Just in case anybody else was keeping track of the Brazilian mystique, here's everybody they've beaten in the knock-out rounds of the last 4 World Cups*:
2nd Round Wins:
United States '94
Chile '98
Belgium '02
Ghana '06
Quarterfinal Wins:
Netherlands '94
Denmark '98
England '02
Semifinal Wins:
Sweden '94
Turkey '02
Final Wins:
Germany '02
Out of all those knock-out games, only the Dutch team from the '94 quarterfinals was a threat to win anything, but their best player also walked out during the tournament. There were a couple good draws in there that Brazil won on PKs, but that's against legendary penalty chokers Italy and Holland, not exactly dominating the sport. Adding the teams that lost to Brazil in the first round but went on to the knock-out rounds, since they would arguably be of the same caliber:
1st Round:
Turkey '02
Australia '06
I'm just saying, those quarterfinal wins were all solid, but even I was surprised to look back and see how many tomato cans their wins came against. And even then, a lot of those involved close scrapes and dodgy refereeing, I mean the ref apologized to Marc Wilmots for screwing him after one of those games. I would say against teams who went into the World Cup looking to win, Brazil went 1-2-2, so I'm taking the field again in 2010. (I didn't count Germany and England in 2002, both could have been eliminated in the first round without anyone raising an eyebrow that year.)
*-Nobody's even reading this, much less keeping track, but allow me my delusions. Some days the only thing that keeps the loneliness from driving me insane is my close relationship with my collection of singing potatoes.
No comments:
Post a Comment