Yet it could be argued that this competition has failed to provide us with the best team
in the world for the past few competitions. The knockout format has always favoured teams who find good form going into and during a tournament, or a team that adapts their style for just a handful of cup games. One has only to look at past tournaments to see that pre competition favourites often fall by the way side through a combination of bad luck, dubious refereeing, or just not performing on the day.The 1954 world cup stands out as the first competition where the overwhelming favourites, Hungary, didn’t quite achieve their goal. The Hungarians had defeated fellow finalists West Germany 8-3 in the first round, and were all set to claim their first world title. But torrential rain on the day of the match, injury to inspirational captain Ferenc Puskás, and a remarkable comeback by the West Germans culminated in the unthinkable – a 3-2 defeat and an unlikely German victory. “The Miracle of Berlin” as it was later called would surely have reached a different conclusion had Puskás been fully fit and the pitch in a more playable condition.
The world cups of 1974 and 1978 were won by the host nation on both occasion
s, another crucial factor in determining world champions past and present. The fancied team in both competitions had been the Dutch, who dazzled with their Total Football approach to the game. In 1974, Germany once again defied the odds and beat the favourites 2-1 on the day. The same was repeated four years later in Buenos Aires when a partisan Argentine crowd and stalling tactics by the home team unsettled the Dutch. A rattled Holland side never really performed in the final, and Argentina’s momentum was enough for them their first ever world title with a 3-1 win. But 30 years on, which team has been celebrated more in football folklore? The winners haven't, that is much is certain.The very next world cup produced one of the biggest surprise winners of all time, when a Paoli Rossi inspired Italy triumphed 3-1 in the final to claim their third world title. So poor were the Italians for much of the tournament that it wasn’t until their fourth match that they secured their first win, having only scraped through the group stage by a single goal difference. With only minutes to play and heading out of the tournament in the second round, Italy took advantage of poor Brazilian defending at a corner, and Rossi lashed home the winner to complete his hat trick, and send the much lauded Brazilian team home. As has happened in many tournaments before and after, Italy had run into a rich vein of form just at the right time, and the West Germans were no match as Paoli Rossi once again scored in a 3-1 victory in the final.
With football becoming increasingly globalised in the 1990s, the so called ‘lesser tea
ms’ were quickly catching up with the traditional powers of the world game. Football associations around the world began hiring experienced foreign coaches and players were gaining big match experience in major leagues around the world. With the overall quality of teams rising, so did the number of surprise one off results, with Cameroon and Senegal’s opening match day victories over Argentina (1990) and France (2002) respectively being prime examples. In the past few competitions, Turkey, South Korea, Belgium, Bulgaria and Sweden have all made it to the semi-finals - hardly world beaters.The luck of the draw can also help. Anyone who saw the 2002 Germany team is still scratching their head and wondering how such a poor team made it to the final. Closer examination reveals that Germany’s route to the final involved getting past the Republic of Ireland, Cameroon and Saudi Arabia in the group stages, and then scraping past Paraguay, USA and South Korea in the knock out stages, all 1-0. Hardly a rigorous test if you’re looking for the best team in the world. To make it even more astonishing, the hugely gifted Argentina team was knocked out in the first round after a ridiculously difficult draw for the group stages.
The world cup may provide quick and instant glory for the winners, but it is doubtful whether it produces the best team in the world. The same, however, could not be said of the league system format. The rigours of a long, hard championship always end with the team at the top of the table being crowned worthy champions. The system allows for off days and bad luck not to have detrimental effects on a team’s chances of success due to the sheer numbers of games played. A below par performance or bad luck in just one game at a world cup and you’re out, end of story. Arsene Wenger commented a few years ago that the number of surprise Champions League finalists in recent years could in part be explained by the doing away with the second group stage, and replacing it with one extra knock out round. There were less group games, more knock out ties, and therefore more unpredictable results.
So could a league format be implemented to determine the best team in the world? In truth, not really, as the logistical nightmare of scheduling games and the shifting of power to club football are two insurmountable obstacles. Fifa’s much criticised ranking system gives us some idea of the consistently good teams around the world, but it could never be considered as the defining criteria in finding world champions.
It looks as though, for the foreseeable future at least, that the current world cup format will persist. But remember, when you watch the winners hoist the trophy aloft, you will, in all probability, not be watching the best team in the world, but the luckiest, the most in form, the team who made the most of their home advantage, or any other reason which proved pivotal in finding that particular competition’s ‘world cup winners’.
