The Big Question: Will Europe Dominate this World Cup?
By now you have probably read more than a few times that a non-European team hasn’t won the World Cup on European soil since 1958 when Brazil defeated the host country Sweden. That means the past five World Cups in Europe have been won by a European team with three of those victories by the host nations. With 14 of the 32 teams coming from the continent, the odds are certainly in favor for a strong showing by the teams from Europe in Germany 2006.
A few other things are working in the European teams’ favor.
First, with Germany located smack in the middle of the continent you can expect that European teams are going to have strong crowd support. Teams like Serbia, Croatia, Poland and Switzerland might get the extra boost they need by playing in front of vocal fans who won’t have to travel far to support their teams.
Second, some of the other regions are a bit weaker than in previous years. The five African nations are largely untested and unproven at this level. On paper the teams from Asia are not as good this time around as they were in 2002. CONCACAF has a pair of solid teams in the US and Mexico, but little more. South America is obviously the biggest challenger with Brazil and Argentina capable of winning the tournament, and Paraguay is always a dangerous team to play.
Third, there are some really talented European teams. Italy, Portugal, England, Spain, and France can compete with anyone when it comes to ability. Throw in the host country and a few teams like Croatia, Sweden and Serbia, and you have a large pool of teams that are capable of going far in the tournament.
At the end of the day I think we’ll probably see a few teams from outside of Europe that make a surprise run and we might even see a non-European winner, but I think this is going to be a European dominated tournament. If I had to wager right now, I would pick no less than 11 of the 14 European teams advancing out of group play.
Your thoughts?
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Comments
By Euler | March 23rd, 2006 at 6:01 am 
Of course you have good points there. But I believe that Brazil is to the world what my Flamengo is to Brazil. We have fans all over the place.
I know there are lots of people who wants Brazil not to win, but also most people would like to face Brazil at the final match. I’m not that worried about the crowd factor.
As long as we are in the competition, samba party will go on, right?
By OPKO | March 23rd, 2006 at 8:33 am Wouldn’t it be great if the egos in the Brasilian side caused some turmoil and a first round exit… when did this last happen, was it in 1990?
Posted from 
Canada
By Gibb | March 23rd, 2006 at 9:15 am one point that was not mentioned is the climate. It will propably we the “coldest” worldcup since Argentina 78. Rain, mud, cold weather suits european teams perfectly.
Posted from 
Germany
By Lyle | March 23rd, 2006 at 10:27 am Most definitely… and of course Brazil.
Posted from 
United States
By yeah | March 23rd, 2006 at 11:28 am dont forget that most of brazilian players who will be in this wc play in europe, so the climate wont be a problem…
and why would we say we’re not favorites? we’re not being egocentric, its just the reality! 2 times champion and 1 time runner-up in the last three cup, and we have the best team of the world, what do you want me to say?!
Posted from 
Brazil
By Of Course | March 23rd, 2006 at 12:27 pm European teams dominate every World Cup. Sure they may not win each one and they have trouble actually winning when the tournament is not played on European soil. But they have the majority of teams in the final stages of every World Cup. When was the last time we saw a final involving two teams not from Europe? 1950?
It’s just a numbers game. Europe gets more qualifying places than every other region (and rightly so since there’s so many more countries jammed in there), so there would have to be major upsets all across the board to not see 5-6 of the final eight teams be European. 2002 was the first time in WC history that only one of the final 4 teams was European (unless you count Turkey as a member of the EU), so perhaps there is a change in the winds.
I hope we see more teams from other regions go deep into the tournament, but the sheer weight of numbers and history lean against it.
Posted from United States
By Gaston Cufre | March 23rd, 2006 at 2:03 pm What is the angle?
How do you look at this?
It all depends, right?
if we take into account that 60% of the top 10 countries in the globe are European (coke rank), then, Yes, they will dominate.
If you consider that only 44% of the teams in this cup are European, then, they will not. But relatively speaking, if you compare this 44% with each other continent’s figure, well , then yes.
If you look at the last 30 years, then, basically, it’s either Brasil, Germany or Argentina. That’s a 33% chance that germany will walk away with the trophy. 
(shameless plug for Albicelestes!)
if you are not a complete IDIOT, then your money is with Brasil. ( darn it)
If you had the crystal ball, then is ARGENTINA! ARGENTINA!.
If you designed the Coke ranking, where USA is 1 point away of topping Argentina……you are doing too much coke man, go straigh to rehab, don’t collect $200.
Posted from Canada
By OPKO | March 23rd, 2006 at 3:43 pm I am in full agreement that these rankings do not accurately reflect the relative strength of teams in the past few years.
How can teams that are in the world cup be ranked in the 40s and 50s? (Togo, Angola, Ukraine, Australia, Serbia, etc…)
How did the USA get into the Top10, let alone the Top5? They play in a soft continent, and get many wins against much weaker opponents. They have yet to produce anything outside their continent’s competitions (gold cup wins? played on home soil)
Ukraine is ranked 42. They qualified by winning a group which included Turkey (11), Denmark (14) and Greece (21). How did Denmark ever get to 14? Was it that one good result v France in Japan/Korea?
There must be a better way to do this… perhaps having rankings for each continent, and then allocating a certain number of places to each continent for the Top 20, Top 50, Top 100, etc.. (much like the allocation of places foer the world cup).
Even better: have the 32 teams from the world cup start the next 4 years ranked 1 to 32 based on how they finish, and have them move up and down based on results in between world cups.
Any thoughts?
Posted from Canada
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