Anyone else rooting against ALL European team?

[Kneel B4 Zod]

I'm American, and feel like the current system actually works against European teams. It's the hardest region to qualify from - as I said in another thread, more "good" European teams are left home than from any other region.

re: the last World Cup, Spain and Italy were both [censored] jobbed by South Korea and the refs. the final four really should have been Turkey, German, Italy/Spain, and Brazil. 3 European teams.

now, I do think that the best 2 teams in the world are Argentina and Brazil. But after that, there is a huge drop-off. After Italy and England in Europe, you have Spain, Holland, Czech, Portugal, France, Germany, and Sweden, plus solid teams like Denmark and Greece who didn't qualify.

basically, no other region has as many Top 20 teams. I'd say at least 12 of the top 20 teams in the world are in Europe, which is pretty impressive considering how much bigger the world is than Europe.

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Wahh I kept reading, you do know that Turkey is part of the EU, I'd say that makes them somewhat European, or perhaps soon the world will just be USA and Europe and China.

[Clarkmeister]

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Wahh I kept reading, you do know that Turkey is part of the EU, I'd say that makes them somewhat European, or perhaps soon the world will just be USA and Europe and China.

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Perhaps. I'd be pretty shocked of blokes from England and Ireland considered the Turks to be their "European brethren". [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] They aren't really middle eastern either. I'd consider them more like the 8th and tiniest continent. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[Schaefer]

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Hey clark you know that Turkey is part of Europe right....

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Turkey is not part of the EU and probably won't be for another decade, if ever. They have a small part of their country in Europe but the majority is in Asia. This has little relevance to the OP but I wanted to point it out.

[Spaderess]

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Well if you ignore the fact that Turkey is in UEFA and therefore clearly part of the European football community so it was actually 2-2 Europe/Non Europe.

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Add to this that Korea wouldn't been there if it wasn't for two horrible calls by the referees in the quarterfinal against Spain. So it really should have been 3-1 Europe.

Of course Turkey is European.

Go Sweden!

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Hey clark you know that Turkey is part of Europe right....

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Turkey is not part of the EU and probably won't be for another decade, if ever. They have a small part of their country in Europe but the majority is in Asia. This has little relevance to the OP but I wanted to point it out.

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Sorry don't know why I thought that, was there some consideration or something I'm sure whilst paying 10% attention the news at some point in the last 2yrs I heard "join EU.....Turkey....".

[Kneel B4 Zod]

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Hey clark you know that Turkey is part of Europe right....

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Turkey is not part of the EU and probably won't be for another decade, if ever. They have a small part of their country in Europe but the majority is in Asia. This has little relevance to the OP but I wanted to point it out.

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Sorry don't know why I thought that, was there some consideration or something I'm sure whilst paying 10% attention the news at some point in the last 2yrs I heard "join EU.....Turkey....".

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meh, it's basically too close to argue. Turkey is not in the EU, but is in the Council of Europe.

more importantly for this discussion, the soccer team qualifies through UEFA, making them clearly part of the European soccer community.

[Silent A]

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I knew someone would point this out. In reality, no one really thinks of Turkey as a European team.

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Well, I do and I'm sure most Europeans do. Actually, I suspect only *you* don't consider them a European team.

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Still 2 to 2 Euros to CONCACAF.

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OK, here are the quarter finalists from 2002:

England
Brazil
Senegal
Turkey
Korea
Germany
USA
Spain

Are you saying Turkey is a CONCACAF team and one of England/Germany/Spain isn't?

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And not against anyone else not from Korea? C'mon. I'll grant you that Korea had a wicked home field advantage, but no way will I concede that it worked more against the Euros than Brazil, for example.

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Trying to figure out when Brazil played Korea ... hmmm, they never did. Here are the teams Korea faced in round 2:

Italy
Spain
Germany
Turkey

all UEFA.

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My point above was that despite the results so far, its pretty clear that the gap between Africa, for example, and Europe is far far smaller than what is reflected in the current standings.

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Everyone recognizes the gains African teams gave made in the last 20 years, so I don't see your point. They're still clearly behind Europe though. The biggest thing the last 2 WCs have shown is that the second teir African teams have caught up with Nireria, Cameroon, etc. so they now have maybe 8 counties that could compete against European teams. But you're fooling you think they've caught up with Europe's top teir.

CONCACAF and Asia are much further behind and are only just approaching where Africa was 20 years ago.

[The once and future king]

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The refs have been just awful in their support of those teams also,

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Pure girly hysteria.

[Clarkmeister]

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Well if you ignore the fact that Turkey is in UEFA and therefore clearly part of the European football community so it was actually 2-2 Europe/Non Europe.

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Add to this that Korea wouldn't been there if it wasn't for two horrible calls by the referees in the quarterfinal against Spain. So it really should have been 3-1 Europe.

Of course Turkey is European.

Go Sweden!

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Whoops, I forgot about Spain.

Turkey still not European though. But if you all really think that, maybe I need to root against them too.