Croatia Are The Rightful 2018 World Cup Champions

[Abram Jones]

We must consider these 3 points for proper evaluation.

1. first 2 French goals were questionable at best
2. Croatia outplayed France for most of the game and got unlucky (which often happens in low scoring sports)
3. In wealth and population adjusted rankings if Croatia would have won or lost by 1 goal or less they would've retained the #1 spot

further explanation:

Wealth and Population Adjusted Rankings After 2018 World Cup

1. Brazil
2. Croatia
3. Belgium
4. Peru
5. Uruguay
6. Portugal
7. France
8. Chile
9. Denmark
10. Montenegro
11. Serbia
12. Iceland

*Peru may seem overrated after poor World Cup performance, but 3 games is not enough for sufficient mathematical deduction
*due to close scores of Brazil, Croatia, and Belgium any of these teams could overcome each other on a day by day basis

 

[Bojan KantKick]

Divvy

 

[WealstoneRaider]

Terrace with this

 

[Cevap_Roll]

Croatia best team on the night

France by far the best team of the tournament

Hurts me to say it but rightful winners.

 

[The Dice Man]

* the internet is s**t sometimes.

 

[DEVO]

Having thought long and hard and taken those three points into account, I can say Croatia were lucky to lose by only two goals. The best team won, and with relative ease in the end.

 

[ioppolo]

France can finish, and defend well.

All the attacking in the world wouldn't have saved Croatia last night. Maybe Lloris would have.

 

[Abram Jones]

Having thought long and hard and taken those three points into account, I can say Croatia were lucky to lose by only two goals. The best team won, and with relative ease in the end.

I would encourage you to investigate point number 3 a bit further. It is very hard to compare a country with 70 million people and $36.9k gdp per capita to a country with 4.1 million people and $12k gdp per capita. It is not something that we can just gauge in our mind, but to even begin finding a suitable estimate we must consider multiple results and several factors. This is what these rankings do, and they tell us that Brazil, Croatia, and Belgium are currently all more efficient than France by a relatively small but noticeable margin.

 

[DEVO]

I would encourage you to investigate point number 3 a bit further. It is very hard to compare a country with 70 million people and $36.9k gdp per capita to a country with 4.1 million people and $12k gdp per capita. It is not something that we can just gauge in our mind, but to even begin finding a suitable estimate we must consider multiple results and several factors. This is what these rankings do, and they tell us that Brazil, Croatia, and Belgium are currently all more efficient than France by a relatively small but noticeable margin.

I did and while it sounds nice it's all BS and totally irrelevant to what happened on the field. Just because Croatia has a smaller population doesn't make it the rightful 2018 World Cup Champions. One of the reasons France were early favourites and eventual WC champions was their depth. A lot of pundits were talking almost as much about the players France didn't select in their squad as the players they did. Some were even saying that France's second team were good enough to make it out of the Group Stages and into the Quarters at least. Croatia's top 15 players were top quality but after that they drop off. Also Croatia's side of the draw opened up when better quality teams fell away at the earlier stages such as Germany and Spain. They were lucky to make it as far as they did, and they were lucky not to lose by more.

 

[Abram Jones]

I did and while it sounds nice it's all BS and totally irrelevant to what happened on the field.

What happens on field is the result of various socioeconomic infrastructures that culminate into a series 90 minute games. Therefore, it is very relevant to what happens on the field.

Just because Croatia has a smaller population doesn't make it the rightful 2018 World Cup Champions.

Of course not, and that's not what I'm saying which makes me think you're not following me.

One of the reasons France were early favourites and eventual WC champions was their depth. A lot of pundits were talking almost as much about the players France didn't select in their squad as the players they did.

Germany, Italy, Spain, England, Brazil, etc. all have depth. A united European Union team minus Croatia would have depth, but that doesn't make it as efficient as Croatia.

Some were even saying that France's second team were good enough to make it out of the Group Stages and into the Quarters at least. Croatia's top 15 players were top quality but after that they drop off. Also Croatia's side of the draw opened up when better quality teams fell away at the earlier stages such as Germany and Spain. They were lucky to make it as far as they did, and they were lucky not to lose by more.

I could totally agree that France's second team could make it out of group stages, but so could Germany's, or Italy's on the right week. 3 games, especially in football, does not mean a whole lot in reality... only to FIFA's half ass attempts at creating international tournaments. Biggest sport in the world that draws an untold gazilliondy dollars, and they can't even offer a Bergvall or at least a double elimination tournament. So we can talk about luck for Croatia all we want, but in reality anyone that even made it out of group stages required luck due to the low number of matches.

 

[DEVO]

History is written by winners.


I think I understand what you are saying (I'm not 100% certain because your original post and the video didn't explain it satisfactorily) but I'm disagreeing with you because the theory is based on the World Cup (or at least that's how I understand it to be) where every team starts off equal. Each country can only select 23 players, and each country can only select 11 players to take the field at any one time. You're theory will always favour the smaller nations.

 

[Marcus DuQuesne]

What happens on field is the result of various socioeconomic infrastructures that culminate into a series 90 minute games. Therefore, it is very relevant to what happens on the field.



Of course not, and that's not what I'm saying which makes me think you're not following me.



Germany, Italy, Spain, England, Brazil, etc. all have depth. A united European Union team minus Croatia would have depth, but that doesn't make it as efficient as Croatia.



I could totally agree that France's second team could make it out of group stages, but so could Germany's, or Italy's on the right week. 3 games, especially in football, does not mean a whole lot in reality... only to FIFA's half ass attempts at creating international tournaments. Biggest sport in the world that draws an untold gazilliondy dollars, and they can't even offer a Bergvall or at least a double elimination tournament. So we can talk about luck for Croatia all we want, but in reality anyone that even made it out of group stages required luck due to the low number of matches.

There was an article in the Economist on this type of analysis. Did u read it?

 

[Wallaby]

2. Croatia outplayed France for most of the game

Just to put this point into perspective - the aim of the game is to score goals. It doesn't matter how much possession they have, how many pretty passes they make, what their effective % is - if they're not scoring goals, they're not outplaying the opposition at the aim of the game. So try something else - change the way you are playing.

Now - fair enough, you also mentioned that Croatia were unlucky - yep, luck has a bearing in many sports. But the fact is, France did score 4 goals and Croatia 2 (and you must admit Croatia got lucky when the French goalie decided to pretend he was playing with his kids in the backyard).

I have this same conversation with many, many people on this forum about most sports. If you really care about how 'well', or 'effectively' people play a sport - go watch synchronised swimming or dressage, where a judge decides who is best. If the sport has a simple, measureable metric (like points or goals scored), BY DEFINITION, the better team is the team who wins the game by doing the best against that metric.

Oh, and if you are going to go by population, we should just award the cup, any other cups and all Olympic medals to Vatican City. Even the country with the 2nd smallest population has approx 10-20 times their population.