With the addition of Mats Hummels, Bayern Munich’s roster is starting to look like a de facto version of Germany’s 2014 World Cup squad. And Bayern is, of course, one of the top teams in the world.
Which leads me to wonder: Suppose that Bayern Munich were one of the 32 teams in the World Cup to be played in Russia in 29\018 - subbing in for Germany. How far do you think they would advance?
What about Manchester United? Real Madrid? Barcelona? How would they fare as one of the 32 teams in the World Cup?
I mean, of course, “2018,” not “29/018.” Typo.
They’d get out of the first round but that’s about it. I mean no Marco Rues, Schurrle, Khadiera, Kroos. Draxler, Gurgeon.
Barca would be lucky to get out of the first round, not with that leaky defence.
Man U would not even qualify.
Real Madrid might get deep.
Internationals, especially World Cups are played at an intensity that Club matches are not. I think t was one of the Spanish players after 2010 who said that after a match where you were pumped up for 90 minutes you would feel an exhaustion that you never knew at club.
They’d win. In general the top club teams are better than the top national teams, if only because they play together more often. Also clubs can buy players for positions where they think they are weak, something that is not possible for national teams.
If you’d allow Bayern, Barcelona an Real Madrid to play in the World Cup: there’s your top 3.
ETA AK84 is just plain wrong.
Do you think the Warriors or Spurs are as good as Team USA in the Olympics?
I don’t get this. The national team, presumably, has no shortage of players who would love to play for it in the World Cup. It can select and choose at will to meet the shortcomings of its roster. If anything, it’s the clubs who are handicapped by financial constraints and the bids of their rivals.
:dubious:
Really?
Here is the current German squad and the current Bayern Squad for comparison. There is no competition, in addition to the Bayern boys, they have players who are the pivots of other teams elsewhere.
The top national teams have more or less unlimited talent at their disposal and no financial constraints. If Joachim Low wants a German player, he can just call him up and that’s that. A player who is good enough to get into the German, Italian, Brazilian, Spanish, Argentinian national side as a regular starter is good enough to play at any top club.
A club does not have that luxury, even with the theory of having the best players on the planet at your disposal. Firstly, they’d bankrupt themselves even trying. They have to compromise. Secondly, players are of varying quality, the worlds best forward line (eg Barcelona), but with a defence that is composed of a veteran and rookie GK and having to play a midfielder as a Center Back (Barca again.). You can play all stars if you are a top national side and from the major countries, they will be all stars.
Plus national sides have a lot more depth. Muller’s backup at Bayern are Julian Green and Kingsly Coman. In Germany they are Julian Draxler and Marco Rues.
Of couese there is a lot of overlap between the top national and top club sides.
I don’t know basketball well enough to comment (it is basketball right?). But pretty much all American sports are really only played at a decent standard in the US/Canada and by extension Americans (Canadians in Hockey). Not the case with football.
Any of the top teams from the top national leagues would stand a fair chance of winning.
How could it possibly be any other way? The top teams are not limited by nationality for their choice of player and they train and prepare as a team week in and week out.
AK84, when I look at those squads I just don’t agree. Sure in some positions there are many great German players, but if you look at the forward line Lewandowski is way better than any of the German options. Then Bayern have Robben (probably the best individual playerat the last world cup) and Ribery. Not to mention players like Xabi Alonso and even Alaba and Coman.
So the Germans have about 6/7 good attacking midfielders: you can only play 3 at a time really. I’m Dutch, trust me, I know all about having 10 top attacking players but no defense worth mentioning (not lately though).
I’m not saying any club team will do better tan National sides, but the absolute elite club teams have the more balanced squads. For clubs like Real, Barca and Bayern there are far less limitations than a national coach that has to chose from the players that happen to have a nationality.
I disagree with this about as strongly as possible. You know that Nigeria, Algeria, Mexico, Costa Rica, Greece, Switzerland, and the US all made it out of the group stages in 2014 right? ManU and Barca are miles better than all those teams. Real Madrid would be the best team in the world and would be favorites to win the Cup.
If you could clone all the players so you could have full club squads and full national teams, and the top 32 teams in the world went to the WC, I’d guess that 20 of them would be club teams.
Fivethirtyeight looked at this question a couple years back. The noted that conventional wisdom is that club teams are better
This analogy is ridiculous. Of course they aren’t. All the best basketball players are American. The best 25 soccer players in the world are probably 11 different nationalities.
False and false. Germany cannot call up Messi or Ronaldo, and neither could any German forward get playing time at Barca or Real Madrid.
I have to go with Bayern. It’s also worth pointing out that Bayern has Philip Lahm, but the German national team doesn’t.
Coman is not primarily a back-up for Muller, he’s plays mostly on the wing for Bayern and starts most games. If he was German he would be in the squad for Euro '16 and would get minutes (he has been called into the French squad, who have a better forward line than Germany and he will get minutes for France in Euro '16)
Julian Green plays for Bayern II in the regional 4th tier of German football. It would take bigger injury crisis in the forward line than Muller and Coman being out before he saw the pitch for Bayern.
Of course, despite that, it is true that once you get to the level of 4th or more back-up for a position the big international sides almost always have much better options than the big club teams. But that really doesn’t affect he quality of the team much as a player that far down the pecking order is unlikely to see any playing time, which is precisely why the big clubs will have reserve/youth team players fill these roles.