"The World Cup and national characteristics" Topic

OK, so I am not remotely a football fan or even a sports fan aside from the odd title fight. A conversation at work about foopbaw did start a train of related thought though.

I had said to someone that IMO England were usually about the 10th or 15th best side in the world. So you'd sort of expect them to make the finals. But they might well encounter two better teams in the group stages, and go no further. If they got into the final 16 – as the 12th or 15th-best team – then it was a matter of luck when, not whether, they got eliminated.

This chap thought England were only 10th best "on average over the years, but are better right now". Leaving aside the matter of the actual 2022 outcome, the idea of a team being the same capability "on average" over a span of nearly 100 years seems unlikely. Until, that is, you look at the data. Since 1930 there've been 22 World Cups in which 80 countries have participated. Only 13 have made it to a final, 8 have ever won it, four have won it 73% of the time, and the other six times it was won twice by two teams, with two singletons.

It's not really feasible to explain this by saying these four dominant countries had runs of luck or form. Brazil has won it from 1958 to 2002, a 44-year span. Argentina has likewise won it over a 44-year span. Germany won it between 1954 and 2014, a 60-year span. Italy won it from 1934 to 2006, a 72-year span.

Now if you didn't know much about football, but were writing rules for a miniatures game version of it that produced realistic results, you'd have a bit of a challenge. If you were an old-skool wargame rules writer, you'd be forced to conclude that there are some national characteristics at work here – because how else is this long-term consistency of form explainable? It's not like these are recently-established tournaments in which the old guard will eventually be upended by new challengers. New challengers aren't winning this tournament, ever. It's the same 8, and in fact it's mostly the same four.

If you were down with the kids, OTOH, you'd be appalled at any suggestion that one team might innately be any better than any other. You'd be instructed by your priors to write a set of rules that gave Brazil and Zaire an equal chance of winning, rather than the +3 on every throw that Brazil probably ought to get. There would be no advantage playing as Italy, because Cameroon would be just as good.

The Revolutionary-Napoleonic Wars didn't last 92 years, or feature 80 nations, but they ran for over 22 years rather than tournaments. In terms of the outcomes, i.e. the concentration of winners, they actually seem to me to be not dissimilar. If the World Cup were the Napoleonic Wars, France would have won 16 of them, Britain four, and the other two wins would have been shared among Austria, Russia, Spain and Prussia.

Aha! I think national characteristics play a role in fitba as nations pass down styles of play, often subtle skills and tactics that are absorbed at a very young age.

But the world is changing and it shows in this last Cup. Parity is coming closer to reality. Great individual players arise from many more nations now and make vast sums in pro leagues while adapting to various styles of play – and by changing styles of play as they spread across the globe and teams adapt to them.

Cohorts of players come together for a few years, then age out and rebuilding takes place. This would result in distinct eras for some nations, as we have just seen in Belgium, for example. These periods of dominance are like the Coalition eras. The Austria of 1805 was not the same as the Austria of 1809. Adjust rules accordingly.

Coaches from top countries are drawn away to Africa by fabulous deals, this becomes a modifier in the modern era.

In your rules you would have to take into account that England has a cloud that follows it to the WC, a dice role of fate would be needed. The Moroccan defense is almost as good as anyone's. Modifiers for special characteristics. There would be upsets, excitement, permutations for advancing through the rounds. And there would be dice. The greatest equalizer of all.

Argentina lost to the Saudis before winning it all.

If the World Cup were the Napoleonic Wars…..
English marksmanship would be markedly better – but France would come second in the Final (again).

So is the madness over and, if so, who won?

Interesting, other than a few threads in here and ESPN and some of our other TV media, no one I know talked about this at all around here. Even though 1 of 5 TV's at the gym had the games on, no one was watching them and no one brought it up in conversation. It was just not important in this area. Pretty much NFL and Collage Football dominated the conversations in person and on the local radio sports shows. Maybe it is more an East/west cost thing, just was not big in my area.

I know Argentina won over France with penalty kicks. Fox was big on talking about it, that is how I knew, but they broadcast the games.

I've tried to watch in the past, but only when my daughters played, could it generate any interest for me.

But obviously elsewhere in the world, it's big.

"who won?"
Argentina – who also have a history of coming second in the really important finals.

Well I know that Tango was celebrating, as was I. France yet again would have been too dull. I actually prayed for a new winner (eg Croatia, let alone Belgium as my hot tip)

US will "largely" ignore what was the biggest sporting event in the last four years, but remember where the the next event is held. They may yet realise this game is not just for their daughters and remember that their national team qualified for what was surely the dodgiest bit of corrupt FIFA malpractice in decades (and that is saying something).

The connection to the title of the forum is dubious, but I do hope it runs.

Come on Armand. Tell them…….

Ignore or not, makes no difference.

I suppose Italy would have to be broken up into city states and regions. The Prussians would be a major contender in more Coalition Cups. The US would remain an outlier with potential someday. Unless the women played.

I think the analogy would be better served by comparing with the late 17th and 18th centuries. Far greater development of theory and approaches to set pieces (sieges), as well as loans and permanent transfers of officers and troops between nations.

The Scottish passing game was imported through increasing professionalism in the North of England and decline of amateur Association football. As time goes by, this professionalism, movement of players and coaches around the world allows for greater parity between nations, although I wouldn't discount climate/seasonal impact on the recent tournament as well.

As for England's track record, there are a number of factors at play:

- the lack of engagement with early international competitions (both World Cup and Euros) and a reluctance to bring in overseas coaches for many years.
- the Home Nations approach which means some very talented players rarely appear in the championships
- bans on English teams in Europe after Heysel and also a lack of success due to having to field weakened teams due to foreign players being capped. English players going overseas were outliers at this time (Platt, Gascoigne, Linekar, et al) and not much has changed since.
- The Premier League, which limits opportunities for English players to be regulars and prioritises club over country.
- finally, the English/British approach to sport, which insists on competing at elite level in multiple sports and events, with a relatively small population (many of whom do not participate in competition themselves).

21st/22nd June, 4th Cuirassier, in "Napoleonic National Characteristics".

The observations in your later paragraphs above, and implications re. rules, are interesting indeed. If I've understood some of the Headlines correctly, the donation of large sums of money from one country to others played some part in this World Cup too, as in the Napoleonic Wars.

""*[//])

Not really Robert – lobbying and funding expensive bids for hosting rights has been common for a long time, but the money being discussed currently was going to FIFA and the individuals running it, rather than countries.

@ 4th

"If the World Cup were the Napoleonic Wars, France would have won 16 of them, Britain four, and the other two wins would have been shared among Austria, Russia, Spain and Prussia".

It's all a bit of a ridiculous comparison, but I still don't see how you award Britain four games. Britain spent the Napoleonic Wars playing in the little league, where she might have occasionally beaten the French second XI in conjunction with the Portuguese. The big players were France Russia, Austria and to a lesser extent Prussia.

Thanks, Ruffian! I'll not go any further with the (not entirely serious) observation/joke, except to add that – in an entirely different field, occupation, and country – I do know that various Towns bid, each year, for the right to hold an official Festival attended by enthusiasts from all over the World. There's a certain advantage for the businesses in the successful Town each year, I suppose. Good Luck.

Robert, I appreciate that point – I generally think it's good that events rotate around and even smaller ones provide kudos and opportunities to the locality, unlike, say, major battles… Hospitality and related businesses do very well, there's a chance to inspire people and celebrate, it's all good stuff.

Even hosting the Olympics, world cup or other major events usually does bring a lot of benefits (and sometimes unwelcome attention), even if white elephants may be left afterwards and the commercialism is always in your face.

I used to work for a sports charity which worked in the education field and was aware of how much money was wasted on the unsuccessful bids. All those visits by the various committees to assess, the VIP gift bags and meals do add up. Not sure what the answer is, but countries spending money they can ill afford or limiting it to established hosts isn't great.

Mark J Wilson, how very land-centric of you…;)

I think 4th Cuirassier's point is that the major powers other than Britain were involved in the Napoleonic Wars for very short periods of time and usually on the losing side.

La Belle, this is certainly not the case for Austria, going back to the Italian campaigns. And 1809 was a major event. Britains role as a financier of other nations in the wars does not translate in football terms.

And how to factor the Royal Navy in? But I still maintain that Britain would be subject to a special dice role of fate.

@ La Belle

Except that the Napoleonic wars were land centric wars. The British process of imperial expansion had very little to do with them or they with it.

I'd also do some maths before you say the British were involved in the wars for longer than other nations. As an example we were in theory involved in 1809, but in practice we were too little, too late and in a very stupid place. In football terms, after the final at Wagram some British kids tried to kick a ball about on a very wet field in Holland, some of them caught a cold and their mums called them in for supper before they got really hurt.

Tortorella, I did specify the Napoleonic Wars rather than Revolutionary Wars, but going back to Italy, what was the strategic outcome?

Did the Austrians and Russians secure victory, or were they forced to settle? Were they (and others, including Britain), able to turn the clock back in France after the Revolutionary Wars? They might win some group matches but always fall at the knockout stages.

Mark, at the risk of derailing the thread, I'll pass on needing to do more maths. link I've previously stated that I see the Napoleonic wars as the final hurrah of France in it's centuries-old rivalry with Britain, but Britain's naval dominance has a huge impact on the Napoleonic Wars at the strategic level and not just in terms of wealth, but also the root driver of decision-making.

Wargaming land battles of the era is more colourful (and popular) than naval warfare and the less glamourous patrolling and blockading; but Napoleon won a lot of the first category yet lost his crown because of the latter.

Inquisitive minds might also ask why Austria felt that conditions were right for them to go to war in 1809. Nothing to do with Spain, the absence of Napoleon and his pulling troops out of central Europe?

People can pretend that Napoleon's follies in both the Peninsular and Russia don't come down to his inability to invade Britain or enforce the Continental System, but they're a symptom of his myopia in accepting the strategic limitations facing France, which can only extort men and money from (often reluctant) allies for so long when warfare has become industrial in scale.

After Trafalgar removed Spain as a British naval rival/French naval ally and Copenhagen meant the Danish fleet was unavailable for the service of Napoleon, there are even fewer options for him. Britain's imperial expansion during the rest of the 19th century is at the very least encouraged, if not enabled, by Napoleon trying to defeat a naval power by fighting land campaigns. It has everything to do with the Napoleonic Wars.

I should add, for the passing reader who may think I'm just hating on their favourite absolute monarch for no good reason, this is a lesson for the ages about the dangers of autocrats, no matter how talented, with half an eye on their legacy rather than concentrating on the job in hand.

I do understand why Napoleon made some of the reckless decisions he did. I still think they're stupid.

Constitutional monarchy for the literal win in this case.

La Belle

Money and the RN at the strategic context I entirely agree, but the thread started on the subject of winning battles in comparison to a football tournament and in that context I stick to my statement, Britain was a little league player. It's an interesting thought did Britain ever field a full XI in a winning battle of any significance. In the 100 days we're either 3 players in the Allied XI under Wellington, or barely 2 if you count all the troops who fought on the final day. By comparison there are 4 Germans in Wellington's team and 7 in the joint side.

I know a few British people who get mightyly enraged by the Yanks habit of claiming that they won every war they ever joined in, but it's easy to see where they got the idea from, we are every bit as bad if not worse.

I think another aspect of the original question was that about explaining why/how certain groups (teams/armies) were consistently successful, and the relationship of this to any rules intended to reflect that? Where's 4th Cuirassier!

[//])

The 1995 Bosman ruling which allowed any player from any country to play for any' nation's team has pretty much eliminated "national" styles of football play.

link

Thus, forcing national characteristics where they dont exist could merely be the rationalization of preexisting prejudices.

I should add, for the passing reader who may think I'm just hating on their favourite absolute monarch for no good reason, this is a lesson for the ages about the dangers of autocrats, no matter how talented, with half an eye on their legacy rather than concentrating on the job in hand.

Inaccurate, Napoleon was not an autocrat. But, considering your lapses with other historical chains of events, not all that unexpected.

I do understand why Napoleon made some of the reckless decisions he did. I still think they're stupid.

I feel like if he knew of your opinion, he would feel a lot better about everything.

Constitutional monarchy for the literal win in this case.

Opening the way for the rise of the British Empire which caused immeasurably caustic, harm to the world; thank god that collapsed.

Sometimes a win can be a catastrophic loss.

Inquisitive minds might also ask why Austria felt that conditions were right for them to go to war in 1809. Nothing to do with Spain, the absence of Napoleon and his pulling troops out of central Europe?

And large British subsidies.

@Mark J Wilson

It's true that if you eliminate Wellington from the equation, the British land efforts in the Napoleonic wars were almost always either mediocre or disastrous. Even some of Wellington's campaigns went nowhere until French draw downs in the Peninsula.

However, the good Duke did a lot with the meager resources he was given.

And British subsidies would be like buying players for other nation's football teams that could no longer afford them in order to block a team the British didnt want to face.

I think one thing largely missed from the OP that relates to war games is national styles. How does a team try to play? They become better at what they do often. Slow deliberate build up through the middle? Rely on defense defense defense and counter-attack, long ball up the wings to play crosses? All teams do these things, but what do they do more? Similar to tactical style in the wars? System changes when you find things don't work anymore?
Phil

We've done the thing about relative contribution to the defeat of Napoleon before. No power other than Britain made any contribution at sea whatsoever, except to fight on the wrong side. On land Britain was engaged against France somewhere for pretty much the entire period. The mainland powers managed a few months before getting owned and changing sides. Nobody handed Napoleon a strategic defeat anywhere until after the fool wrote off his 1805-1807 army in Spain.

However, this is incidental. The main point is that if you subscribe to the view that all Napoleonic armies were of similar capability, you must be utterly bewildered by the World Cup, a contest in which four of 80 countries have consistently won it most of the time, over a span of time far longer than any influential player's career.

If you wrote a computer program that aimed to simulate World Cup results, probably via some sort of Monte Carlo approach, the only way it would sussessfully do so is if it assigned national characteristics to teams. Thus weighted, you could tweak it to give Brazil 22% of the wins. If you started from the supposition that Brazil and Wales were equally effective you'd end up with entirely preposterous results. Indeed, it's not obvious what apart from national characteristics any such program was claiming to simulate.

Despite this there are apparently rules that consider Spanish troops to be as effective as French. On a football field maybe; on a battlefield, sorry, no.

So I am interested in what people think explains this if it's not inherent characteristics. Something must. How can one football team win over a 72 year span? How could the French beat the Prussians so often?

People can debate whether the moon is made of green cheese or of sugar icing, but there's no denying the moon exists.

There might have been a clearer parallel if, for example, Wales had won the tournament in Qatar. Then the Little League lads would have got to the final and ended up on the winner's podium?

Au Pas de Charge,

'Inaccurate, Napoleon was not an autocrat. But, considering your lapses with other historical chains of events, not all that unexpected.'

Brushing aside the inaccurate personal attack, a definition which fits link, particularly when you compare it with articles from Napoleon.org link and link

'I feel like if he knew of your opinion, he would feel a lot better about everything.'

This site is devoted to opinions, as I've pointed out to others previously, so I fail to understand yet another ad hominem comment for merely expressing mine. To keep the thread on topic, 'Play the ball, not the man, as they say.

One glaring inaccuracy I can see is your understanding of the Bosman ruling. Hint, players were moving between clubs in other countries long before 1995. The issue was around players being able to move between clubs (not national teams) at the end of their contract, without a fee being paid.

However, the topic was international football, which has its own rules on eligibility to play for a nation, rather than a league club.

Despite greater movement of players (and coaches), there are still distinct approaches in many national leagues, as well as international teams. In part this is due to fans' expectations of what they deem entertaining and the 'correct' way to play. This is why Italian teams have often focused on retaining possession and England managers have been lambasted in the media when a more cautious approach is tried. There have also been many debates about the impact of Sky Sports money on English league football, as well as the national team. But that's for another day.

As for the British Empire, like all it brought both good and ill, but unlike predecessors, two standouts for me are the first truly global language and the Industrial Revolution, which transformed the world and ultimately benefited early adopters, such as Germany and the USA, even more.

You're welcome.

Mark, little league is an American phrase rather than British, but I would be interested in which of the other majors you see as winning a significant (actually making a difference?) land victory before 1813? Especially without allies…

ConnaughtRanger, you seem to be describing a heartwarming British underdog script there. I think Mitchell and Webb have that covered YouTube link

4th Cuirasssier,

I feel if we had the answer to your conundrum we shouldn't be sharing it on here, but meeting someone from the English FA in a car park and asking for a brown paper envelope full of cash for our insight.

Player quality, motivation, coaching, leadership on the pitch, a strong developmental pathway from grassroots to elite level, financial investment. They all play a part but not all are necessarily required. I don't think there's a single reason to explain all four of your big clubs, but I'll give my opinion for each case.

Italy – well established national league and a strong pedigree in international club championships, teams having many Italian nationals getting lots of game time. An approach focused on defence and possession, which fans will not just accept, but support. In English league terms, Arsenal for much of their existence.

Germany – For my sins, I'm a Burnley FC fan and this article sums up how a group of decent, but not outstanding players punched massively above their weight. link I think there are parallels here. Home-grown players, few prima donnas, everyone knows their role and sticks to it, knowing that others will do the same. You rehearse, do the job, you go again.

Brazil – youth coaching which focuses on close, tight ball-control and encourages players to attack the opposition. Will willingly embrace individual performers and forgive them lapses and times it doesn't quite come off. This avoids over-pressuring players. Don't get me wrong, they care, but winning ugly is only just above losing whilst playing the beautiful game. Man United?

Argentina – Professional footballers will be encouraged to be cynical, but the Argentinians are able to do so in the knowledge that getting the job done, however ugly, will get the backing of their fans. Accommodating individual talent such as Messi or Maradona within that ethic is done well. Leeds United.

Of course, success breeds success and there are only limited opportunities to win these competitions. After a period of time, the elite teams (and their opponents) believe the press as well, so psychology has a huge role to play as well. I'm quite sure that if England ever win a major trophy again, they'll win another within 2-6 years.

Now, do you want to match teams to the Napolonic armies?

"which of the other majors you see as winning a significant (actually making a difference?) land victory before 1813?"

and at that point I wish you good night.