Quote:
Originally Posted by EZM
It's been amazing to watch strong teams not be able to put it together,
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Maybe because 'strong' is based on the FIFA rankings which are pretty much useless comparisons based on matches up to four years ago, but they don't really reflect the current team strength or match results.
Just look at Germany, plenty of people had them as their favorite, probably simply based on FIFA ranking, the last WC and the names of individual players.
Anyone following football, their recent matches (five consecutive matches without a victory in 2017, including a loss against Austria!) and the form of the majority of their players shouldn't be surprised about Germany being horrible this year. Because it was completely obvious in the last months before the tournament.
FIFA ranking is useless. Just like other statistics, against South Korea Germany had a ball possession of over 70% and played over 600 successful passes. Looking at that one could think Germany dominated SK, everyone that saw the match could see how the possession and passes were mainly in their own half, being worth nothing since SK used their ball possession of 30% for the two winning goals and was obviously the better team.