Gordon EF Posted July 16, 2018 Share Posted July 16, 2018 49 minutes ago, Dons_1988 said: Does losing home and away to Scotland in a qualifying campaign not get you permanent diddy status? So the world cup final was diddy vs diddy? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dons_1988 Posted July 16, 2018 Share Posted July 16, 2018 So the world cup final was diddy vs diddy?Diddiest final ever Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marten Posted July 16, 2018 Share Posted July 16, 2018 4 hours ago, Gordon EF said: Would be interesting to see a more detailed study of it. I tend to think it's over-rated as a factor in a lot of ways. Countries with more immigration have more immigrants / children of immigrants in their teams. Some are good, some not so good. I'm not sure what's so shocking about it. Iceland have barely any immigrants in their side, yet are massively overachieving. Good coaching is still by far and away the most important factor. I'm pretty sure it's over-rated. Unless these players only moved to the country they represent when they were already good football players (of which I can't think of any examples), they have gone through the youth structure of the country they represent. So naturally, it's far more down to that than to where the players are originally from. Having talent is one thing, actually developing that talent and growing to the top is far more of a challenge. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GordonS Posted July 17, 2018 Author Share Posted July 17, 2018 20 hours ago, Gordon EF said: Would be interesting to see a more detailed study of it. I tend to think it's over-rated as a factor in a lot of ways. Countries with more immigration have more immigrants / children of immigrants in their teams. Some are good, some not so good. I'm not sure what's so shocking about it. Iceland have barely any immigrants in their side, yet are massively overachieving. Good coaching is still by far and away the most important factor. Yeah, I'd like to see a study too. The only advantage I can really think of is it might be good to have a diversity of body types, or in the case of a country like Switzerland have people come from football-playing countries into one that's less so. It probably matters a lot more in other sports, where body shapes have a big influence - it's handy to have people of East African descent for middle and long distance running, or of West African descent for sprinting, for instance. But football is a sport in which both giants like Jan Koller and dwarves like Leo Messi can reach the top, which is one of the many great things about it IMO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheScarf Posted July 17, 2018 Share Posted July 17, 2018 I think Spain just edge France by virtue of winning three tournaments in a row over France winning two. But those two nations are definitely well ahead of anything else in the continent IMO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jdog Posted July 17, 2018 Share Posted July 17, 2018 On 15/07/2018 at 19:17, TrebleTwenty said: Immigrant central. They pretty much have the whole African continent to choose from. This is a point, I heard that something like 80% of the French squad are from African migrants, from Nigeria, Algeria, Ivory coast mainly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NotThePars Posted July 17, 2018 Share Posted July 17, 2018 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sparky88 Posted July 17, 2018 Share Posted July 17, 2018 On 16/07/2018 at 00:45, GordonS said: tbf, they weren't cricket or rugby playing nations until the British occupied them and stole all their stuff. Thanks for explaining this . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gordon EF Posted July 17, 2018 Share Posted July 17, 2018 1 hour ago, GordonS said: Yeah, I'd like to see a study too. The only advantage I can really think of is it might be good to have a diversity of body types, or in the case of a country like Switzerland have people come from football-playing countries into one that's less so. It probably matters a lot more in other sports, where body shapes have a big influence - it's handy to have people of East African descent for middle and long distance running, or of West African descent for sprinting, for instance. But football is a sport in which both giants like Jan Koller and dwarves like Leo Messi can reach the top, which is one of the many great things about it IMO. Yeah, I think the 'genetics' argument is probably only relevant for very physically specialist sports like sprinting and distance running. Again, research would be interesting but isn't the idea of racial differences applying to team sports been pretty much debunked and the kind of 'cultural' element is way more important? For example, whites dominate ice hockey and blacks dominate basketball because that's more or less the racial profile of people who take up the sports rather than each race being 'more suited' to one sport or the other. But yeah, getting immigration from 'football' countries probably helps a lot. Taking England as an example, plenty of cricketers of Asian origin playing cricket for England, none playing football... because cricket's more popular than football in India / Pakistan / Bangladesh. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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