Big Question: Which team outside of Europe and S. America will do the Best?
You might have heard by now that the World Cup has only been won by teams from Europe and South America. With the tournament being played on European soil and with a numbers of debutants representing the other regions, there aren’t too many people predicting the next champion will be anyone other than a European team or Argentina/Brazil.
Even if you agree with this, there’s still reason to pay attention to the teams from CONCACAF, Africa and Asia, especially since a few are capable of surprising some teams.
Of those teams from those regions, which one do you think will go furthest in the tournament?
Your choices are:
Angola
Australia
Cote d’Ivoire
Costa Rica
Ghana
Iran
Japan
Korea Republic
Mexico
Saudi Arabia
Togo
Trinidad and Tobago
Tunisia
USA
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Displaying the most recent 25 comments from a total of 50 comments.
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By threelionsfan | May 23rd, 2006 at 9:21 am 
Has to be Mexico - none of the others have much of a chance of getting out of the first round.
Posted from 
United States
By malik | May 23rd, 2006 at 9:21 am Definately not gonna be the USA team, please… i mean, who on theyre team can start for even the likes of saudi arabia(not to diss saudi, i love my falcolns). I think its gonna definately be IRAN, they look vicous, unstoppable, i would not be surprised if they won the whole cup, they have the talent this time around.
Posted from United States
By Antonio | May 23rd, 2006 at 9:25 am Angola will surprise Portugal on the first game but Cote D’Ivoire will make it at least to the round of 16. Mexico should be expected to go as far as they usually go but not more than that
About the qualifying groups. Yes we have 4 to 5 spots in South America. But the team which finishes 7 could easily qualify in most of the european groups. Those 14 spots are not that hard to get either. Especially when most of the games are against teams like Macedonia, Azerbaijan, Luxemburg.
Including the US in South America will be a joke. Every team from south america even if they play in the midwest will be like playing at home. The lack of fans and support is something that the US fans should be more concern of and not concern on trying to qualify with the South America Teams. I’ll rather send Venezuela or Bolivia to CONCACAF and I bet they’ll make their way through the next world cup.
Posted from United States
By Pedro Silva | May 23rd, 2006 at 9:51 am To antonio from states
Actually you don´t have a clue of what you are saying, don´t you?
The nº 7 from south america qualify easily from european groups?
Are you from mars?
You don´t have really an ideia of how difficult are the european groups…even against “small” countries….
Northern ireland 1. england 0
liechestein 2- portugal 2
Just to give two examples.
Posted from 
Portugal
By Cajun Nick | May 23rd, 2006 at 9:59 am Well, in my preliminary brackets, I’ve only got 2 teams advancing out of the group stage - Mexico and South Korea; and none in the 1/4 finals.
However, if Cote d’Ivoire can get out of its group - especially in 2nd place - I think that they have the best chance to go the farthest.
Posted from United States
By owen | May 23rd, 2006 at 10:08 am got to agree with Pedro - at least part of the way - another example Wales 1 - Italy 0….
Sure there are some easy teams (Malta springs to mind) but every single time there are a couple of European teams that ‘ought’ to have qualified who miss out.
Mexico has a good chance of progressing - the win against Brazil resulted in huge upheavals in Brazil - and was a wake up call to everyone else. Mexico is clearly superior to the US this time around.
One of the African teams will make it to the quarter finals and next time (in South Africa) we’ll see one get to the semis and even the final.
I’d pick Mexico or Ivory Coast to go the farthest off that list. South Korea, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Japan, US - one of them might get out of the group stages.
Don’t get me wrong - the playing field is getting leveler all the time - Saudi Arabia or Togo or Australia or T&T are all much closer to Brazil or Argentina or Germany or Italy than they were eight or even four years ago.
Posted from United States
By Nick | May 23rd, 2006 at 10:11 am Group D is not an easy group. Portugal is one of the best European sides in this WC. Mexico is capable of beating the best teams. Iran have decent players who are good enough to qualify to the second round. Finally, Angola are capable of beating any of these 3 sides due to their team spirit. Is there any reason why people should think that this group is weak? No wonder the word “upset” is always mentioned in the World cup these days.
Posted from 
United Kingdom
By Paddy | May 23rd, 2006 at 10:20 am The Ivory Coast is a popular choice b/c of their obvious talent, but this is all about the draw. Argentina, Holland, and even defensive-minded Serbia & Montenegro is a killer draw for Ivory Coast. The US and Mexico may not be far apart in terms of talent/results, but Mexico was handed a far better draw. For that reason, I would say Mexico has the best chance of any non-European or non-South American team to go far. Though keep an eye on Tunisia…
Posted from United States
By Antonio | May 23rd, 2006 at 10:24 am To Pedro Silva:
San Marino 10 0 0 10 2 40 -38 0
Goals scored 2, goals against 40. 0 points.
Macedonia 12 2 3 7 11 24 -13 9
One of the games:
Finland 5 - 1 Macedonia
Number 7
7 Chile 18 5 7 6 18 22
6 points away from qualifying.
The last three spots were decided on the last two games, that is how competitve it is. 9 out of the 10 teams have been in the world cup, even when there were only 3 spots to qualify.
the only team that hasn’t qualify Venezuela has tremendously improove in the last 4 years. If Chile have had played in Europe for Germany 06, I am very sure that it would be playing the world cup. Switzerland, Poland, Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro, Ukraine are not by any means superior than Chile.
Posted from United States
By Paul | May 23rd, 2006 at 11:28 am To Antonio:
Romania 8-1-3, 20 GF, 10 GA, 25pts
Turkey 6-5-1, 23 GF, 9 GA, 23pts
Denmark 6-4-2, 24 GF, 12 GA 22pts
Greece 6-3-3, 15 GF, 9 GA, 21pts
Slovakia 6-5-1, 24 GF, 8 GA, 23pts
Russia 6-5-1, 23 GF, 12 GA, 23pts
None of these teams qualified out of Europe and only Turkey and Slovakia even made the playoffs. Chile could only hope to get into a playoff spot. Yes the bottom one or two teams of each group in Europe are crap, but the top four in each are all quality.
Posted from United States
By Antonio | May 23rd, 2006 at 11:49 am Paul,
My point is that every game that you play in South America is tough. We don’t have Macedonias, or San marinso where we can warm up for the real matches. If you screw up one game, beleive me you are out, just like Colombia, Chile, Peru and Uruguay, altough Uru screwed thier chances later on by falling to Australia. Every game is tough and competitive, and great rivalries. There are not easy games. European teams have enough games where they can be training and putting their team together until they face one of the 3 good teams in their group. And that is a great advantage for national teams, we they have matches where they can experiment with players. Just like you said the 4 top teams in each group are the strong ones and in most groups two qualify right? So it makes it also about 50 percent chance to do it. So the previous arguments of South America being easier because we have a 50 percent chance, it falls down completely, Europe at the end has exactly the same chance!
I agree great teams are out, and so are out great teams in a lot of places, in Africa and South America. It is part of the game and how everyone is getting so much closer to everyone else!
Posted from United States
By kia | May 23rd, 2006 at 12:02 pm Iran
Posted from United States
By Pedro Silva | May 23rd, 2006 at 12:14 pm antonio:
the european qualification is far difficult than south america qualificaton.
in S.america you only have 10 teams to qualify to get 4 places or even 5 if the winner of the playoffs is from S.america.
In europe, at least 10 teams easily are put out of the qualification but have real quality to get toa world cup.
In the portuguese group of europe qualification, we had 3 teams who were in last european championship, plus Estónia who was a candidate.
5 teams for une place.
And at least onde of those was russia who has more world cup qualifications than portugal.
In the other groups the situationis similar. always 2 teams who got a position in a competition ,a third who wants to get there,and a fourth who has ambition to get there.
only for one guaranteed place. This is extremely difficult to qualify.
Plus the distances in KM between countries. One thing is to play in hollland,another thing is to play in cazaquistan or azerbaijan, or moldova or armenia onde sunday and on wednesday play russia for example.
In a middle of a season this is very demanding for national teams..
Posted from Portugal
By Pedro Silva | May 23rd, 2006 at 12:17 pm By the way,i forgot to tell this:mexico passes to the next stage and the 2 teams in the gernay group have their chances to pass.
Ivory coast is far better as african team in comparison with the others,but had the tough chance of getting the worst group in the world cup 2006.
The death group
Posted from Portugal
By Antonio | May 23rd, 2006 at 12:53 pm I hate to do this.
Let’s don’t talk about distance. The distance from Lisbon to Baku, Azerbaijan is about the same as from Bogota to Buenos Aires. (4700km) And let’s consider teams like Argentina, Brasil, uruguay where most of their players are playing in Europe and they have to travel the 8500km to play a couple of games.Don’t bring distance as an issue, it is just making you look bad.
There will be great games in the WC where we will be able to see this South American-European rivalry. Ecuador-Poland-Germany will be a great example. paraguay-Sweden-England. Argentina-Serbia and Montenegro-Netehrlands. Brazil-Croatia. A lot to see and a lot that we will be able to speak about later.
Colombia will also be playing friendly matches with Germany and Poland. Uruguay will play Romania. Ireland will play Chile. Ecuador-Macedonia. Paraguay will play Norway and so on. Let them do the talk! That’s all I have to say!
Posted from United States
By mike2 | May 23rd, 2006 at 1:48 pm antonio, lets see how uruguay does against serbia& montenegro in friendly in few days. if they win or draw away than you are maybe right about s. america being tougher to qualify from.
mexico, ivory coast, and maybe australia are strongest of the above for me.
Posted from United Kingdom
By Pedro Silva | May 23rd, 2006 at 2:37 pm antonio: it´s different in europe. toget to a distant location in europe we need to change airports. usually there aren´t direct flights from one point to another.
as to rivalry there only exists for south americans. in europe that´s irrelevant for the european countries.
there are morerivalry between portugal-spain,or england -france or germany than germany brasil for instance.
Posted from Portugal
By Antonio | May 23rd, 2006 at 3:38 pm South Americans don’t feel any particular rivalry to European teams. Of course most of our rivalries are just like european, either local or maybe with Mexico, because that is who we get to play regularly. Think about it, how come a team like Ecuador, Peru or even Uruguay have a rivalry with France or Portugal when maybe they haven’t even ever played. So of course your teams have bigger local rivalries than with us…it is more than OBVIOUS! And if some team has it it will of course be with Argentina and Brazil. Don’t state something as obvious as that Pedro. I agree with mike2 Uruguay-Serbia and montenegro will be a great game to argue on where the teams on the “pack” of both continents stand to each other. I would look at the Paraguay-Norway game tomorrow. It should be a good game.
Posted from United States
By DT | May 23rd, 2006 at 3:43 pm Seems everyone here overestimate Ivory Coast and underestimate Tunisia.
I’m not a Tunisia fan but I think Tunisia has a decent chance to go to the quarter final.
Spain had to qualify via play-off. Ukraine has no experience playing against non-European teams. Saudi has improved since 2002, but they are beatable.
If Tunisia go to the 2nd round, they’ll face an opponent from Group G (France, Korea, Switzerland, Togo). France is a team that couldn’t even beat Israel and Switzerland. Tunisia is one of the better teams from Africa, so Togo should be a walk in park if they meet. 50-50 chance if Tunisia meet Korea or Switzerland.
Korea also has a good chance to reach the quarter final, but since they reached the semi final last time, they are not really considered underdog anymore.
Posted from 
Australia
By Pedro Silva | May 23rd, 2006 at 3:54 pm antonio:sounded obvious because i wrote a first comment, long ,but i didn´t get it published,because of a power failure of some kind.
after that “crassh” i didn´t have the patience to write again a long comment. so i stick with the small ,but obvious…
Posted from Portugal
By Angelo Mattiello | May 23rd, 2006 at 9:31 pm I agree with the main four candidates almost everyone mentions: Mexico, USA, Ivory Coast and South Korea. These teams seem capable of causing an “upset” (to use this fashionable word) during the next finals.
Posted from 
Mexico
By chuck | May 24th, 2006 at 12:39 pm To OPKO, who said:
“[South America has] 10 countries qualifying, and 4 or 5 of them make it! A 45% qualifying rate is very enviable when compared to the 14 places for Europe’s 50-odd countries (about 25%), and much worse odds for the others”
Don’t forget, 30% of the CONMEBOL nations are MULTIPLE World Cup Champions. What percent of Europe (or any other qualifying zone) has that?
Since the 1990 World Cup, South America has, on average, sent 4 teams to the World Cup finals. On average, 3 of these teams made it to the knock-out rounds. That’s impressive.
South America has earned their slots.
Posted from United States
By louie | May 24th, 2006 at 5:23 pm why is this even such an argument..
mexico has the best chance. everyone knows it, I know that the Us is good, but common poople you saw them yesterday, i know it’s a friendly, but they can’t score. I would love the ivory coast to be a camaroon or a turkey (90 02) but they wont get past the first round, look who they have to go againts. And south korea is not as good. They got really lucky last WC, (referees) so in all seriousness, who else will have a chance..
Of course Mexico, they have an advantage in their bracket. plus they have world class players.
No more of this nonesense please…
Posted from United States
By Akbar | May 27th, 2006 at 6:31 am Under normal circumstances I would have said Ivory Coast. Unfortunately, the Elephants have got themselves stuck in the undisputed toughest group of the Cup: the infamous Group of Death: Group C.
Mexico, as many of you mentioned, have been given a reasonable draw, some would even say easy (by World Cup standards), and this might help them reach further than the rest.
In fact, apart from Australia and Mexico (and Australia only if they are exceptionally good and Croatia aren’t on top form), I don’t see any of these teams going to the 2nd round, either due to their groups (Ghana and Ivory Coast) or simply because they aren’t quite there yet.
Somebody mentioned Tunisia: I think Ukraine should be able to handle them without much trouble.
USA: Tough group, and they really aren’t that good. I think the circumstances were strongly in their favour in ‘02.
Posted from 
Switzerland
By swthrhs | June 1st, 2006 at 4:23 pm Mexico or Iran should get into the last 16 but no further.
Ivory Coast, Ghana look rather good, but are in impossible groups.
Tunisia did very badly against a poor Russian side last time, and I don’t think they’re that much better.
The rest are out of it.
As for the South American - European thing; any of the southern American countries could qualify from a European group, but not one single team, not even Brazil, could be sure of qualifying either. It’s all to do with the luck of the draw. Say, for example, that Brazil or Argentina where in the same group with Holland and the Czech Republic, and even the Brazilians would really have to sweat for their finals place.
What I just don’t understand is why not have intercontinental qualifying groups. After a first round, you could have 15 teams of 5, with the top 2 making it to the finals. That way everybody would be happy (except maybe the Asians who would struggle to get more than one team in the final 32, and the States who in such an event would see their FIFA rankings plumet). It would also be good for the game, since it would measure the more humble countries against class opposition, and after a couple of tries they might even get the hang of it.
Posted from 
Greece
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