Does form matter before a World Cup? Maybe not for the global greats

Dec 3, 2009, 3:58 PM UTC

Elegant Spain ... Destined for another World Cup tumble?

Over warm plates of Tagliatelle Bolognese, splendidly prepped okra and a mushroom risotto that was sadly over-matched by salt, a few friends were rockin’ and roilin’ in World Cup debate last night.

My friend Andy held serve for a while with this point: that world soccer’s big hitters tend to rise at World Cup time – regardless of form heading into soccer’s quadrennial stop-down.

"The shirt weighs heavy," he said several times, meaning that global heavyweights, middleweights and lightweights tend to find their level at World Cup time. Specifically, as it relates to South Africa 2010, he believes it a fool’s errand to think that Argentina won’t be a force, as always – never mind those well-chronicled qualification struggles. (Others pointed out the X factor here: that for all of Argentina’s wondrous talent, they still have a manager who is crazy as a barn rat.) And, my friend warned, don’t be taken in by Spain’s current luster and elegance; he believes the country’s long-standing history of under achievement at the highest level will rise anew.

He’s got some good points. The dude owns a damn good local Tex-Mex restaurant, but he apparently spends his spare time pouring through reams of World Cup history. Click on for his follow-up email, chock-full of supporting evidence ...

I looked it up: Germany is the only country to win the World Cup immediately after winning the European Championship (72/74). France, as you pointed out, is the only one to do it the other way around (98/00).

(This was about how a European Championship mean diddly when heading into the World Cup; i.e., only once has a team won Euro, then successfully rode the wave of momentum to a World Cup crown. That was Germany, as he pointed out, in 1972 and then 1974.)

Spain won the European Championship one other time, in 1964. They failed to get out of their group in England 66.

Related to how the 1970 Brazil side won the world cup after going through some internal turmoil during the qualifying process (firing the coach a month or two prior to the start of the World Cup), here's an interesting nugget:

In South American qualifying for the 2002 world cup, one team finished first with only one loss, ahead of the second place team by a whopping 12 pts (in an 18 game schedule). Another team struggled to qualify, and only did so by securing the last spot with a win over Venezuela on the last day of qualifying. Yet the first place team (Argentina) did not make it out of their group in the World Cup, while the other (Brazil) won the whole damn thing. Pretty interesting. I'm not ready to discard Argentina in South Africa as many have done already.

Unrelated to all that, here's another interesting nugget that I like to share with my soccer friends - Brazil not only went undefeated in Argentina 78 (finishing 3rd), they also went undefeated in Mexico 86 (eliminated by PKs in quarters). In 78, 82, and 86, Brazil won 11 games, tied 4 and lost only 1 game (the famous black sunday game against Italy), yet they didn't even get to one final during that span.

From 1970 to 1986 (five word cups), Brazil's record was 16W, 6T, 2L. That's a pretty amazing winning percentage if you think about it. Yet they only won one of those world cups. Pretty wild.

Yes, I'm a World Cup history junkie/nerd.

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