A 5 to 4 that leaves us breathless is a spectacle
You may have heard that ironic joke that “a goal is just a detail”. Lie. A goal is a delight. A 5 to 4 like that that leaves us breathless is a spectacle. A 7-0 defeat then… whoever paid for a ticket leaves the stadium smiling until the next day. Speaking of firepower, let’s take a quick look at the teams that put the ball in the net the most in the qualifiers on the main continents:
Europe → Norway: 35 goals in just 8 games
Asia → Japan: 28 goals in 10 games
Africa → Nigeria: 22 goals in just 4 games
South America → Argentina: 31 goals in 18 games
If we stop here, Norway seems unbeatable, right? Almost 4.4 goals per match! But here comes the part that everyone forgets: who were these goals scored against? Norway only faced ONE FIFA Top 10 opponent (Italy). The rest? Very weak teams. Japan and Nigeria also played against teams, on average, outside the Top 75 in the ranking. Argentina? Played against EVERYONE that matters. All of her opponents are in the FIFA Top 50. Including, of course, Brazil and Uruguay – those matches that count for ten.
Summary of the opera: scoring a lot of goals is beautiful, but scoring a lot of goals against the strongest is another matter. And the world fans, according to the latest polls, continue to point out the following as big favorites (not necessarily in that order):
Spain, France, England, Argentina and Brazil.
And you?
*This text does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Jovem Pan.
