Countries that should be better at football

I think there was a good thread in here after the last World Cup as to why Mexico is a poor footballing nation relative to size/population considering football is the number 1 sport.
 
Scandi Red said:
Yes, the Mexico shouts don't make that much sense to me. They don't have many star players, but they are consistently good in world cups.
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They're decent, but I suppose there's a case to be made that they should be the 2nd or 3rd best in the Americas due to population and popularity of the sport.

Economy hasn't always been fantastic but then neither has Brazil's. Argentina used to have a great economy at one point but that was a long time ago now. Top 10 in the world around a century ago.

I wonder if who migrated there played a part? Spain were considered underperformers for a long time for a European country of their size, whereas Portugal (Brazil) have often been good for their size. A lot of the better Argentinian players are descedents of Italians who have been strong too. Just a throwaway thought.
 
KeanoMagicHat said:
Yeah Ireland should be better for sure, don’t buy the GAA excuse. Look at the number of full-time coaches and it’s nearly bottom of UEFA despite being a rich country. And the interest is 100% there, the national team is a big deal. England training the players from teenagers papered over the cracks for years, but underinvestment is criminal as grassroots level. No reason to think Ireland couldn’t be, if not a heavyweight or Croatia level, but a more regular tournament qualifier with investment in coaching level with other UEFA countries.
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We're partly to blame as fans for not supporting the League.

I do think the government should fund the LOI academies though.
 
Considering the country is completely obsessed with football to the point it basically destroys all other sports, Portugal should really have better results.
 
Lash said:
South Africa
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One of the highest paying leagues on the continent. Success as a footballer is not based on a chance at playing in europe. For black south Africans football is the number 1 sport. They should at least be at the level of the African power houses.
 
flappyjay said:
One of the highest paying leagues on the continent. Success as a footballer is not based on a chance at playing in europe. For black south Africans football is the number 1 sport. They should at least be at the level of the African power houses.
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Exactly, they should be challenging for AFCON titles, but they are miles away from that.
 
flappyjay said:
One of the highest paying leagues on the continent. Success as a footballer is not based on a chance at playing in europe. For black south Africans football is the number 1 sport. They should at least be at the level of the African power houses.
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They seemed to be at their best in the immediate post-apartheid years, fallen away since then.

Before anyone even jokingly says it I'm not advocating a return!
 
Chipper said:
They're decent, but I suppose there's a case to be made that they should be the 2nd or 3rd best in the Americas due to population and popularity of the sport.

Economy hasn't always been fantastic but then neither has Brazil's. Argentina used to have a great economy at one point but that was a long time ago now. Top 10 in the world around a century ago.

I wonder if who migrated there played a part? Spain were considered underperformers for a long time for a European country of their size, whereas Portugal (Brazil) have often been good for their size. A lot of the better Argentinian players are descedents of Italians who have been strong too. Just a throwaway thought.
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They have not been obviously worse than any team in the Americas outside of Brazil and Argentina in the past 30 years. Clearly the best team in North and Central America, having won 9 out of the last 16 Gold Cups. Uruguay would be the obvious 3rd best team, but have only done better than them at the World Cup twice in the past 8 World Cups, even if you allow for it being easier to qualify. Only Brazil have been in the last 16 as often as they have in the Americas, and more than twice as many times there as Uruguay and Chile. Chile and Uruguay have won 2 Copa Americas, Colombia 1 in that timeframe. Mexico have never won it, but got to the final twice in 31 years, 3 semi-finals.
 
England. Constantly losing this (and other) sports while inventing them is crazy.
 
Nigeria, 250million people with football as the main sport.
 
RedDevilCanuck said:
India and China. Canada and the USA. Mexico.

Russia should really be better.

I always thought Greece should be better even if they won a Euro. I know they love basketball. Maybe they don't have pitches due to the rocky and sandy terrain.

Why aren't these countries better?

Who else? Ivory Coast? Australia?
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I think Nigeria beats all these countries seeing the population and popularity of the sport. They have really being poor.
 
KeanoMagicHat said:
They have not been obviously worse than any team in the Americas outside of Brazil and Argentina in the past 30 years. Clearly the best team in North and Central America, having won 9 out of the last 16 Gold Cups. Uruguay would be the obvious 3rd best team, but have only done better than them at the World Cup twice in the past 8 World Cups, even if you allow for it being easier to qualify. Only Brazil have been in the last 16 as often as they have in the Americas, and more than twice as many times there as Uruguay and Chile. Chile and Uruguay have won 2 Copa Americas, Colombia 1 in that timeframe. Mexico have never won it, but got to the final twice in 31 years, 3 semi-finals.
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Fair enough when you put it like that. There's a good case to say that they are the consistently the 3rd best team in Americas in that time then.

Part of me does want a big performance out of them though. No WC quarter final since hosting it in '86, never made a semi-final.
 
JBG said:
Yeah those "atmospheres" only extend to Gala and Fenerbahce for the most part. I've watched plenty of Super Lig matches these past 2 years. If one of those(or Besiktas at times) aren't playing, the stadiums are half empty.

I find it very weird how the "lesser" teams aren't really supported much, by attendance that is. Considering how much they seem to love football there. My brother in law(who's Turkish), says it's because of money, but even when the economy was good in Turkey, this same thing was happening. I feel like plenty of Turkish fans are "glory hunters". Experienced this when I went to watch MU vs Galatasaray, and there was Besiktas and Fenerbahce fans (and in general Turkish supporters that weren't Gala fans necessarily), cheering and taking the piss out of MU fans in the pub. Which was very odd to me, because I rarely if ever seen a MU fan do that if Pool or City where playing vs a European side
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Was that happening in Turkey or somewhere else? I thought that Turkish fans in Turkey would passionately support the opponent teams of their arch enemies. I once read that they would even welcome them at the airport, attend the game with the opponents shirts etc.

Meanwhile Turks outside of Turkey tend to support all Turkish teams.
 
Hungary.

It's a country with rich football tradition that used to have elite football teams and produced some all-time greats of the game.

Then at one point they just stopped producing talented players and have been unable to qualify for tournaments for a long time until rather recently. They had some relative success in last years but still far bellow from what they should be, considering their history. They just don't have decent players anymore, even most of their national team players play for obscure clubs over Europe.

Also there's been a lot of investment in football from the Orbán government and the country has flat terrain perfect for football pitches.

I mean I don't expect them to win international titles, but they should be on the same level as Croatia or at least close to it. These two countries have very similar culture, are of similar size and both are obsessed with football. But only one produces any results.
 
Definitely Indonesia. Die Hard Football culture and hooligans. 275 millions population, number four in term of population. Yet languishing at 133 fifa rangking, never won any of their regional or asia competition.
 
Any Central/South American country that isn't Argentina or Brazil, honestly the amount of players I see in 11 a side of even 5 a side from these countries where I live (Louisiana) they completely boss everything, built massive, technically gifted etc and I'm from England but these guys would had dominated my Sunday League and couple of guys I know who were actually pros.
 
WouterWeghorst said:
England. Constantly losing this (and other) sports while inventing them is crazy.
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I recently saw a video on England's tournament history and learned that they had missed out on so many tournaments. Outside of 66 the last 20 years have been England's best years. Only missed one tournament.
 
Outside of their EURO’s win in 2004, I’ve always thought of Greece. Without doing any research into population, socio-economic factors, climate factors, I’ve always had a feeling that they could be a big European football team. They are a pretty big name in Europe (non football terms), and maybe could have been an alternative version of Italy. But obviously they are a pretty unglamorous footballing team.
 
Precaution said:
Any Central/South American country that isn't Argentina or Brazil, honestly the amount of players I see in 11 a side of even 5 a side from these countries where I live (Louisiana) they completely boss everything, built massive, technically gifted etc and I'm from England but these guys would had dominated my Sunday League and couple of guys I know who were actually pros.
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They're normally short though. Maybe that's why the likes of Mexico don't do so well.

Argentinians have more European blood.
 
VorZakone said:
Sweden has almost 3x Croatia's population but have been pretty average in the last 20 years, no?

With high living standards and I assume plenty of investment, you would think their squad should be better.
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I think there's something in Croatian and Balkan genetics to make them good at sports.

They're not just good at soccer but basketball, tennis, athletics etc..

Culture plays a part but there's definitely a genetic factor.
 
Romania should be doing much better.

They have a population of 20 million which is twice as much as Greece, and football is by far the #1 sport there just like in other Balkan countries.

They've been low key the most underperforming Balkan football country relative to their population size.

For example Serbia is seen as an underperforming team but they have only 6.7 million people but they've managed to produce far better players than Romania in last 20 years, and did more on tournaments (though not much).
 
next_number_seven said:
I think there's something in Croatian and Balkan genetics to make them good at sports.

They're not just good at soccer but basketball, tennis, athletics etc..

Culture plays a part but there's definitely a genetic factor.
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Mexico is on the decline. There’s a shocking lack of quality work at the grassroots level, with very few clubs doing serious youth development.

To make it worse, the billionaire club owners removed limits on foreign players and there’s no longer relegation/promotion
 
VorZakone said:
No white text?
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You don't think genetics plays a role in success at sport? It obviously does on an individual level so can across country populations too. Mind you, that tends to be more to do with certain body types being suited to certain sports, and some countries producing more people with the ideal charcteristics to succeed in those particular sports having adapted to local conditions in relative isolation for centuries rather than just being good at sport in general. Nutrition is interlinked with that too.

Football is a sport that can suit lots of different body types so anything like that would be less impactful but could still be there to an extent.

Or was that more about Sweden and their sports stars because they've had plenty?
 
KeanoMagicHat said:
Mexico aren’t that bad, up until the last World Cup, they got out of the group stages in 7 straight World Cups from 1994. Yeah they have been lacking in getting further than that (unlucky at times with the draw, getting top teams) but it’s a consistent standard that is better than a lot of other nations.

Aside from Hugo Sanchez - and they were banned from 1990 so missed one of the tournaments of his peak - they haven’t produced really world-class players, next best was Marquez around 2006 probably, but that is arguably the difference in getting past that last 16 stage as the average player in their team has been quite good, but lacking a player like those who beat them - a Baggio, Robben, Messi, Neymar etc
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Yes, up until Martino coached them they always made it into top 16 in world cups since I have memory. They always try to break it into the top 8 teams but for one reason or another they haven't been able to it.

In my opinion I think the last world class player they produced was Carlos Vela but he wasn't particularly liked by mexicans.
 
Chipper said:
You don't think genetics plays a role in success at sport? It obviously does on an individual level so can across country populations too. Mind you, that tends to be more to do with certain body types being suited to certain sports, and some countries producing more people with the ideal charcteristics to succeed in those particular sports having adapted to local conditions in relative isolation for centuries rather than just being good at sport in general. Nutrition is interlinked with that too.

Football is a sport that can suit lots of different body types too so anything like that would be less impactful.

Or was that more about Sweden and their sports stars because they've had plenty?
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I get the gist of your argument. I remember once reading how Nepalis thrived as Gurkha special forces because of their endurance due to living high in the mountains.

I don't see why Balkan people would be genetically better at football though.
 
Chipper said:
You don't think genetics plays a role in success at sport? It obviously does on an individual level so can across country populations too. Mind you, that tends to be more to do with certain body types being suited to certain sports, and some countries producing more people with the ideal charcteristics to succeed in those particular sports having adapted to local conditions in relative isolation for centuries rather than just being good at sport in general. Nutrition is interlinked with that too.

Football is a sport that can suit lots of different body types so anything like that would be less impactful but could still be there to an extent.

Or was that more about Sweden and their sports stars because they've had plenty?
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I just mean there seems to be a concentration of sporting genetics in Balkan countries for some reason.

Similar to how Ashkenazi Jews excel at academics. There's a concentration of high IQ in their population.

Just anecdotally growing up, I knew some lads who were just naturally brilliant at every sport they tried and they trained the same as everyone else. Whatever those genes are, they're more concentrated in the Balkans. Obviously height is useful for basketball and tennis.

Also there's other factors at play like culture and coaching etc...

Historically they're at a crossroads of civilization so that might be a factor. If you look at movements of people over millennia, the Balkans would've been a crossroads of Greeks, Romans, Ottomans, Phoenecians etc...Also lots of wars and conflicts killing the weak.

As opposed to Scandinavia or Ireland for example who would be more geographically isolated.
 
USA should definitely be better and I think they will eventually. China and India will never be better no matter how big are their pops.

Football is similar to sea trading in the old ages, nation needs a good environment to trade or practice. Countries like Australia are too remote from the stronger teams, even if they have good athletics they never have enough numbers of players with good international exposure. Too few players with opportunity to play in Europe like Kewell or Viduka
 
I think the Balkans, Brazil, Argentina show that coaching and culture plays a bigger role than infrastructures (ie buildings).

These regions are not just good in one sport but in many.
 
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