Posted: Sun Dec 06, 2009 9:41 amexactly, all nations have never made the quarter finals until they have.
LFC2007 wrote:I think Ghana, Ivory Coast, Nigeria and Cameroon all have very realistic chances of qualifying and the first two even better chances of doing something more than just the last 16. Paraguay are better than ordinary, they are a solid outift with some tricky players up front and an experienced coach. On the whole, the remainder aren't too different from what you'd normally see.
I don't think WC records are a reliable indicator of the strength of a team. In 2002 it didn't stop France from finishing bottom of their group, nor Argentina from failing to qualify from theirs. I don't see it deterring one of the African sides from doing a South Korea for instance...in fact I think that's a real possibility with it being effectively on home soil.
African sides have a poor track record and the World Cup is their only true measure, ACN certainly isn't.
You're using worst performances of a team as a benchmark, but for every European failure in a tournament there is usually a success. Germany were pants in 2000 but reached the World Cup final in 2002. I did consider an African nation could do what Korea did, but you can only go on past World Cups and the Africans still lack quality - and in depth. I don't have access to confirm, but I strongly suspect no more than one or maybe two African nations have got out of the groups since they got five places. Odds are stacked against them because a) they're unlikely to be seeded unless they host so face one top side, b) with regional pots thereafter they can't face another African nation, c) they should face at least one European team and UEFA qualifying weeds out the real rubbish and d) they quite probably will, at best, be third best side in the group.
BUT the way the World Cup is set up, it only takes one result to go in favour of a side and they can sneak through. If say Algeria beat USA then a win over Slovenia or England would see them through. There was something similar in the cricket world cup when a shock saw India and Pakistan out. But I'm working on standard expectation while a lot of people look at optimistic or hopes, they may be right and such and such a team go through, but has there ever been an African team in the top 10 FIFA rankings? The venue may be a leveller, but I think your assessment of some of the teams is way too generous
