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I am not a football expert...
Yes, at the beginning of the UEFA Champions League season I did pick Real Madrid to win the UEFA Champions League, 2014.
I was correct. But I am admittedly not always.
I reason humility is key in sports picking...
And in life.
For the 2014 FIFA World Cup that ended just moments ago my top picks were Netherlands, Germany, France, and my next tier was Brazil, Italy, Spain and Argentina.
My dark horse and long shot pick was Belgium.
I picked Brazil to be knocked out in the semi-finals. I thought it would likely be an all European final.
One of my top picks, Germany, ended up winning the tournament and Netherlands lost in the semi-finals.
My general and main philosophical concept was that Europe would likely win its third FIFA World Cup in a row as since post 2002 there seems to have a paradigm shift and Europe seems to be the dominant continent, not only on the club team level with leagues, but with national teams.
I am not exactly sure why this is the case, but I remember when I was a child back in the 1980s that the South American players were for example, considered by the experts to have more pace than the Europeans and that the Germans, for example, were considered big and slow, but this is now hardly the case, as the Germans are generally larger, but not slower.
So, the South Americans do not seem to have any physical advantages that they used to have over the Europeans.
Perhaps because the major Europeans leagues have grown so large as far as financial entities they are now recruiting more and more of the South American players, which are now less likely to play at home in domestic leagues which means that the South American national teams are less developed, playing together less?
There is even the danger of South American players moving to Europe and gaining European passports and having other national teams as playing options.
Just to be clear on a personal level...
I personally think, in general that Latin people are very nice and very friendly, and I like people from Brazil and Argentina that I have met online and in person, but the reason I do not support Brazil and Argentina is because I have become so tired of the football media, especially the British media, each and every World Cup, picking 'de facto' Brazil and Argentina as favourites when Brazil has not won the World Cup since 2002, now three tournaments without, and Argentina since 1986, that being seven tournaments without.
That kind of expert analysis just very much works against my objective academic nature.
To me it must have something to do with the so called experts favouring style over substance.
Favouring style over substance is something else that can really irks me.
And the European sides are more well-known for defensive strategy and that is an important aspect of football as well.
But in reality, other that Italy, which should attack more, most of the top European sides do play attacking football.
Plus I will admit, I do have a European passport and background and so I suppose it acceptable for me to support Europe.
To Argentina's credit, as I noted on Facebook, although they were not fantastic in this tournament, they could have won the match today, but still my comments about the paradigm shift seemingly remain true. Outside of Brazil and Argentina, South America probably does not have a potential World Cup winner, although Chile, Colombia and Uruguay are good clubs.
Based on what the experts state the only national team that appears to possibly be able to make it into the elite level of potential World Cup champion is Belgium and this is quite a small nation. Time will tell if Belgium can maintain this impressive form, but they still could not defeat Argentina in this tournament.
Brazil? Are they even still an elite national side? Or have they fallen down to England level as in pretenders. Brazil lost 7-1 to Germany and 3-0 to the Netherlands in their last two matches at home.
In regard to Brazil, will these shellackings finally put some objectivity into the experts World Cup selections for 2018, or will many still choose Brazil number one or two for World Cup winner in a de facto manner?
Can Fred save the day for Brazil in Russia 2018? Qatar 2022?
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| Fred from SI |
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| The 'dive' and penalty from Florida Today.com |
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| Yabba-Dabba Do! |
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| TSN |
