Soccer really sucks, doesn't it?

[Cort Haus]

Thpain.

[Wezil]

Did they really? Good for them.

Where and when is the next event?

[Lul Thyme]

the wc alone doesnt have enuff matches to determind stuff like that. you would have to look at the world rankings that is based on a much longer time period.
at first i was actaully going to agree whit you that south america deserved more spots, but at the expensive of other continets. but then i looked at the diffrent world rankings and its pretty clear that eu should have more spots at the expense of all other continets, including south american.

http://www.fifa.com/worldfootball/ranking/lastranking/gender=m/fullranking.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Football_Elo_Ratings

i told you a couple of pages back, find a single ranking system where europa doesnt dominate.

I'm not sure why people still argue this "issue".
1. It is a fact that Europe is under-represented compared to its strength at the World Cup. (Drake disagreeing does not change this).


2. The reason for this is an official FIFA policy: FIFA considers that having a few more teams from Africa and Asia (for example) replacing the 18 or 19th strongest team from Europe is very good for the long-term health of the sport, at a very low cost to the respectability of the competition.

Heck, some would argue that there are already too few occasions for international team of different continents to play each other and reducing this even more would make it hard to even be able to compare the strength of the teams reliably.

I certainly agree with FIFA on this. The number of spots for each confederation is about right what I would do +\- 1.

[Drake Tungsten]

At this world cup, 75% of the semi-finalists were European despite a number of their teams exhibiting major suckage. At the previous, 100% were.

This is utterly irrelevant. My point is that Europe doesn't have enough good teams to deserve 13 World Cup spots, which is borne out by the results in the group stage. No one is denying that the elite of European teams are very, very good, and these are the teams that represented Europe so well in the semifinals and beyond.

Spain, Holland and Germany all would have been in the World Cup whether Europe had 13 guaranteed spots or 10. If Europe only got 10 spots, however, crap teams like France and Greece wouldn't have been taking up valuable spots that could have gone to teams in other regions, making the World Cup more equitable and global.

[Wernazuma III]

At this world cup, 75% of the semi-finalists were European despite a number of their teams exhibiting major suckage. At the previous, 100% were.

This is utterly irrelevant. My point is that Europe doesn't have enough good teams to deserve 13 World Cup spots, which is borne out by the results in the group stage. No one is denying that the elite of European teams are very, very good, and these are the teams that represented Europe so well in the semifinals and beyond.

Spain, Holland and Germany all would have been in the World Cup whether Europe had 13 guaranteed spots or 10. If Europe only got 10 spots, however, crap teams like France and Greece wouldn't have been taking up valuable spots that could have gone to teams in other regions, making the World Cup more equitable and global.

Well, let's take a look at those European teams that didn't make it to the top 16.

First, let's take a look at the last place teams in the group phase:

Europe: 3 (23%) --> 2 of which were arrogant "top teams" whose worst enemies are they themselves.
Africa: 3 (50%)
Asia: 1 (25%)
North America 1 (33%)

To me, it seems that Africa is crap and we should eliminate one spot, if anything, giving it to South America. That's not my opinion, since a tournament is only a tournament after all, and I'm sure we'll see better ones for Africa.

Now, let's see how many teams classified for the second round:
Europe: 6 (46%)
Asia: 2 (50%)
Africa: 1 (17%)
North America: 2 (66%)
South America: 5 (100%)

Again, Africa was the worst continent.

France: played utterly crap tournament far below what they could. deservedly out, a disaster, but certainly no bad team generally.
Greece: quite crappy, as usual, still beating the usually hailed "top African team", Nigeria, which sucked even more.
Slovenia: Didn't make the cut, but had strong competition with USA and England. One minute failed to make the cut, they certainly deserved being there.
Serbia: Difficult to judge. Certainly a strong group. I'd agree that they really were the weakest of the trio with Ghana and Australia, but there has to be one last place. Definitely not "out of place" but "in there".
Denmark: This time rather boring, deservedly out. Again, leaving an African team behind them. Standard "group phase" team, not "too weak for the World Cup".
Italy: See France. A disaster.
Switzerland: The only team to beat Spain. Excellent defense. Nuff said.

Nothing here that indicates that Europe doesn't have the teams for its spots, just your aversion.

[dannubis]

DT is an idiot talking about a sport that he doesn't understand.

Good points for you trying to explain it to him though

[MikeH]

He's just trolling.

Africa and North America deserve to get their last place cut ahead of Europe, although actually Africa only had 6 due to hosting the thing. South America as hosts get an extra spot next time.

So that'll be better.

[germanos]

Hueij:

I have always been puzzled by your country. It's interchangeably called The Netherlands and Holland (two names is weird enough) yet the people are called Dutch. The republic is part of a greater Kingdom of the Netherlands which is somehow separate. And the country has two capitals, at Amsterdam and The Hague. Why so much unusual stuff?

I'll do my best to answer your questions.


The current Kingdom of the Netherlands (Koninkrijk der Nederlanden) comprises of the European territory (Nederland)and six islands in the Carribean. The latter are much like overseas territories many countries have: a legacy of colonial times.

The origin of the state lie in late medieval times, when a region that nowadays roughly covers the territory of the Netherlands and Belgium were administered by much larger European powers (the Habsburg dynasty) and were refered to as the Low Countries. The name Netherlands is a direct referal to that. Like in English in many languages the Netherlands are still called 'Low Countries (f.e.: French: Pays-Bas).
In the 16th century (1568), in the wake of the reformation, parts of the Low countries rebelled against the central goverment (which at the time had moved to son Philip II of Spain after the death of Charles V, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire) mainly on grounds of too high taxes (what else!). Being fed up with monarchs/emperors (and nobles in general) parts of the Low Countries managed to gain independance from Spain in what became the Republic of the Seven United Provinces after a 80 year War as the insurgency is called. The Republic was smaller than the Netherlands are today, and comprised of the provinces (principalities) of Holland, Zeeland (Sealand), Friesland (Frisia), Utrecht, Gelre, Overijssel en Groningen: Basically all that is north of the river Rhine in todays geography. (its probaly no coincidence that this is the same part that the Romans failed to conquer, although scientifically speaking I pull this out of my arse) The 'Belgian' Lowlands (roughly below the Rhine) remained under control of the Habsburgs until Napoleon was beaten many centuries later. The young Republic managed to become a major global player during most of the 17th century (the Dutch Golden Age), during which is set up a sort of colonial empire. Very different then the contemporary Spanish and later English and French colonial Empires it focussed on establishing 'trading posts' on far shores rather then conquering vast territories. The methods to gain the upper hand in local influence were nevertheless as ruthless as was deemed necessary. Main instrument in this was the VOC [i]United East-Indish Company)[\i], the worlds first stock-holders Company that was given the monopoly (by whatever means necessary) on spice-trade by the Dutch parliament. The Company was based at the Amsterdam Stock-Exchange, the main city of the province of Holland, which by itself was by far the biggest. most populous, whealtiest and therefore most influential party amongst the seven united provinces. Hence in most of the overseas contact with local populations and during rivalry/armed conflict with other nations/powers must have lead to the name 'Holland' being mentioned a lot. Apparently it stuck.

The current Kingdom has Amsterdam as the capital, and Den Haag (The Hague) as the seat of Goverment. At the start of the republic Den Haag had been a traditional center of power within the province of Holland, but Amsterdam had become a major center of commerce and in that respect became a very influenetial power. Keep in mind that in the 16th century cities by themselves were to a large part independent in a backwater of a large empire as administered by the Habsburgs. Central goverment as we know today was a completely different thing then. With the rudimentary ideal of 'Power to the People' that inspired the revolt against the 'Spanish Central Government' and its taxes, the Republic was a federation of Provinces, and these Provinces itself were to a large extend federations of city-states. In order to remain unity it was important to give each it's own piece of the pie. In fact, during the rebellion against the 'Spanish' it was much more a game of which CITY (the kind with city walls ;-) )would join the insurgency rather then which Province would join. As such, even after the Republic was founded and internationally acknowledegd in 1648, it remained a federation with no capital, but with a center of power in The Hague where a rudimentary parliament (a Senate of the United Provinces) resided, while each city more or less managed its own business. Amsterdam only became (formally) Capital after Napoleontic times.

So, we had our Golden Age, but soon had to bend over to bigger powers abroad. From the late 17th century onwards things went downhill and by the time the American (1776) and French Revolution (1789) had taken place (which were to some extend children of the Dutch rebellion) the Republic had slipped back to the backwater of northwestern Europe it had always been. Discontent with the state the Republic was in and inspired by (and sympathetic to) the French revolution a new revolutionary movement took hold and the 'Batavian republic' was founded (1795), only to be swallowed by the Napoleontic French Empire soon after (1801). Napoleon installed his brother Louis as King of the Netherlands and after sweeping the continent, crushing Kingdoms and Empires like they weren't there was finally beaten. After that, the victors were up to the task of rebuilding the continent to its pre-Napoleon state, reinstateing all the fallen Monarchies/Empires and were faced with this pest of the old Republic in the Netherlands, where no Noble had reigned for centuries. And offcourse France had to be checked to prohibit renewed expansion. Thus the map of Europe was redrawn and the Kingdom of the Netherlands was created. A new King (descendant of the rebel leader the Prince of Orange) was given the territory of what is now the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg (1815). It was deemed that the monarch had to be sworn in the capital Amsterdam: the only reference to Amsterdam being the capital of the Kingdom.

The Belgians didn't like their new overlords one bit and revolted promptly, resulting in their internationally accepted independence in 1830. Luxembourg seperated in 1898 since their constitution didn't allow for a female monarch who took the crown of the Netherlands that year.


So why are the Dutch called Dutch?
This seemes to be an exclusive English fenomenon. For the rest of the world we seem to be 'People from Holland' (in whatever form that may be in their language, f.e. in French 'Hollandais') or at best 'People from the Netherlands' (Neerlandais). Only the English speaking world refers to us as 'Dutch', which has indeed (as has been said by my fellow countyman on this board) a distinct ring to 'Deutsch' and Deutschland (Germany). Awkward enough, Germans are nowhere abroad to be referenced to as anything close to 'Deutsch' (as they call themselves), but rather 'German' or 'Allemagne'. A reason for this probably is that due to its close geographical location to the Low Countries the English had ealy contact with the locals who had ,certainly in medieval times prior to the Dutch independence, close cultural ties to the 'tribes' that inhabited this corner of the world (including Belgium and the west of Germany) and who shared a common language: Diets. Whereas all of continental Europe refered to the Netherlands to its specific geographical landscape from there perspective (low lying landsto the northwest, prone to floding), the English had quite a different point of view from their island, and used adifferent terminolgy to identify all those tribes and regions on the mainland, and ended up with a derivative from Diets: Dutch

[duke o' york]

I really hope that was cut and pasted.

If not, you're wasting yourself on this thread.

[Japher]

fenomenon.

eh?

[duke o' york]

New from Tampax!

[OneFootInTheGrave]

I'll do my best to answer your questions.

snip

this was the most informative post I read here in years

[Cort Haus]

I really hope that was cut and pasted.

If not, you're wasting yourself on this thread.

I read it all, and if it was cut & pasted, the original article had plenty of typos.

[Cort Haus]

The Belgians didn't like their new overlords one bit and revolted promptly, resulting in their internationally accepted independence in 1830.

Didn't the international recognition of the 1830 declaration happen in early 1831?

[duke o' york]

Yet when was the FA formed?

I read the lot too, and it was fascinating. I was only saying that this was not the right thread to choose for a "write a brief history of your nation" post. If anyone else wants to open one, that would be great. One post per nation, mind. I'd be tempted to do France, donné que Spiffor n'est plus ici.