"Playing well = Not headbutting a player and getting sent off in a world cup final and not being there to take an all important penalty kick."

Zidane played a great World Cup. He almost single handedly won the match against Brazil.

"You can also put not handling a ball under that definition too."

Argentina - England, 1986 World Cup. The best football player to date (jury still out on Messi) scores two goals for Argentina's 2-1. One, the most beautiful goal in World Cup history. The other, with his hand. Would you say he "didn't play well"?

Also, I agree with Henry. His job is to play to win, the referee's job is to call the fouls and etc.

Henry did his job well, the referee didn't. End of story.

@Xapi - "The best football player to date"
Do you mean Pelé?

No he means Maradona (sp?)

Brazil and Spain are easily the best teams, they have so many players capable of producing the moments of magic that are vital in the World Cup. We could well see a Brazil-Spain final provided they don't meet each other earlier.

As for the others, England could definitely reach the semis or even the final, and I think Holland will do well this year.
I think Argentina, France and Italy will underachieve, but I think an African team could maybe make the quarter-finals. I do think that the best African team is Ivory Coast and they have a tough group.

Ghana reached the quarter finals last time i think, so African teams can do it. The main problem for them is they rarely play together or even against each other, as there are no major African leagues.

@ Hellenic Riot : there is Africa Cup of Nations every year plus most of the players are in European clubs.

Anyone else keep an eye on the "Soccer Power Index?"

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/spi/rankings

It's a quantitatively-based ranking by Nate Silver which really likes South American teams (so, Brazil over Spain).

Can you trust a ranking where Uruguay and Chile are higher than France and Italy? As you said I must really like south america.

Yeah they're in European leagues, but not at the same club or even all in the same leagues, they're all used to different playing styles.

Same for most of the other teams, that is the globalized football market. It is the same for south america, Europe etc... Argetina, Brasil, France are good example with players in many different leagues.

I think that African teams failed in world cup because of a lack of good defenders, but I like their offensive style.

detroit ftw!!!!!!!!!

"Can you trust a ranking?" Well, we'll see. The guy who put this together made a living on fantasy baseball (which means, he was really good at predicting future performance from past performance). Then he developed a statistical model for the 2008 US election that predicted the results.

But yeah, you're right, there's no reason at all to think that France is overrated.

Bump

It isn't about France and Italy overated but about Chile and Uruguay overated. They were not even qualified last World Cup when Italy won and France was second. So I think that is a joke.

France was Champion 1998 and out in the first round for 2002, so that's really not as important as you want to make it.

Chile has a great squad, and Uruguay is always a threat. You can ask rdrivera about underestimating Urugayans and what Brasilians did with their "1950 Champions" memorabilia.

Interesting fact: Uruguay is the smallest country (in terms of population) to have won the World Cup, and has done so twice.

Sorry for the Uruguayens but I think when they won the World Cup that competition wasn't really serious. In 1930 for instance : "Thirteen teams, seven from South America, four from Europe and two from North America entered the tournament. Few European teams chose to participate due to the duration and cost of travel." People did't took it serriously.

I don't think there are any Uruguayans in the site, so no need to be sorry, but I think both World Cups were rather serious, and again, ask any Brazilian how big a deal it was to win '1950's Cup.

@Chamois and Xapi - I think every World Cup is serious, they reflect the state of football on that time. Before winning the first WC on 1930 Uruguay won the Olimpic Gold Medal and for that reason have the right to organize the first World Cup. So, it´s serious. And I prefer to not talk about 1950......
But I agree that France and Italy are still better teams then Chile and Uruguai, but the difference is not that big as many would say. Any football ranking of nations is just crap as they didn´t play the same competitions, so what really matters is WC performance.

rdrivera2005: Not a very high sample size, though, is it?