think that it may be a harder task.

And although some of the lesser teams did well last year I'm sure that if you were to give countries the option of facing the likes of N.Korea, Honduras, New Zealand and S.Africa or facing any team that is in the Euros the majority would pick the WC teams.

dostoevsky wrote:

On paper there's an argument, however Belgium are an excellent example of a wonderful team on paper who probably couldn't beat Venezuela. Serbia and others proved to be similar cases. The quality of international tournaments can vary greatly though, so I agree that this particular European Championship might be a very difficult one to win in comparison to particular to a specific World Cup, though overall I still believe the World Cup is the more difficult tournament.

My feelings on the Euro are based on the fact that winning three tournaments in a row is too difficult in my eyes to accomplish, even though Spain are definitely going to be difficult to beat, so it's up for grabs in that sense.

aford92 wrote:That was the argument I was making. That next years Euros looks harder to win than last years World Cup. I wasn't saying that in general the Euros is a harder tournament.

It would seem that you are the only one who has realised the point I was trying to make, probably should have worded it better to be honest though.

dostoevsky wrote:

aford92 wrote:That was the argument I was making. That next years Euros looks harder to win than last years World Cup. I wasn't saying that in general the Euros is a harder tournament.

It would seem that you are the only one who has realised the point I was trying to make, probably should have worded it better to be honest though.

The problem with analysing who has a real chance before the tournament is that it's based entirely off individual conjecture and after the tournament everyone will say it was obvious that team was going to win, so how hard could it have been to win the tournament?

Spain and Germany are obvious, the Netherlands need a stronger backline - and could do with an extra CM - whilst a team like Italy is considered to have an outside chance because, well, we're Italy and commentators would have to actually think of something so say if they couldn't comment that we have an outside chance. Also if there's anyone who loves to halt Ze Germans, it's us. France have the defence to frustrate though we'll have to see how their attack functions and Capello is a saboteur. And Portugal have the best player in the world

Spoiler:

dostoevsky wrote:Oh, you.

Spoiler:

Lord Hispano wrote:

dostoevsky wrote:Oh, you.

Spoiler:

_________Tee hee hee

leemhuis wrote:Many team that win the Euro have no win WC. Netherlands, Czechoslovakia, Russia, Denmark, Greece. Maybe we could win WC, but the other?