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Old 07-18-2018, 01:55 PM
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EZM EZM is offline
 
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: Edmonton
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Imagehunter View Post
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.
100% AGREE - the FIFA rankings are based on a points system weighted by confederation, ranking and depreciated over time and Germany was far ahead in the rankings and stayed there. The new rankings should be out soon, which will re-align (correct) a little of the disparity, but the time/weight/depreciation system is one of the issues.
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