Was this the best world cup ever?

I actually meant to write "world cup final" in the topic header, but this discussion can be had too I guess
 
No fans in the stadium for a World Cup final. Best World Cup ever ! And Manchester City is the best team ever ! Everything is making sense now.
 
It seems to attracted a lot more interest from people who didn’t previously watch football which is always good.
 
Samid said:
Not old enough to remember '02 but easily the best in the past 5 editions.
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Are you younger than the underage girls you've been screenshotting this whole tourney?
 
A fair amount of recency bias at play here. Today's final aside, which will never be beaten in my lifetime, it resembled 2002 the most (a mostly average World Cup). I was a bit too young to appreciate 1994 properly but like I said in another thread it's 1998 > 2018 > 2006 = 2014 = 2022 > 2002 > > > 2010 if I were to rank every edition from when I started watching football.
 
2002 and 2006 were impressively run by the Japanese/South Koreans, and Germans respectively. Not much fan controversy.

Think 1998 remains the best in the 32-team era.
 
The best final I’ve watched. Though 86’ was pretty good as well.
 
Best of the last decade for sure, but not the best of all time. Maybe for people aged 20 minus. The unexpected results were fun but quality of some matches were horrendous. Lot of the matches were boring but ended with a drama in the last minutes so it added to the entertainment. The players are in the middle of the season so they should have much more energy. Overall a good WC.
 
Probably because the players weren't as tired that it was such a good World Cup but watch the pub football being played by run down players come the end of the season :lol:
 
Nowhere near the best in terms of the quality of the football, but obviously a great one for the drama and entertainment.
 
Nop, shite atmosphere killed that chance. Lot of fun games though and amazing final.
 
Not even close and I find it bonkers people are saying so.

Worst quality world cup I can remember by quite a large distance. Entertainment wise was ok but suffered due to too many poor teams getting to the later stages either through pure luck or just having a lack of non poor teams to stop them.

That final does pretty much single handedly drag it above a few others though. Genuinely epic viewing and gave the tournament the truly memorable game and great moments it had been missing.

From memory, 98, 2002 and 2018 still better overall for me.

It being in the middle of the season has significantly dampened it for me. All felt a bit rushed and half arsed and it's been hard to get invested in it at all.
 
Two major issues that stop it coming anywhere near close:

- A lot of the football was poor as most teams had little rest. This led to better results for the smaller teams that have players that don't play in Europe, but in general, the quality of football was poor compared to both 2018 and 2014. France in 2018 played better than any of this year's teams.

- Very few big match ups. Because England, Brazil and Portugal went out in the QF, the only real two big match ups you had in this tournament of strong, equal teams were England - France and Argentina - France. For a 64 match or whatever tournament that's seriously seriously poor. I mean what was Argentina's run to the final? Australia, a weak Netherlands and Croatia. Probably the easiest run to the final ever?
 
Found it a bit shite overall if I'm honest. Some decent games, nice final (if you're neutral and for some reason don't hate the cnuty Argies) but shite atmosphere, shite timing (mid season, winter), shite location, and the plethora of scandals once again highlighting the corruption within FIFA (among others) put a huge damper on it for me.
 
Best is a stretch but defenitely a very good tournament. Would have liked some more big clashes. Germany and Italy not being in KO never helps.
 
I'm 35, the first World Cup I remember watching was 98, and I'd say this year's was the best one in my life time.
 
marktan said:
Two major issues that stop it coming anywhere near close:

- A lot of the football was poor as most teams had little rest. This led to better results for the smaller teams that have players that don't play in Europe, but in general, the quality of football was poor compared to both 2018 and 2014. France in 2018 played better than any of this year's teams.

- Very few big match ups. Because England, Brazil and Portugal went out in the QF, the only real two big match ups you had in this tournament of strong, equal teams were England - France and Argentina - France. For a 64 match or whatever tournament that's seriously seriously poor. I mean what was Argentina's run to the final? Australia, a weak Netherlands and Croatia. Probably the easiest run to the final ever?
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Argentina vs Netherlands & Croatia vs Brazil were entertaining games. Morocco's games were mental, the story there will live for ever... We had Spain vs Germany in the group stage with high stakes. We had a wonderful France vs Denmark.

Agree about France 2018, but I believe this Argentina side is very strong and a worthy champion.
 
I liked the open nature of it, it felt similar to 98 where you felt lots of teams could potentially have won which is what you want if you're going to have an absurd amount of nations involved. 98 is tainted slightly by the Ronaldo incident hampering what should have been a dream final.
 
Watched 78 to now. 74 I was 11 and out messing about but watched 78/82/86/90.. until now. 86 was great but now it’s a tossup because this final was something that is hard to explain. My team was involved in two matches that compare but this was as good and I had no bias at all. Incredible
 
Best final ever, but that is where it starts and ends.

Atmosphere was dire and several factors contributed to that which have been discussed previously
 
1986 was sensational. Loads of teams that packed a punch and could conceivably win it, basketball scorelines and a better final as well.

Really enjoyed this one though.
 
As a complete world cup, no way. Except some, the games and the teams were mediocre.

Maybe the best world cup hosted in Asia but even that's debatable.

The final was the same up until the 80th minute when Otamendi decided to have his brainfart.
 
B20 said:
I actually meant to write "world cup final" in the topic header, but this discussion can be had too I guess
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To answer this question: yeah, absolutely. Last night was the mother of all World Cup finals and the chances of something like it happening again in my lifetime are close to zero.
 
It was an odd tournament in that Brazil, Germany, Spain and Portugal had some flashes of looking good, but weren't overall. There were quite a few dull early group games and 0-0s.

But then the last round of group games was one of the best finales to that stage ever seen for drama and the QFs were decent. Semis less so, though Morocco put up a great fight and were superb all tournament, and then easily the greatest final in my lifetime.

Mixed bag overall and agree there were no standout great teams, but the high points were seriously high in the drama and entertainment stakes.
 
Pintu said:
Argentina vs Netherlands & Croatia vs Brazil were entertaining games. Morocco's games were mental, the story there will live for ever... We had Spain vs Germany in the group stage with high stakes. We had a wonderful France vs Denmark.

Agree about France 2018, but I believe this Argentina side is very strong and a worthy champion.
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I think it's fitting that Argentina went all the way having been involved in the two best games of the tournament by some distance and being the better team on each occasion. A part of me still feels we were robbed of an Argentina-Brazil semifinal, though, with all respect to Croatia.
 
No idea about best, but it definitely had a really good group stage, with most groups going down to the final games and plenty of upsets. Knockouts where mixed, but lots of good games there as well. Final was an amazing story, and I'm not sure if you could get a much better finish if you scripted it.
 
For the first time since 1994, I didn't watch a single live minute of football during the World Cup. For me, it was the worst simply because of where it was held and why it was held there.
 
Hard to say. The semi finals were a complete non event, when in the past they made some of the most memorable games. The lack of big games hurts this world cup, which is a shame, because the few that there were, were fantastic. Spain Germany, England France, Netherlands Argentina, and Argentina France. Could've been a star studded quarter final and then semi final, upsets killed that (which is also great in a different way, but led to shit/barely competitive semi finals).

The final is probably the best football game I've ever watched, taking it all into account. So that'll always go down in history.
 
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