The 1980 US hockey team.
I think it is perfectly fair to say that England 1966, Germany 1990 and Italy 2006 were the best and most consistent performers in the tournament. It may be that other teams played better in the run-up and qualifiers and were perceived as somehow “better” but that all means nothing unless it can be reproduced when it matters. That is the only real test of a team’s mettle.
We judge “the best team in the world” as the one who can do the best in that tournament situation. “ability to withstand pressure” is every bit a component of champions as is perceived flair and technical ability. (and many WC winners such as Brazil, Spain and Argentina have shown the full range of those)
And about Italy in 2006 I have the respectfully disagree. They only beat Australia due to an injury-time dive that resulted in a penalty. That isn’t normally the sign of a " the best and most consistent performers".
By that logic we should re-evaluate every world cup winner in terms of what might have been, or dodgy decisions, or missed opportunities or lucky breaks and use those to decide if they were worthy winners or not. That way madness lies.
Argentina in 1986 needed a blatant hand ball to get past England. Spain in 2010 were on the brink of not even qualifying for the knock-out stage.
And as for the Ita-Aus game?
Italy were on the back of a 21 match unbeaten streak (consistent…see), they had much the better chances and should have been 2-0 up in the first half. They had a man sent off (very harshly) early in the second half and conceded more possession to Australia but still they kept them to very few chances (by quality of their defensive play, a common factor in their overall success). The penalty at the end was soft but I’ve seen worse given and had they had to play extra time and penalties I’d still have picked Italy to go through.
As I said, I disagree. The Australia game was the first of the knockout stages. SO at the very first knockout session they had to cheat to progress.
And sorry, I’m not going with “soft”. It was a dive.
And the stats don’t exactly look like Italy were all over them. Only 42% of the play. Same number of shots off target. Same number of corners. Just three more shots on target.
But anyway, I’ll leave that there. We disagree. You won’t convince me and I won’t convince you. These things happen.
I think England 1966 and Germany 1994, both could be legitmately argued were the best team in the World at the time, even though there were other teams on a comparable level.
Argentina 1978, I don’t know enough about other than there were a lot of very good teams around at that time and Argentina weren’t generally considered to be quite among them.
Italy 2006 were probably the worst World up winners I know of. Of course they weren’t total outsiders, however I’ve never known an unfancied team that actually didn’t play that well to win a major international tournament like Italy did
For varying definitions of “world champions” (to appease the nitpickers), the 1960 Pirates were outscored by the Yankees 55-27, outhit 91-60, and shut out twice by Hall of Famer Whitey Ford, and yet they still won. Bobby Richardson, a fairly light hitting 2nd baseman, won the World Series MVP Award on a losing team with a record 12 RBI. The Yankees won games with scores of 10-0, 12-0, and 16-3.
The Yankees were by far the better team. Really, it’s not even close.
I dont understand this sentence. Thought pig’s ear was the equivalent of minced meat (like “making minced meat out of”).
India in 2011 were, if not the best team, definitely close to being the best team in world cricket. They were ranked 1 in tests, and 2nd in ODIs and were widely regarded as favourites going into the tournament (admittedly because they had the home advantage). Doesn’t fit with the rest of your list.
To make a pig’s ear of something is to make a mess of it.
Thorpe was better at what exactly? Thorpe would probably get killed in a 100 or a 50. The distances are totally different so you can’t compare a 100 with a 400. The 200 might be about the only thing one can compare and I don’t really know who swims what off the top of my head but I can say that there are a lot of people that will beat me in a 100 and 200 that I can beat in a 400, the races are just not the same.
There’s a case to be made for the third Ali-Frazier fight.
The idea is that Frazier had kept secret that he was blind in one eye; his other eye was practically swollen shut going into the final round, but he still had an eye that looked fine, which meant (a) the ref wouldn’t know to stop the fight, and (b) Ali would, presumably, make a lot of noise and lead with a light jab – and Frazier was apparently ready to take a few steps out there, in hopes of weathering unnecessarily hesitant punishment while thereby lining up the big left hook that had dropped Ali for the win before.
Crazy plan, right? Could’ve gotten him killed. And so Frazier’s cornerman instead threw in the towel before the round could start – unaware that, across the ring, Ali was telling his cornerman to cut off his gloves, adding that “I ain’t going out there” and later explaining that, as he put it, “Frazier quit just before I did.”
If that’s all true, then Joe Frazier would’ve won the heavyweight championship by default after just blindly standing up and walking forward at the start of the fifteenth.
The 1919 Cincinnati Reds only won because the Black Sox let them.
I like that. It’s the best example in this thread so far. No one took a dive harder than the 1919 White Sox till Greg Louganis came along in the '80s.
My cousin still won’t let go of the thrown game conspiracy. Especially after the hot tub photo.
I just watched it on youtube and had forgotten that Greg Anthony fouled out. Even after that UNLV still pulled out 76-71 lead. It was theirs to lose and they did. Throw in a Larry Johnson 2nd half technical. Then add missed free throws, a shot clock violation, an open Bobby Hurley 3(GA woulda been on that) all down the stretch and UNLV just got beat.
Germany 1994, the folks who lost to Bulgaria?
I agree, the Italians beat on the route to the final, Australia, the Ukraine and a less then impressive Germany. France dominated the final, and if Henry and Viera had not had an off day, they would have won easily.
Sorry should’ve have said 1990 (thoguh Bulgaria 1994 were a good team)
Plus a bit of gamesmanship in extra time from Materazzi helped them a lot and France themselves weren’t exactly that great in 2006, their only victory in the group stages coming against Togo.
I can’t let this drop. I think you must’ve watched a different final, The only real domination France had was in extra time. Until then it was fairly open.
If you have two of your best players go missing and another loose his cool then you don’t deserve to win. This is another bout of “shoulda-woulda-coulda”. It doesn’t work like that. Italy kept their heads better than France and it was no robbery.
And I’m by no stretch of the imagination an Italian football fan, it may be that in 2006 they were the best of a bad bunch, but best they were.
And I should say to AK84 and others that these opinions of mine are being put forward under pub rules. I mean…this is footy…we can’t allow ourselves to actually agree on trivial matters, what would that say about us?
So just to clarify that this is the internet equivalent of playful drunken banter and any retreating from our respective positions is not allowed until more pints have been drunk and a fight averted and we agree it isn’t worth it and in any case we all think that Germany thumping the Argentinians last year was hilarious and that Spain definitely were worthy winners.
I wouldn’t go as far as to say Canada definitely wasn’t the best team in the tournament, but they never really had to beat any of the top powers in the sport to win the gold that year. They definitely didn’t prove that they were the best.