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Comparing those two pools of 8 teams, I would say the World Cup group is stronger overall with the two best teams. IMO the two worst teams are Australia and Ecuador even though Ecuador beat Poland 2-0 in the last World Cup finals. Mexico is arguably as good or better than all of those European sides.

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Australia and Ecuador are worse than Austria???

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Where the European Championship excels IMO is the group stage. The most lopsided possible matchup is Italy versus Austria I guess. Compare that to Spain against Saudi Arabia or England versus Trinidad and Tobago which were actual matches (Brazil vs Trinidad and Tobago would be the biggest gap possible probably). Debating this is like debating conferences where one is significantly better top to bottom while another has a couple of great teams at the top and some terrible teams.


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If the World Cup only had 16 teams then there wouldn't be so many terrible match-ups.

Making the final X number of teams at the World Cup is a greater accomplishment than making the final X number of teams at Euro for a European team. This is obvious. UEFA is a subset of FIFA. Every UEFA team has a chance to compete in the World Cup. It can't possibly be harder to win Euro.

For a non-European team (except maybe South America) it may be less of an accomplishment to make the final X number of teams at the World Cup then if that team hypothetically competed in UEFA and made the final X number of teams at Euro. This depends on the value of X.

If x is 16 then this is true. In order to make the final 16 at the World Cup, a side like the United States basically gets a free pass into the last 32 and then only needs a little variance to get to the final 16. However, if they were in UEFA they would have to finish top two of a tough table over the course of an entire league in order to make the final 16.

If x is only 1 then obviously winning the World Cup is greater because once again the World Cup includes all of UEFA plus some other really good teams.

In conclusion, the World Cup is a tougher tournament for European teams, always. For non-European teams this might not be the case. However, it doesn't really matter because I don't think Brasil will be competing at Euro anytime soon.