Countries that should be better at football

RedDevilCanuck

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India and China. Canada and the USA. Mexico.

Russia should really be better.

I always thought Greece should be better even if they won a Euro. I know they love basketball. Maybe they don't have pitches due to the rocky and sandy terrain.

Why aren't these countries better?

Who else? Ivory Coast? Australia?
 
Mexico...100+M population and to my knowledge football is still the biggest sport there.
 
RedDevilCanuck said:
India and China. Canada and the USA. Mexico.

Russia should really be better.

I always thought Greece should be better even if they won a Euro. I know they love basketball. Maybe they don't have pitches due to the rocky and sandy terrain.

Why aren't these countries better?

Who else? Ivory Coast? Australia?
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Any countries with a big population and with a proper football culture so China, India, USA, Pakistan etc don't count.

Definitely Nigeria and Mexico are obvious choices.

Any of the other African or Latin countries with big populations like South Africa, Algeria, Egypt, Columbia, Venezuela, Peru.

In Europe maybe Poland should be better. Decent population, decent league, football culture.

Also Turkey, Ukraine and Romania.
 
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China

2nd largest population in the world

Love sports that emphasise agility, intelligence and speed.

Also they love team spirit.
 
Turkey really. They have a population of 85million and are football mad, arguably the best atmospheres in the world and the most intense fans... how aren't they a powerhouse?? Same with lots of the Arabic countries, Football is the main thing there and yet they're a bit shit?
 
Depends on the barometer.

Brazil should be even better if your measuring stick is Argentina.
 
bosnian_red said:
Turkey really. They have a population of 85million and are football mad, arguably the best atmospheres in the world and the most intense fans... how aren't they a powerhouse?? Same with lots of the Arabic countries, Football is the main thing there and yet they're a bit shit?
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Yeah those "atmospheres" only extend to Gala and Fenerbahce for the most part. I've watched plenty of Super Lig matches these past 2 years. If one of those(or Besiktas at times) aren't playing, the stadiums are half empty.

I find it very weird how the "lesser" teams aren't really supported much, by attendance that is. Considering how much they seem to love football there. My brother in law(who's Turkish), says it's because of money, but even when the economy was good in Turkey, this same thing was happening. I feel like plenty of Turkish fans are "glory hunters". Experienced this when I went to watch MU vs Galatasaray, and there was Besiktas and Fenerbahce fans (and in general Turkish supporters that weren't Gala fans necessarily), cheering and taking the piss out of MU fans in the pub. Which was very odd to me, because I rarely if ever seen a MU fan do that if Pool or City where playing vs a European side
 
Poland.

I don't expect them to be great but 8th biggest population in Europe, 10th biggest economy so should have funds for development. it's the most popular sport.

2 great World Cup 3rd place finishes in the past when the economy would actually have been much poorer. Would think they should be shooting for Euro QFs regularly but have only managed it once in their history and didn't ever qualify until 2012.

Winters probably don't help, and former Eastern Bloc countries do tend to be a bit rubbish at football.
 
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Popularity and living standards are far more important indicators than population size.

Croatia and Uruguay have small populations. Portugal and Belgium only have slightly more than 10 million. The Netherlands have far below 20 million. That's 5 out of the top 15 right there with small-ish populations. Switzerland and Denmark are also not far behind this level.

The best is to have all 3 of course (popularity, population and wealth). Football is extremely popular in the Nordic countries but they are hardly mighty football nations.
 
StamsShinyHead said:
Ireland. That's more for my sanity than anything else though.
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Considering we're a soccer mad country, the League of Ireland should be better. At least 70 to 80% of males are soccer fans, as well as a good chunk of females too.

But up til recently, our national team has at least hit par. The odd tournament and frequent playoffs is a reasonable expectation.

If we didn't have the famine, partition and GAA we'd probably be a nation of over 20 million and might be like Portugal or Netherlands.
That's a big "if" though.
 
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From people I know in China, the government isn’t as interested in investing in growing domestic football there as before, which coincides with the lack of high profile transfers to the Chinese Super League lately.

India and the surrounding countries is probably too invested in cricket.

USA will eventually become a force. Too much talent at grassroots level to not be. Problem here is the league infrastructure, administrative bodies, too much shooting themselves in the foot.

Southeast Asia in general, it would be the place to foster talent. The Philippines in particular is big into basketball but they’re never going to come close to NBA level. And their government is too incompetent to do anything positive with scaling up football.

Mexico… I don’t know what’s up with them. Canada does better than them ffs. Probably some Mayan curse that went unresolved.
 
Egypt one that hasn't been named. 110 million people. They finally got a star player in Salah but still expect more.

Poland with their population should be better and also considering they're European.
 
So I looked at the 20 most populous countries. Only 3 are big football nations: Brazil, Germany, France. An additional 3 are good but not great: Mexico, Japan and Iran.

Living standards are clearly the biggest factor after popularity.
 
All of North Africa (except Libya) and Nigeria, Cameroon, Senegal, Mali, Ivory Coast, Ghana.

If you think how much African talent comes out of Europe, imagine how good those countries could be if they had the same facilities and coaching at grassroots available to them in Europe.

Of course, all of the countries mentioned have done well in AFCONs and stuff, I was talking more on the world stage.
 
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JogaBonitoRooney said:
Egypt one that hasn't been named. 110 million people. They finally got a star player in Salah but still expect more.

Poland with their population should be better and also considering they're European.
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To be fair to Egypt they've done well at AFCON, not sure how many times they've won it off the top of my head, at least twice?

Edit: googled it - 7 times!
 
Scandi Red said:
Popularity and living standards are far more important indicators than population size.

Croatia and Uruguay have small populations. Portugal and Belgium only have slightly more than 10 million. The Netherlands have far below 20 million. That's 5 out of the top 15 right there with small-ish populations. Switzerland and Denmark are also not far behind this level.

The best is to have all 3 of course (popularity, population and wealth). Football is extremely popular in the Nordic countries but they are hardly mighty football nations.
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Those two immediately spring to mind when thinking about countries with comparatively small populations but who just always seem to do pretty well. Mexico and Russia are two huge countries that are the opposite. Don't know why, more so in Russia's case.
 
Chipper said:
To be fair to Egypt they've done well at AFCON, not sure how many times they've won it off the top of my head, at least twice?

Edit: googled it - 7 times!
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I guess so but mainly just thinking their world cup record is almost non existent
 
Irwin99 said:
Those two immediately spring to mind when thinking about countries with comparatively small populations but who just always seem to do pretty well. Mexico and Russia are two huge countries that are the opposite. Don't know why, more so in Russia's case.
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Portugal also are a small country and are always very strong.
 
Sweden has almost 3x Croatia's population but have been pretty average in the last 20 years, no?

With high living standards and I assume plenty of investment, you would think their squad should be better.
 
China doesn’t have a real football culture. Having lived there for many years, there is a decent amount of football fans but few that actually play the game.

Other sports are much preferred there, in which they very much excel.

It’s still a giant opportunity, if a European club manages to find and sign a genuine world class Chinese talent, then that will open up the game in China and bring much value to whichever club he plays for.
 
JogaBonitoRooney said:
I guess so but mainly just thinking their world cup record is almost non existent
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Yes, you'd certainly think they could aspire to match the World Cup qualifying records of countries like Cameroon, Nigeria and Ghana. They've all been more often and got further when they've been there.
 
VorZakone said:
Sweden has almost 3x Croatia's population but have been pretty average in the last 20 years, no?

With high living standards and I assume plenty of investment, you would think their squad should be better.
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Swedish kids are richer so probably staying indoors spending time on electronics. Plus there's the freezing weather over there.
 
Chile and Perú

Probable just a slightly less fanatics than Brasil, Argentina and Uruguay, but almost never reach the same standards.
 
Mexico aren’t that bad, up until the last World Cup, they got out of the group stages in 7 straight World Cups from 1994. Yeah they have been lacking in getting further than that (unlucky at times with the draw, getting top teams) but it’s a consistent standard that is better than a lot of other nations.

Aside from Hugo Sanchez - and they were banned from 1990 so missed one of the tournaments of his peak - they haven’t produced really world-class players, next best was Marquez around 2006 probably, but that is arguably the difference in getting past that last 16 stage as the average player in their team has been quite good, but lacking a player like those who beat them - a Baggio, Robben, Messi, Neymar etc
 
KeanoMagicHat said:
Mexico aren’t that bad, up until the last World Cup, they got out of the group stages in 7 straight World Cups from 1994. Yeah they have been lacking in getting further than that (unlucky at times with the draw, getting top teams) but it’s a consistent standard that is better than a lot of other nations.
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Yes, the Mexico shouts don't make that much sense to me. They don't have many star players, but they are consistently good in world cups.
 
StamsShinyHead said:
Ireland. That's more for my sanity than anything else though.
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Yeah Ireland should be better for sure, don’t buy the GAA excuse. Look at the number of full-time coaches and it’s nearly bottom of UEFA despite being a rich country. And the interest is 100% there, the national team is a big deal. England training the players from teenagers papered over the cracks for years, but underinvestment is criminal as grassroots level. No reason to think Ireland couldn’t be, if not a heavyweight or Croatia level, but a more regular tournament qualifier with investment in coaching level with other UEFA countries.
 
Ethiopia. with morethan 120 million peoples, Ethiopia was one the founder and the winner of 3rd Africa Cup of Nations. There are huge demand for football in the country. Even if, the country known With Athletics, Football is by large the favorite sport. All children spend their time with playing football.
 
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